Water Heater Forensic Autopsy
60 Minutes
Medium
I'm performing an autopsy on the failed unit to see if it could have been repaired. Haven't you wondered what they look like inside? We'd decided to replace the old one during an emergency outage due to of the age of the unit and early signs of rust. We rolled a $500 die, believing it was toast and shouldn't be repaired. I detailed the installation in an earlier post.
Have you ever wondered what was inside? Check out the entire blog post to hear about how I manhandled this completely full 80 gallon tank out of the house.
First, I popped off the access cover and pulled out some insulation.
The top element looked a bit rusty. Not a good sign.
The bottom element was TOAST!
I pulled the charbroiled thermostat out by hand, no tools needed.
I made my own drain.
I suddenly thought this would be a good time for a quick restroom break.
I fired up the 18 volt, heavy-duty can opener.
Oh Lord. We clean showered with this water. That's what's left of the anode rod.
Heck, we cleaned our dishes with hot water from this tank. This is the bottom, with the lower heating element just clearing the oatmeal glop.
The top. Ohhhh,...the horror. It looks like two anode rods, corroding away. You can out the blog for the whole story, but needless to say, I have no regrets that we installed a brand new unit. This one is going to the dump!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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2 of 38 comments
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Comet, you are a man after my husband's heart. Right now he is try to glue a little toothed wheel together to save purchasing a new ice maker for fridge. He almost never gives up trying to fix.
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I am not sure what the electric charge is called but "Self Cleaning" sounds about right. Any hardware store should know. I more wanted to point out that not EVERY water heater NEEDS to be replaced at sometimes great expense and annoyance. I think we have a wrench of a certain size for the element and once the tank is empty it is a fairly simple fix. We either use the hot water up----or if we know we are going to replace it let it run out and not run on the night time heat cycle for a day or two-=--with 7 people here hot water is in big demand---and drain it out to our foundation drain. Of course we live in the NE where water is usually not an issue! I hate to waste the HOT part of it tho!
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