High Efficency Water Heater Recomendations

[BobRip]

I've not had reason to believe we have a leak, but I guess I need somebody to check it. Does seem like a lot JUST for hot water.

Take a small container( 1/2 quart or so), put some dish washing soap and water in it, stir it up with a paint brush, and go around dabbing the fittings with the paint brush and solution. If bubbles form, you have a leak. You may have some initial bubbles, but they will grown and burst if their is a leak. This is probably all the pro would do.

 

[whistlepig]

Lowes had an electric water heater that said lifetime warranty on it: when i questioned the folks in the plumbing dept about it, they said it amounted to @14 years: it was not a true "life time" warranty: of course they couldn't explain their reasoning, but that is what they said:
10CCF appears to be equal to 10.917 gallons of propane, if i am interpreting the conversion chart correctly: so my NG bill was 28.56 for 15CCF and it would have been 22.92 for propane, without taxes and figuring propane at 1.40 a gallon as it is right now. with taxes @22.75 so propane would be a little cheaper now.
heehaw

A bit more on how Lowes does business. When we moved here less than two years ago we bought all new kitchen appliances from Lowes. We also bought the extended warranty on these kitchen appliances from Lowes. Lowes doesn't do their own repair. This is contracted out to Sears repairmen. Our oven filament burned out. We called Lowes and they said it would be a week before a serviceman could come. After a week the serviceman came out and said the the oven filament was burned out. Duh! The serviceman said he would have to order a filament. It would take a week for the filament to come to our house. He said to call him when the filament came. So the filament came and we called. He said it would be another week before he could come out and put it in. It took three weeks to get the oven filament replaced. Something I could have done in 15 minutes. There is something not quite right here. I spent money to be a caboose on a stupid train.

 

[kenmac]

Take a small container( 1/2 quart or so), put some dish washing soap and water in it, stir it up with a paint brush, and go around dabbing the fittings with the paint brush and solution. If bubbles form, you have a leak. You may have some initial bubbles, but they will grown and burst if their is a leak. This is probably all the pro would do.

I do an air pressure test... If the gauge leaks down. I then use soap to locate

 

[heehaw]

i do the same thing: am putting new NG lines in a house an had a leak in the last set of @ 12 connections or so: had to air it up an go with the bubbles to locate it: i made the mistake of using my small pipe wrench to put those last joint together, got out the big one an made a couple more turns on a couple joints, it doesn't leak down now.
heehaw