Buying a water heater?

[Rick Potter]

Hopefully someone can benefit from my experiences.

2 1/2 years ago I installed a brand new water heater in a rental. It was made by Whirlpool, and purchased at Lowes. One year later, one week out of warranty, the thermocouple went bad. I went to Lowes to get a replacement, and the guy there said "we sure sell a lot of these". Words to remember.

Last week I got another call that the water heater didn't work again. At the time I was on my way to the WW show, so I called a handyman I use occasionally. He spent 4 hours working on it, installed another thermocouple, and still couldn't get it to stay lit. $266.14 down the drain.

Next day I skipped the WW show, bought a new water heater (GE from HD), and spent about 4 hours installing it. Back in business. Total cost to get hot water back was about $800 that I shouldn't have had to spend for another 8-10 years.

The problem: Poor design on the part of Whirlpool. If you go to Lowes and look under the Whirlpool, you will see that all the air for combustion has to enter from the bottom of the heater through a small panel of tiny louvers. So small you can't even slide a FLAT toothpick through them. These get clogged with dust and lint, overheating the unit till something gives. The panel is almost inaccessible for cleaning, and in my installation with a drip pan under the heater it is ablsolutely impossible.

Now go to HD and look at where the GE unit draws in air. Many, much larger holes around the sides of the unit at the bottom. Easily accessible for cleaning, and much, much less likely to clog up anyway.

Hope this saves someone the time and money I wasted.

Rick Potter

[Al Willits]

Its probably one of the latest upgrades our wonderful gov't has mandated.
Todays water heaters have to be explosion resistant and those louvers may be the method that whirlpool uses to get that.
AO Smith is having problems also along with most of the major brands, American seems to be doing better but I think they're all gonna be having problems.
Regular maintenance is the answer and on some it isn't easy.
I'd be careful with your new one as it may do the same thing.

This is one of the reasons when we found out about the upgrade I went and bought a old style water heater for when mine finally dies.

Be careful out there, one unit is none repairable when its anti explosion device trips, doesn't matter if the wh is still good or not.

If it wasn't one of the updated units....nevermind....:D

Al....4 hours on a water heater???????????

[Jeff Kerr]

Interesting info you found. I have a buddy in the commercial construction trade. He builds office buildings and apartments.

We were talking just the other day about plumbing parts and he said that is one thing that he insists on paying top dollar for at a "real plumbing supplier". His experience is that the stuff we get at the borgs is lesser quality than the stuff at the pro shop. Almost as if it is factory second quality.

On the other hand I am really starting to believe that the manufacturers are purposely making stuff have short lives so they can sell more.

Case in point. I bought a new fridge 6 years ago and the name brand company has had to replace it twice already under warranty for complete failure. However, my folks have the same brand fridge and they bought it 30 years ago and it still works fine.

I think the next water heater I get will be the instant hot tankless heater. More $$ up front but less energey consumed.

[Al Willits]

Be careful Jeff, they require a bit of maintance, in fact quite a bit more versus a standard wh
Also watch for if its a varible input or flow restrictive type, may make the difference on how much hot water you get or how hot it is.

Al

[Wayne Gauthier]

Electric WH do not have that problem. Wrap it in a blanket, set the thermostats at 120, install a timer for the number of hours you want it on, and you have all the hot water you want for longer years then a gas WH.

Nuff said.

Wayne

[Ken Garlock]

Electric WH do not have that problem. Wrap it in a blanket, set the thermostats at 120, install a timer for the number of hours you want it on, and you have all the hot water you want for longer years then a gas WH.

Nuff said.

Wayne

Take that a step further and get the Rheem Marathon. It is all fiberglass with a lifetime guarantee. It comes with a built-in R19 insulation rating. Flip it on and forget it.