Home › Maintenance

Maintenance and lifespan

A storage tank does not die of old age. It dies because a part that costs very little was never replaced, and nobody told the owner it existed.

Three parts nobody mentions until the tank has already gone

Storage hot water systems are one of the few appliances in a house where routine maintenance genuinely doubles the life of the thing — and one of the few where almost no owner is ever told what that maintenance is.

The sacrificial anode is a rod inside the tank that is designed to corrode instead of the tank wall. When it is used up, the tank starts corroding. Replacing it is a scheduled job on most tanks, and skipping it is the single most common reason a system fails years earlier than it should. The temperature and pressure relief valve is a safety device that is supposed to be eased periodically; a valve that has never been touched can seize, and a valve that drips constantly is telling you something. The tempering valve limits the temperature delivered to bathroom outlets and, like anything with a moving part in hot water, it drifts and eventually fails.

Water chemistry matters more than brand. The same tank in a hard-water or high-chloride area will not last as long as it does elsewhere, and the anode type is supposed to be chosen accordingly. If you are on tank or bore water, see water quality, because what is in the water is also what is eating the cylinder.

Maintenance guides

Sources

What this page explains is based on these official sources. If you check one and it does not match what you read here, send it to us and the article gets corrected.