THanks
Wanted to thank everybody for the information. I have just expereinced this problem in one of our rentals and with the input, its a lot easier decision just to replace it then try to fix it. The unit was 2 years old and it was in a new house.
I do kind of take exception to Rugged. He makes the argument that because we picked a low price product we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I can tell you I hire a lot of contractors and beleive me there is no reason to trust anyone just because they happen to be a plumber. There are some honest, dishonest, Ignorant and smart plumbers. My experience in contracting is I have hired many plumbers and then had to have our crew go behind them to do the job right, many times.
I would think you could trust Lowes and Whirlpool as much as you could trust your average plumber. In fact it seems that Lowes in case after case has tried to take back units they were selling. Seems like the right thing to do.
In consumer reports they do scientific and extensive testing on many products and very often the highest priced product is not rated the best. Sure their results are occaisionally controversial but at least their based on science and most major products are tested.
Take for example, a plumber that might have a charge account with a plumbing supply company that handles one type of water heater or maybe only one type in stock so he gets that one, or maybe he gets a bigger discount on one brand than the other. How is this different than buying one as cheap as possible at Lowes.
Recently I went into Discount Tire and the salesman tried to upsale me on tires saying that the ratings on treadware were meaningless and essentialy I just had to take his word on it. He further stated that the manufacturers themselves give these ratings and therefore they could not be trusted. I told him let me think about it, I then went back to the office where I googled it and in fact he was wrong, the manufactures dont provide this information but that all tires are taken to the same test track and ran through the same course, to get these ratings. So much for trusting the Salesperson.
A lot of times products are priced according to who buys them. There is one major paint company that sells paint in Consumer Grade and Contractor Grade for 30% less, and it's the same paint.
You can pay the same amount of money for a top of the line cadillac and a similar featured lexus but if you think there is any comparison in reliability look at the April issue of consumer reports. This information comes directly from the consumers. There is no comparison between these two cars in reliability even though they might be priced about the same.
I do think that a company that doesnt stand behind their product should be put out of business by customers telling the whole world. This forum has at least helped me and now I know to stay away from American water heaters.
The bottom line is if your going to spend money on something that can burn your house down or blow up or flood your house or cost a lot of money its probably worth doing some reserach on the water heater and the plumber and that doesnt mean just asking the guy with a horse in the race.
By the way I have bought several houses over the years that have caught on fire becuase of water heater malfunction or improper installation.
Ray