I despise the never-ending list of things to fix in my house...
My water heater died yesterday! I hate unexpected $$$$$$ expenses (messes up the damn budget).
But, I am lucky that I caught it as a small leak and it didn't flood my basement with 50+ gallons of water.
Ah, I have a tip about that este if you're interested!
I've had about 3-4 rupture on me over the years just about right after their warranty period expired of course (
all I had bought/installed myself either from Menards or Home Depot). Anyway, only recently did I learn about the anode rod after seeing them for the first time on sale at Home Depot for $25. Basically, if it's a 6 year warranty model, it has one anode rod, if it's 12 years, they add a second anode rod or make the one twice as thick, etc. It works something like that.
Anyway, if it's a 6 year model, if say every 4 years, you turn off the pressure, drain it down a bit past the top-most level, you can unscrew out the anode rod from the top, go to Home Depot, buy another one to replace it...
What happens is, as soon as the anode rod finishes its sacrificial job of protecting the tank, when it's almost gone/dissolved away, the water will then quickly attack/corrode the steel tank away and rupture it in short order! You can run on the same tank for at least 25 years I hear if you pay attention and quickly catch an anode rod that's almost gone, etc.
So, what's better, spending $10-25 bucks (they're cheaper to buy online) every 3 years, or just waiting around for the tank to rupture, dump water all over the place, and then have to spend $400+ to buy, transport and install a whole new one ??
I wish somebody had taught me this long ago as I had to take a day off work once to quickly replace one... The last rupture which was not that long ago, I upgraded to a 50 gallon model (though I REALLY wanted to upgrade to a tankless-style model!!!!) and I marked the year of purchase, so when I hit the 3 year mark, I'm just gonna replace the rod no matter what condition it's in. Depending on your usage, how fast it wears out is gonna vary, that's the thing... So yeah, that's the protip-of-the-day for ya on that!