GE (Rheem) or State 40 gal short gas - which one?

Out here there is only 1 supply house that carry the Rheem, most carry Bradford White around here, then there is a few AO Smith, and a few carry State. The one that carries Rheem also carries State which is 30 miles from me.

Bradford White, Ruud/Rheem, American, and AO Smith are the lines carried in this area. Each by a different supply house.

I installed the GE (Rheem) 9yr unit PG40S09AVJ00 last evening. It seems like it is a well built unit. It certainly appears to work less than my 19yo Bradford White of course, in fairness, I think the BW had a fair amount of sediment built up in there and the tank was rusting out at the top. Going with this short style tank made my installation fairly uneventful. I had to shorten my water lines by a couple of inches, shorten the vent pipe, and raise the gas line an inch as well. I plumbed everything rigid. The unit came up to temperature quick.

When did they start adding anode rods to water heaters? I do not believe my BW had one. How often do you typically have to replace these and how often should they be inspected?

I'll be interested to see if my water heating bill decreases. I will be able to tell come spring/summer as that is the only gas appliance I run at that time and I can compare my therms from the last 2 years.

Your old Bradford had an anode rod, I know they put their anode rod on the hot side nipple where some manufactures had a port for their anode rod, which would just have a hex head on the top of it for removal.

Around here most anode rods need replacing every 5 years or so. It all depends on the impurities of your water.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...eRodNipple.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...exAnodeRod.jpg

My water hardness is about 8 (primarily from manganese). I installed a softener on the system (1mo ago) as well as a sediment filter (2 yrs ago). My recharge rate is about once a week as we don't use too much water in the household. I also flushed all of the lines as best I could after this install. My furnace is a Burnham forced hot water baseboard unit installed in '05. I flush the lines on that one once per year, though that may be overkill. The water heater was the last old unit in my system. I was not the original owner of the house so I have been replacing and improving components as they wear out. The goal is to do everything I can to get the full life (and more) out of the components, minimize energy usage, and provide clean and hot water to the household.

Thanks for all of the help. You have all been informative.

If your new heater uses the hex head style anode rod, you can add a second rod to the tank by using the hot water side nipple anode rod. Some of the 10 Year warranty tanks do this to help extend the life of the tank.

Yes, the new one has a separate hex style anode rod towards the back of the unit. I'll check it after a year. If I notice unusually high wear I will add a second one. That's a good idea.