Quote:
Originally Posted by JoMar
My neighbor and I had discussions with our repective plumbers and, to our surprise, got the same responses. We were both concerned that our 10 year old Rheem was coming to the end of it's life cycle. Both plumbers agreed to take our money if it would make us feel better but stated that the heater should last another 10 - 15 years, maybe a little less with a water softner but unless we were having issues they both recommended doing nothing. My neighbor will do nothing until something happens, I replaced the expansion tank and added a recirculating pump. Imagine competing businesses agreeing.
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You need to find new plumbers or you misunderstood them.
With a water softener, your hot water tank may have less life because the softener will introduce some salt in the water slightly accelerating the corrosion process in the tank.
There is an anode rod in the hot water tank that sacrifices itself instead of the tank corroding. This anode rod ususally lasts for the warrenty life of the tank depending on your water supply. Once it's used up it's only a matter of time until the tank corrodes and you have a leak. You can change the anode rod at a cost of about $300 every 3-5 years but no one does this. We have pulled anode rods out of hot water tanks here in the Villages and they are usually all used up in about 6-7 years.
But you "can be that guy" who brags about keeping their tank hot water heater for 20-30 years and never come on to social media to tell us about the disaster you had when the tank eventually failed. You should definetly change a 10 year or older tank unless it has a 12 year warrenty which some replacement models have.