Are there any truly good, durable, natural-gas-fired conventional water
heaters made nowadays? It appears that most of the major brands come from
two main conglomerates: Rheem/Ruud/Richmond/etc. and
A.O.Smith/Lochinvar/State/etc. I have a top-of-the-line Lochinvar that I
installed in 2008 to replace a garden-variety 1986 Rheem water heater which
had lasted 22 years. The 5-year-old Lochinvar is bad now, though it hasn't
blown (yet). Since the large local distributor I bought from went out of
business, my warrantee may be void. The current distributor will only deal
with licensed contractors, and it appears the factory approves of that. If
they eventually honor the 6-year warrantee I'll be good for a few more
years, but I'd really prefer to put in a better unit now. If I have to pay
a, "approved" plumber to come inspect this and tell the factory it was
indeed installed properly, and then handle the warrantee and install the new
one, it'll cost more than a new heater.
I've also learned that many water heaters aren't glass-lined any more, and
indeed this one doesn't say anything on the labels about glass lining.
Never thought to ask when I bought it from a trusted friend. We're in the
Chicago area with Lake Michigan water, which is supposed to be pretty good
for plumbing, and we've never had water-induced corrosion issues or heard of
them. I hope there's an anode in the factory-installed outlet fitting, but
I don't know. There's no other place one could be screwed in. The
factory-installed inlet has no anode - just a plastic dip tube, which I had
to replace yesterday as it was corroded. All things I'll look for and
upgrade as possible in the next water heater.
I know there are many tankless water heater adherents on the list, but when
I last checked tankless heaters have short warrantees, cost 3-4 times what a
conventional water heater does, require direct venting, and most require
"professional" installation. I only have my clay-lined brick chimney and no
reasonable way to relocate the water heater to a better location. The
economics just don't seem to work at all anyway. Probably a better option
for those who have electric water heaters.
Thanks!
Karl
_______________________________________________
Shop-talk@autox.team.net
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive
|