I have a 30-31 year old water heater that just crapped out. Its an AO Smith glass lined 50 gallon 40,000 BTU water heater. I want to replace it with this: [www.homedepot.com] because it is within my price range, locally available, and has decent reviews. It doesn't seem to have glass lining, though. Will it be about an equal replacement? Thanks

That's a good heater, Rheem is the brand I use. It will not last 30 years though, no one makes a heater of that quality anymore.

You'll do fine with it. Water heaters used to last 30 yrs. because they were made of 1/4" steel (no anode) and it required four men to move them.

Thanks for giving me some peace of mind. I miss the good old days where things were quality! Guess there's not much I can do, though, short of maybe spending a ton of money.



Edited 2 times.

The old ones DID cost a ton of money ~ allowing for the wages paid at the time.

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

Until just recently Vaughn made a stone lined water heater, it took at least 2 strong men to handle them. They came in a wooden crate with a pallet for the base so they could be moved with a fork lift. In my opinion they were the best heaters available in the past 25 years or so.

If it were an "unlined" tank, they would only have a one year warranty on it.

I think they are almost all "glass lined" This means that a glaze paint was put on the inside and hardened up


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I have seen a few "unlined" heaters lately, but as I said, they were all "1 year" warranties. Any longer warranty and the tank will be glass lined. As a side note, if the glass lining were "perfect" the heaters would not need anode rods. The State "Duron" heaters were plastic lined and did not have anode rods. Unfortunately, the elements and element bosses WERE metal and deteriorated "catastrophically", so they started putting anode blocks on the elements.