re: Hot water heater recommendations

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One downside of the heat pump water heater is no hot water during a power failure. Same holds for gas water heaters with blowers or exhaust fans.

I was without power for 11 days after Gustav, and taking a hot shower was awfully nice.

Also, my gas water is 25 years old, still works and looks like new. I did replace the sacrificial anode once, something that very few people do.

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Same boat here. We don't lose power all that often, but having hot water when we do is nice with the old gas water heater. Ours was installed in 2006. At least that is what year model it is, and we bought the place in 2007, so I'm assuming it either failed and they replaced it, or upgraded before putting the house on the market. I'm guessing it failed, because some of the DIY stuff I saw the previous owners did was pretty bad.

We replaced the anodes a few years ago. It had developed a little bit of a leak, and wasn't heating like it was before. Also replaced the pressure reducing valve in the house, which is what I think was causing the leak at the Pressure/Temp overflow pipe. I'm going to keep using it until it fails. I've got a pretty good plumber we've used several times, and he said he could pretty much be out the next day any time I need him, as long as it isn't some major job. Typical repair/replace work he can usually knock out in an hour or two.