Water Heaters - Another not enough hot water

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Klutch
12-19-06, 09:38 PM
Water gets hot but runs out rather quick. I have an A.O. Smith 50 gallon gas that is 4 years old. From reading other posts it sounds like my dip tube is bad. Question is that on the top of my water heater is the hot and cold side and then a plug that says ANODE on it. Any chance that is where the dip tube is? Disconnecting the water from mine is gonna be a pain because mine is all soldered and I can't just unscrew it.

jim-connor
12-20-06, 11:28 AM
Sorry, the dip tube is always located at the cold water inlet. To get to it, you will have to disconnect the inlet piping and nipple...... in some cases it's almost as much trouble as changing out the heater.

Try flushing out the heater first. You may have many gallons of sediment thereby reducing the amount of space for hot water.

Also check the t&p. If leaking continuously, you will run out of hot water quickly.
Ed Imeduc
12-20-06, 11:38 AM
How hard is the water there. Can build up on the flue pipe in it and cut down on the amount of hot water it can put out. Also might turn the gas off and flush it out. See if anything comes out when you flush it . Then its back to the dip tube. You should have unions on top of the tank