Clean Hot Water Heater

Well I am so proud - thanks to all of your sage advice on the forum I, by myself, changed the anode rod and cleaned out my hot water heater. I waited and waited for DH to help and finally did it myself. and it started up and worked afterwards!

I had to use a cheater bar to get it loose - holy cow!

You see I am mechanically inclined - I am a mechanical engineer and I enjoy working on all kind of things. Except plumbing. Anything that has water flowing through it costs three times as much when I finally call the plumber to fix what I broke. DH doesn't do much fixing but he is awesome with plumbing. So in the interest of marital harmony I do not touch plumbing.

It was 5 years old and not much left. I made a schedule now to replace in even years. I'm leaving tomorrow on 10 day dry camping trip - I hope my plumbing job works!

So give yourselves a pat on the back! Thanks!

I always buy two anode rods so that I don't have to make a special trip when I have the TM open an decide to do the maint.
Congrats on a job well done.

Sorry if this is a stupid question...but where do you buy the rods? Are they special or normal hardware store stuff?

And we all hate plumbing Rosie!!

[Barb&Tim]

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[B_and_D]

I tried and tried to get ours out, no luck. DH also tried with no success. We went to one of the TM rallies & I asked the Custom RV guys to get it out for us, they did it very quickly and replaced it with the new anode rod I'd purchased. Ours was so mangled and weird looking that they asked us if they could have it to display in their shop, of course we said yes!

I replaced mine recently, but only about 2" of the metal alloy closest to the base had dissolved. Maybe because I've been draining the tank all the time? Think I'll save it and put it back in, in a few years.