Best And Worst Water Heaters

Richard

I have no idea if this should be in electrical but...

can all you guys who install water heaters or perform maintenance and such give me an idea of the best and worst brands of electric 50 gal. water heaters?

I was told to trust GE and stay away from Kenmore. I also have an opportunity to get a "State" WH and didn't know if this was a good brand

Thanks all, any other tips or advice are surely welcome.

__________________
Rich

jbelectric777

My father is a retired Master plumber. State & WeilMclain are well known / dependable brands. I dont bash any manufacturer but those two are the one's he would always install.

__________________
" For all those whom beleive in Telekinesis, Raise my Right Arm"

Tesla

Marathon for electric HWH, hands down.

Richard

Cool! I was offered a 2 year old State WH for free. Couple is upgrading to a gas system and would rather it go to me (need one for our new condo) than whoever would replace it.

__________________
Rich

Magnettica

Have you considered a tankless water heater?

I think those are awesome!

__________________
Electrician service in Rahway, Cranford, Clark, Westfield, Mountainside, Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Roselle, Roselle Park, and New Jersey | Same day electrical service and repairs | Licensed and Insured Electrician in Rahway

mdshunk

For electric water heaters, I have always recommended State Industries and A.O.Smith. The only trouble with State is that many of their "for pro only" models that they sell only to professionals take a special thread size for the element. The homeowner can't just swing by Lowe's for an element. It has to come from the supply house. Not all of their models, but many. The brands that are available to a guy vary by where you live. Whirlpool and GE are absolute bottom of the barrel, in my opinion.

I was not aware that Marathon made water heaters. They make fantastic motors. If they make a water heater, I have every reason to believe that it is of high quality also. I've never seen one in my life.

You never know what brand a "Kenmore" might really be. Could be anything. Lately, they all look like they're made by Whirlpool.

mahlere

if you have gas...if you go with an electric unit they will require +/- 100A feed. we haven't installed many..i think the last one required 2 or 3 40A 240V feeds.

mdshunk

You got that right. Every all electric, on-demand water heater I've ever wired up required that the home get a service upgrade. I know I've gone to look at many of these jobs, and the owners often back out when they're faced with the "real" install cost. If you have gas, it's a no-brainer. The on-demand water heater is the way to fly.

Richard

We have, but to make it easy and cheaper for now, we want to stick with a unit that will fit right where the old one is. We are moving in 1 week and have to get all new appliances (fridge, a/c, stove, washer, dryer, dehumidifier, water heater) and this move...it's no credit cards!

That being said, we might upgrade to a tankless a little later, but for now we have this opportunity to get this free one and we are totally ok with that. I have heard that the tankless ones heat faster, are more efficient, and take up way less space.

Oh, mds, this state WH is the "select" model...whatever that means.

__________________
Rich

mdshunk

Beats me.

I wire up water heaters, and repair the electrical portion, but I don't really buy them or install them.

The older generation tends to call an electrician to fix their electric water heater, and the younger generation tends to call the plumber. I really don't like to work on water heaters, but they're straightforward enough.

Dustball

What's the opinion on the Richmond water heaters made by Rheem?

747

I call a plumber and i have a state. One of these days i will come home and find the utility room in water. Because it gave out. Thats what happened last time. That sucked to coming home to a big water mess.

Magnettica

It's news to me that tankless water heaters have the option of operating on electricity. I just hadn't considered it and certainly never wired one before. I would assume that 100 amps for a water heater would be for a pretty big water heater. See, I learned something new today. This is great. And to think some guy at work today laughed at me because I discuss 'lectric stuff' on the internet. LOL.

__________________
Electrician service in Rahway, Cranford, Clark, Westfield, Mountainside, Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Roselle, Roselle Park, and New Jersey | Same day electrical service and repairs | Licensed and Insured Electrician in Rahway

mdshunk

They're not really that big, but they are power hogs for short bursts of time. The last one I wired took 5, 30 amp circuits. I've never seen one that took one large circuit. In the case of the one I referenced, I ran 200 amp SER to the "water heater panel", mounted right next to the electric on-demand water heater. Just whipped out of that panel with the 5, 30 amp circuits then. The home got a 320 upgrade. 200 amp to refeed the existing panel, and 200 amp to the water heater panel.

frenchsparky

Yeah tell me about the power hog on the instat hotwater heater

The last one i did it have 4 - 40 amp breaker and the poco was not too thrilled when they got so many pepoles complain the light were blinking and got pretty dim when that IWH was running full speed and soon sure next thing i heard one HO did smoked the transformer pretty good that transformer was only 25 KW but it was feeding 8 house from this one and got overloaded pretty bad when the IEWH and the house A/C running at the same time bonk there go the can.

that why my POCO now have a rules just witten not to long ago about instat electric water heater and they will increase the transformer size and drops if needed and typically with that set up we used either 320 or 480[class] or ct sockets depending on the area we dealt with it

Merci , Marc

mdshunk

In my area we're "required" to notify the power company if we're adding load to a dwelling. I put required in quotes, because there's nothing or nobody that can legally enforce this requirement. Granted, if you're upgrading the service as part of the process to add load, they're going to know as part of the regular series of questions they ask to generate your work request number. If the service is already adequate, I've never gone to the trouble to notify the POCO of any new added load, unless the customer drop is visually too small to my eye. Most or all of the 60 to 200 and 100 to 200 upgrades that have happened over the years have not involved a triplex change, so there's still a lot of 200 amp aerial services on #6 and #2 ASCR. If the POCO has 8 or 10 houses on one 15kva pot, that's their problem. Wouldn't bother me a bit to fry what's probably already an overloaded pot.

Magnettica

Most of the homes I work in have natural gas.

But I'll be prepared for when I come across one that doesn't.

As always.. thanx for all the info.

__________________
Electrician service in Rahway, Cranford, Clark, Westfield, Mountainside, Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Roselle, Roselle Park, and New Jersey | Same day electrical service and repairs | Licensed and Insured Electrician in Rahway

Magnettica

Oh.. do the 4, or 5 seperate 240 volt circuits control 4 or 5 different zones?

__________________
Electrician service in Rahway, Cranford, Clark, Westfield, Mountainside, Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Roselle, Roselle Park, and New Jersey | Same day electrical service and repairs | Licensed and Insured Electrician in Rahway

mdshunk

No. Just a circuit for each element. They come on "staged", sorta like the heating elements in an electric warm air furnace, but with a very short time between each stage.

Ron The Plumber

Bradford White is the professionals choice.

Stay away from Sears.