world's oldest operating water heater

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Darren from Tacoma

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Just replaced a Honor-Bilt Water heater made for Sears & Roebuck. By our best estimates it was made around 1961 (had a '61' cut into the jacket and there was a 61 in the first part of the serial number and the apartment was built around the early 60's)! We found an add from a Miami newspaper from 1962 that had a tank like ours for $48.99. It had access pannels similar to ours. Our tank had water inlet/outlets on the side (top and bottom) and when was the last time they did that? It was glass lined and we only had to replace it because the thermostat stuck on (what a time bomb!) We saved the one access pannel and the data plate. --

Don't find too many 50+ year old water heaters still working (never did leak!!) water heater 2908a.jpg
 
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MACPLUMB

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Yeah i ran across a couple of those in Washington state back in the early 2000's elements
were electric wire coils held in place by ceramic disks,
1 in the Spokane area, and 1 on the west side neither was leaking, but had electric problems
 

Master Plumber Mark

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we had one of those a few years ago just about blow up on us....

showed up to the home and steam was comming out of the faucets.
I was more than a little worried about it and shut down the power........

so it was ready to launch itself out the roof... I just turned on the hot water
at the bathtub and stood back for about 30 minutes while it cooled itself down....

they wanted it repaired and with a little convinceing we changed it out for their
safety
 

Ballvalve

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I have a 120 gallon compressed air tank dated 1931. Incredibly, the shell ends are bronze or brass and brazed to a steel tank. 150 psi for mabe a century. Those were the days.
 
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