State Water Heaters

Are these good water heaters? A recommendation was made to replace our whirlpool water heater b/c they think the thermal cupple is wearing out. The tank is only 5 years old, but seeing as we are still not able to resolve the black spec issue, we may need to consider replacing the whole thing.

I might be wrong but I think State is made by the same people who make Whirlpool...

Go with a Rheem or Bradford White...

Brad Whites can only be purchased through a plumber...

State and Whirlpool are both brands labels of A.O. Smith. State is a company which was acquired by smith a long time ago, and Whirlpools are made by US Craftaster, another company owned by Smith. So I never figured out for sure how close the association is. The factories seem to have different addresses, but all seem to be in Tennessee, so I suspect moonshine and monkey business are involved!

American Water Heater factors into there somehow as well.

What matters most to me is how much do the controls differ in each of the lines? The Unitrol/Robert Shaw gas valve/thermostat on my Whirlpool and many others was bad. A thermocouple is about $7. A gas valve is closer to $60 and a much bigger PITA to install.

I've read that Rheem and GE are the same, but the images seem to show somewhat different controllers. GE seems to use the same Unitrol/Robert Shaw that is on the Whirlpool.

Lochinvars controls look completely different. Not sure about Bradford Whites...their website crashed my browser a few minutes ago.

At any rate if it is actually just the TC, no big deal. However with the Whirlpools there is often some sort of fatal flaw. Despite reading that lengthy thread several times, exactly what the flaw is, is still unclear. Draft arrangement? Possibly. Gas control valve design/implementation? Possibly. Something else? Who knows.

I don't know what, if any, differences there are in a GE/Rheem and Rheem, but I have a new GE/Rheem heater that replaced an old GE/Rheem and I have no complaints about them. The new one has the new improvements that have come out and is trouble free. The Bradford White is also an excellent heater, but it is supposed to be sold only to plumbers. I don't know how strictly this is controlled, but you should be aware of it. I would recommend either the GE/Rheem or BW.

The reason we are considering replacing the water heater is b/c we woke up this morning to no hot water. Had some trouble getting the pilot to light. Plumber got it up and running. The pilot blew out shortly after he left. He did come back and got it back up and running and he thought that either the thermal couple is going or condensation hit the pilot and it went out.

I have no idea why it went out in the first place (we think it went out last night at some point). Unsure if it's still up and running. I guess I'll see when I get home.

None-the-less, we've also been dealing with black specs that we can't seem to get rid of. We've replaced the expansion tank, anode rod and PRV. Plumber checked the expansion tank and he said that it seemed fine. So we figured that if we in fact have an issue and need to replace parts that maybe we need to consider replacing the entire tank b/c of this other issue. The tank is only 4 years old.

Although, we aren't guaranteed replacing the tank will resolve the problem. He then suggested putting a filter on the hot water line leading into the home.

He said that they don't deal with whirlpool heaters at all b/c it's so hard to get parts and they don't recommend them b/c they aren't great heaters.

His recommendation was State. Knowing nothing about water heaters, I thought I'd seek additional input re: the product or perhaps get other recommendations that we need to consider.

state is JUNK

sorry to intrude...
go to my seb site and to the gas water heater page
read the info for yourself and make an educated
decision about them.


http://weilhammerplumbing.com/.....

foxhome01 said:

The reason we are considering replacing the water heater is b/c we woke up this morning to no hot water. Had some trouble getting the pilot to light. Plumber got it up and running. The pilot blew out shortly after he left. He did come back and got it back up and running and he thought that either the thermal couple is going or condensation hit the pilot and it went out.

I have no idea why it went out in the first place (we think it went out last night at some point). Unsure if it's still up and running. I guess I'll see when I get home.

Click to expand...

That's the same failure mode my Whirlpool gas valve had. I was able to relight the pilot twice. (It shutdown as soon as the burner completed heating of the tank.) Then that wouldn't work anymore. The igniter would light the pilot but no matter how long I held the button down the pilot went out immediately upon release. I picked up both the TC and the gas valve just in case (weekend of course.) The TC swap wouldn't get the pilot running so I had to do the gas valve swap.

It's not condensate hitting the pilot. The burner will be nice and toasty hot before it shuts down. There is no condensate when it is hot. When the tank is cold there will be some condensate, but this falls into the burner pan. Once the walls get hot enough the tank gets out of "condensing mode."

The bad news for you is that your 4 year old Whirlpool will have the reversed threads, my newer one did not.

The landfills are so full now it's always better to repair than replace. Make a plumber, always let a pro do the work so he can also check the unit out completely to help you with your decision.

heaters

The thermocouple either works or it doesn't. It does not "wear out" and when it does go bad it is a simple replacement, not warranting a new heater. Until you know what is causing the black specks you have no idea whether they will even go away if you install a new heater.