Electrician looked at it today. Diagnosis: stuffed. Rusted out. No wonder there was a cane toad living under it!
So, tomorrow the electrician will be replacing my 16 and a half year old HWS with a new one! And I will pay most of the money for the HWS, and the rest on Payday. It's good to live in the country!
The old HWS was a 315L Hardie-Dux. The electrician said that I was lucky to get 16 plus years out of it.
Der. Hardie-Dux, not a Rheem. It's being replaced by a 315L Rheem. $1135, plus installation.
Yay, extra hot shower tomorrow night! Yippee!
My Bestie from Perth's son will be here weekend after next with his wife. I have to get my A into G and sort out the spare room... LOL. More work than you can imagine!
Honest, Wand, that brouchure you sent me really does look like my Hardie-Dux!
16 comments:
I've always wondered about this, having had to replace the HWS on a decadal basis for most of my life.
I have contacted/talked to numerous electricians, who look at me blankly when I ask whether the sacrificial zinc anodes in the system shoud be replaced.
I then contact the HWS manufacturer, who says (as you would expect, given that they SELL replacement units)"Zinc anodes?? Don't be stupid, Kaboom, we haven't used anodes for years. Get with the programme!"
Maybe I am stupid. Experience tells me that a heating element will invariably cause erosion of either the element jacket, or the container.
Does anyone who knows for certain-sure have any input to this?
The ex next-door neighbours had a water tank rust out. It was the corrugated iron zinc coated stuff and they had copper piping.
Apparently a plumber told them that the tank rusted out because of the copper pipe, it was some reaction between the different metals.
Kaboom
they are around and look at this:
http://www.rheem.com.au/faq.asp?view=anode
If you replace it regularly ie. every five years most, you will have an heater for life.
Nobody does!
Lucky manufacturers!
LouMac
Thanks Lou Mac, I'll have to remember that!
kae
I'm not being sarcastic merely realistic when I say, "promises promises"
When new, the sacrificial anode is about two feet (600 mm) long check it after two years and depending on the water quality, nothing to do with electric or gas heating btw, and you will find it down to a mere chunk of a few inches.
How important is it?
When you have the time, at a service station, look around and most assuredly (gee I sound like a gent from the subcontinent) you will find a
sign fixed to one of the steel post next to a pipe going down, something like this: "Protective anode" and some date
they are protecting the steel tanks underground and replaced religiously.
But for pennies there go pounds!
LouMac
Ps.
kae, are you cross with me because I accused A Bolt for hastening the removal of KR and installing JG as PM?
Well he did!
Lou Mac, I've unfortuately lost the reply (mutiple hard drive failures over a couple of days a year ago... - don't ask!!) to me from my HWS manufacturer (I think it is a 425l Dux) a year or two ago, saying "don't be stupid". Otherwise, I'd post it here in its entirety.
It was a classic reply to an innocent question regarding sacrificial anodes.
As you rightly point out, if the anodes are replaced (unless the laws of physics have been revoked..) your HWS should last forever.
Funny, eh?
Cross with you, Lou Mac? Never...
I also wonder what BoltA's game is. But I wouldn't say it on his blogs, why bother?
There's plenty of loonies there firing ammo at him all the time.
I have heard a RWDB describe him as a lefty!
And there's a sanctimonious cow there who annoys the crap out of me... who shall remain nameless.
So, guys, what's it cost to replace a sacrificial anode?
Kae:
"So, guys, what's it cost to replace a sacrificial anode?"
I tried to find out a couple of years ago. No success whatsoever, apart from being called an idiot....
My HWS is now 10 years old. If anyone has an idea, please let me know!
I'll be sure to ask the electrician if he's encountered such an animal...
the last time I bought one it was $21.80 and I replace them every four years needed or not.
Really easy to check, turn off the water, crack the "overflow" to release the pressure which you should do every six months anyway! (I bet you never did!)
Remove the top cover and unscrew the one big square nut on top, it's usually the only one. Sometimes there is an other one in the middle, that is for manufacturing purposes.
Withdraw it and check, you can tell from the time from installation how much it has deteriorated it will tell you how long before replacement.
Prob. would be easier to entice someone like me to do it but! If only, distance distance!
I'm watching the ABC docu. at the moment I like docus. not often that I watch TV I only have a TV card not an actual TV set, but have three monitors, so it's not a hassle.
LouMac
Ours died earlier this year. When I googled the part number, nothing came up. It was made pre-internet. In fact, it was almost made pre-me. Manufactured in 1971. Complete with asbestos. How it lasted that long, I have no idea.
OK
BOAB, your hot water system wins!!
Wow!
Asbestos? Don't tell the junior householders locally, they'll freak.
When I put my house on the market a few years ago this idiot from a local RE agency came to give me a valuation for sale. She looked at the "wood" under the carport and the gable at the end of the house and in the middle, and asked "When was your house built? How old is it?" I told her "Moved in December 1993." She muttered something like "Asbestos..." and nodded knowingly.
Dickhead. No asbestos in the fake planks in my house, it was banned in about 1990-1 or so.
Silly cow. Shouldn't be selling houses.
Lou Mac
Hey, it's not my fault you live a coupla thousand miles away!
I know the nut you're talking about, there's one on the old Hardie-Dux I have.
I have several screens, and the PC is also a TV receiver...
All mod cons, and a BFS*
*Big Freaking Shed, the ex's folly!
At the price they are they'd want to last a long time!
Husband replaced the nodes in 2000 so thanks for the reminder, he is now going to check and make sure that all is still well with the HWS.
Ah Kae, about that Cane Toad, you did knock it on the head, and um freeze it didn't you?????
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