Death, taxes, and water heater failures.  Those are certainties we know for sure.  We have sloshed around in a few basements recently replacing water heater tanks that over stayed their welcome.  There really is no telling when your tank will decide to “spill it’s guts” all over your floor.  Two of the water heaters that we recently replaced were only 5 years old and 7 years old.  Unfortunately for the latter, the brand they had, and the brand we also install, Bradford White, offers a 6 year warranty on their tanks.  There was one similarity in both circumstances, well water.  Water heaters holding well water will almost always fail before their city water fed counterparts.

There are a few things you may wish to consider either now, or on your next water heater replacement.  Preventative maintenance is always a nice option if you just take the stance that your going to spend it anyway, might as well do it before it causes a problem and a mess. You can always replace the heater BEFORE it floods your basement.  From my experience, (this is not an official statistic) the average life expectancy of a water heater is about 8-12 years.  If you are over the 12 year mark, you are on borrowed time, ESPECIALLY, if you are on well water. Sure, there are tanks out there that are 20-25 years old.  Those are the exception to the rule, and very impressive. If you would like to gamble, or your heater is in an area where it won’t cause much of a mess or damage, you can simply maintain it.  Two things that will give the tank longer life would be annual, or semi-annual flushing of the tank and changing the anode rod every 3-5 years.  The anode rod is a piece of metal designed to sacrifice itself to the conditions of the water, thus protecting your tank. This may need to be done by a plumber.

Another option you have is to install a water heater pan and run a drain line to a floor drain.  If your water heater fails, or if the T&P valve opens, the pan will catch it and it will drain into your floor drain and not cause a mess. 

One last thing you can do is to install a water alarm.  The water alarm is a valve that is installed on the cold water inlet of your water heater and is designed to close when it detects water on the floor.  Keep in mind, when your water heater blows, it still has incoming water at FULL PRESSURE.  This means that if you are away from home or sleeping, if can potentially give off MUCH more than the 40-50 gallons that it holds!  The water alarm shutoff will prevent this. 

If your heater does decide that it has had enough of this life, turn off the water feed at the top of the tank, turn off the gas valve, attach a hose and let the draining begin! (And give us a call)

Do you hear water running??????