Hot Water Heater Choice?

I have decided to replace my eleven year old Bradford White 38 gallon hot water heater with the Bradford White Defender M-2-XR50 hot water heater.
Is this a good choice? The old heater still works but the cold intake cutoff valve is corroded and I think it is time to replace the water heater based on age. I want a regular tank in a 50 gallon variety. My goal is lots of hot water and no hassles. Comments and suggestions are welcome. I plan to select an installer from the manufacturer website.

Thanks in advance.

gldman

when we replaced the heating/cooling system 3 yrs ago we had water heater done as well for several reasons. We put a top-of-line Trane system in and installer recommended the Bradford-White. I didn't know much about them but after a few minutes was convinced. Not sure if all Bradford's have it, but ours is designed to be "self-cleaning." Basically it is designed so that the water feed keeps the sediment from settling to the bottom and building up. Sure that puts the sediment out to your fixtures, but their research said such a small percerntage of owners actually do the draining that it was better to have to clean a shower head once in a while and give the water heater a few more years of life. Sounded good to me.

At this point I'm sure we'd buy another one.

water heater

The "self cleaning" feature does not really function too well unless you have a high flow such as a bathtub or clothes washer drawing the water. All other faucets have flow restrictors that limit the flow through the water heater and even if it stirs up the debris on the bottom of the heater it is not sufficient to carry it out of the heater and into the piping.

self cleaning water heater--no such thing

Bradford white is a good brand and they all claim to
be self cleaning these days....

but thier is no such thing as a self cleaning water heater.
its sort of a "little white lie" the whole industry uses..

Purdue University did a study on this feature back in the 90s
and found that no water heater truely is self cleaning....

YES they can swirl the sediment to the sides of the tank, but
the "law of gravity" will not allow sand and sediment to
rise up to the top of the water heater and go on out to throuigh
the system.

the sediment is swished to the sides of the tank, where everntually
it builds up and then some one has to MANUALLY open the drain valve
on teh bottom and clean out the sediment.....

so its not really "self cleaning"


So basically its just a little white lie ,
and really never hurt anybody..

W/ H

Just buy a 5yr glass lined water heater.
There are not many manufactures of water heaters, but between them they put out a lot of lables.
Most of those other options are foo-foo, just to get your bucks.