Water Heater longevity

[bucolic_frolic]

I'm pushing my luck by mentioning it, but my glass lined electric water heater is almost 50 years old. I am appalled by the heaters sold today with 5 or 10 year warranties.

I've replace the upper coil twice, the lower coil once, and the thermostats once. The anode rod has never been touched.

I don't think most people would believe the age. Are there awards for longevity? I mean this is like a human living to 105 or so.

I attribute the longevity to 3 factors. Cleaning once every 15 years or so. It has a lousy cleaning mechanism, no swirl on the intake flow. To clean it you have to drain it, remove both coils, and remove sediment with a flat stick or spoon. And it doesn't do a very good job. Lots of sediment remains. There is also a bleed valve that I pop once a year or so but it doesn't do much.

Secondly there is iron in the water. Lots of iron. So there's no room for the corrosion to go into the water.

Finally, originally it was a terrible brand but when new they were trying to fix the company and built a run of glass lined insulated models. I suspect the original production run was to get good press and word of mouth. This is one of those units.

The company failed in the early 1980s in the Reagan recession.