This is for residential and commercial water heaters 55 gals. and up. Not lowboys under a house. So this is a lot of them.
A true annoyance of dubious value, forced on installers by our epa— which was NEVER supposed to be an AGENCY of the federal govt. Now dictating our water supply, streams and how we heat our water for our homes.
Look at your usage years for what you have, and replace if needed. or wash/flush it out and replace the heating element. No way of knowing if the tank, if metal has rusted out otherwise. Have never understood why there is not a microwave electric water heater with insulated super glass tank. No, we have to have some genius cook up the idea of a heat pump installed on the unit... that is, an airconditioner that sits on top of a hot water tank.
Only govt. could come up with that.
Every water heater that is over ten years old that I have flushed out started leaking after from the tank. I say if it is electric leave it alone and let the minerals build up.
Whew...I hope. We have a standard 50 gal.
“This is for residential and commercial water heaters 55 gals. and up. Not lowboys under a house. So this is a lot of them.”
Actually EVERY residential tank-style water heater was hit. The 55 gallon rules were more severe (forcing heat pumps on electric units and condensing systems on gas systems), while the smaller (40 gallon class) had their efficiency standards raised by a few points - but that means THICKER INSULATION, which doesn’t sound like much...
...until you try to get it through an attic stair opening where the original clearance was only 1”, but now is -1.5”. That is a HUGE PROBLEM possibly requiring cutting into ceiling joists.
Attic water heaters are VERY COMMON here in the south - but in the Northeast, where laws are made, most water heaters are in basements and usually don’t have such tight fits to deal with. So this is NOT GOOD.