Need water heater advice

[Major Nikon]

29. I also have a Bradford White

In my experience even cheap water heaters last a long time under the right conditions.

If you are lucky enough to have fairly soft water that's relatively ion free, then your hot water heater will likely last a very long time without having to do anything to it. Some of us aren't that lucky. In this case you have a couple of defenses. The first and easiest is to follow your manufacturer's maintenance recommendations, which involve periodically draining some of your water heater's water. The other thing is anode inspection. All steel water heaters have a sacrificial anode which will degrade over time. The ions in the water attack the anode instead of your tank. If the anode calcifies or simply erodes, then this defense is gone and those ions will start attacking your tank eventually causing failure. If you are experiencing failure at the 3 year mark, you might want to check your anode every year or so and replace as necessary. All steel tank type water heaters have these anodes and regardless of which brand you have they will all fail if this anode becomes ineffective. If your anode is failing due to calcification, and I suspect that might be the case here, you might want to consider turning down your hot water temperature. Higher temps result in higher calcification.

See pages 22 and 23. https://s3.amazonaws.com/bradfordwhitecorp/wp-content/uploads/residential_gas_natural_atmospheric_vent_naeca_compliant_iomanual_51012.pdf