Water Heat Upgrade - Before it Failed! [40 - 75 Gallon!!]
Here I wanted to cover a few surprising and intersting details I learned during a work assignment a few years back and then cover why/how I upgraded my water heater before it failed!
During the work assignment I learned more than I ever thought I would about water heaters. That assignment forever changes my view of that tank we typically have in the basement. This also become handy info for my water heating usage and home comfort. The major highlight moment that this assignment allowed me participate in was to take a tour of an outstanding AO Smith Manufacturing facility in Tennessee. This facility was the full stack facility (some 22 acres under one roof!). It had everything from offices, raw manufacturing, forming, assembly, glass lining, sealing, labeling, packaging, testing, and shipping. Truly impressive!
main take away iNFORMATION:
A few things I took away from a water heater manufacturing tour:
1) Typical water heaters are expected to last 6-12 years (warranty period). This is heavily impacted by water quality and maintained.
2) A typical water heater replacement is an “EMERGENCY PURCHASE” and occurs within 36 hours of a failure!
3) Water Heaters come in a vast variety of sizes.
WARRANTY:
First the 6-12 years is an amazing amount of time for any appliance warranty these days. Water Heaters typically come with excellent product coverage for much longer than a typical appliance. It seems like other appliances such as washing machines, microwaves, and dishwashers have totally lost touch with their importance in reliability and our ecosystem. Water Heaters have good quality mindset.
Something else I wasn’t aware of until the tour was that in some areas, specifically homes with on-site well water, require regular maintenance. Typically this covers things like replacing the anode rod, draining any sediment, and general check of connections.
EMERGENCY PURCHASE:
Roughly 90% of water heater sales go into the replacement market, compared to 10% going into new construction type installations. Even more surprising is that within that 90% of units sold, a very large majority 80%+ are sold and installed within 36 hours of a unit failing. This portion was by far the most shocking statistic and lesson I learned and took away from my tour.
What this means for the OEM: is the most important aspect of selling is having inventory on the local shelf and ready for pickup/installation. If a customer has to wait even an extra day they’ll likely move on to the next available brand the installer has on hand to get hot water running again.
What this means for the consumer: Not many choices/research time for such a large appliance and expense we never think of.
*This is what drove me to replace my own prior to failure (more below)
SIZES:
This is more dynamic than ever now with on-demand type heaters and other more green technologies that are joining the market. However I was still incredibly surprised by the variation in systems, shapes, and types. This really stood out when we walked through the A.O. Smith Quality Assurance area.
They had tall tanks, short tanks, fat tanks, and large commercial tanks. It was explained to us that different markets and installation types require many different sizes / shapes.
I Replaced before FAILURE!
So… of course being the DIY / Engineer type when I learned our home water heater in our 1960’s walk out rambler was a small 40 gallon tank that came with an initial 6 year warrant and was installed in 2008 I knew we should consider replacing the unit.
Original Richmond 6 year [40 Gallon] Water Heater
The water heater was a Richmond Model # 6G40-36F1 and Manufactured in September 2009 with a 36,000BTU Natural Gas burner.
There are many of Videos showing replacement so I wont cover much. I was an easy removal to turn off water, drain, cut top plumbing pipes, and disconnect vent stack.
New Rheem 6 Year [75 Gallon] Water Heater
Here is the new unit with much more capacity. This Rheem Model # XG75T06ST76U0 comes with just over a 75,000BTU burner.
At first the installation used the flexible connections you see in the lower right image, we didn’t have much luck with those at all (slow leaks). Soon after these were switched out for PEX and SharkBite fittings.
Overall the upgrade was very successful. We were lucky and able to use the exact same space and all our connections were sized to support the upgrade (Gas Line, Plumbing, Venting). This made the swap very simple.
The impact on the family wasn’t noticed right away, but a few weeks after everything was wrapped up and we had almost forgot about the big appliance in the basement again, my wife noticed. She realized we had done dishes, given the kids baths, and she showered (a long relaxing shower) all within the hour of bedtime and the hot water was still on standby! Dad WIN!
I’ve you’ve made it this far, Thank you! Check out the other articles under the blog for more real content.