As houses start to age, there are certain maintenance issues that need to be attended to. Examples include air condition, window seals breaking, garden maintenance with weeds growing and more. Ignoring maintenance on your home can result in very costly repairs. Often you will need a professional to come to your home to fix the damage. It is very common that people ignore maintenance on their hot water system. This can result in replacement of the system every 5-6 years.

There is a solution to extend the life of your hot water system. By replacing the anode every 2 years you could almost double the life span of the system. The best part of all this is that you don’t need a plumber to replace an anode. You can do it yourself. I know what you are thinking… what is an anode? An anode is the long metal rod that runs from the top of the how water system to the bottom.

There are massive savings to be made by replacing the anode every two years. To put this into a simple equation, if we say that on average a hot water heater is replaced every 5 years and we can double that to 10 years by replacing the anode every two years:

– anodes cost about $50

– 4 anodes will cost about $200

– approximate cost to install a hot water system $500

Using this method, you will save about $300 + the cost of a new hot water system every 10 years + a whole lot of headache. Not bad!

To replace an anode is no big job. Anodes are available to purchase from most hardware stores. Follow the steps below to replace your hot water systems anode:

1.Turn off the water going into the tank and also turn off the power supply for the tank.

2.You need to drain approx 12-16 liters of water from the tank

3.Use a socket wrench to remove the existing anode.

4.Install the new anode. Its recommended to wrap Teflon tape around the threads of the new anode. Be sure to tighten it with the socket wrench.

In four easy steps, you have just saved yourself hundreds of dollars for not much fuss. Be sure to tell your friends and family about this little trick so they too can save money!

For more information and other articles, please look at the Melbourne 24 Hour Plumbing Blog