I took Friday off of work to travel to my family's cabin and swap out
hot water heater elements - one of them had burned out, so the water
took a long time to get sort of tepid.

The hot water heater is probably 30 years old, but we go to the cabin
*maybe* 4-6 times a year and drain it when we leave, so it should be in
pretty good shape. The water is snow run-off collected in a reservoir a
half a mile away, it's the softest water I've ever tasted.

I went up a few weeks ago, expecting to buy a replacement at the local
hardware store. Unfortunately, the newer elements screw in - these bolt
in with a 4-bolt pattern. I was able to find the elements inexpensively
online and was looking forward to a quick, cheap fix.

Got up there, took the old elements out, put the new ones in and the
threads wouldn't catch. Looks like the threads softened with
heating/cooling and stripped.

I spent the night up there, took a cold shower and headed back
yesterday.

I'm loathe to replace the heater, wondering if anyone has had experience
with using helicoil inserts or retapping the threads on a hot water
heater. Also wondering how to do that and not get metal shards in the
heater tank...







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Hello pF!

** On Sunday 19.07.26 - 08:17, you wrote to All:

I'm loathe to replace the heater, ...

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one) be a better overall replacement/upgrade?



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Re: Water Heater Woes
By: Ogg to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 19 2026 03:53 pm

I'm loathe to replace the heater, ...

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one) be a better overall replacement/upgrade?

Is 'inline' another name for those instantaneous tankless water heaters?
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** On Sunday 19.07.26 - 08:17, you wrote to All:

I'm loathe to replace the heater, ...

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one) be a
better overall replacement/upgrade?

California has rules about gas heaters in some parts of our state. Maybe that is leading to some
issues.
Might be better to buy it now before it gets banned.


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Nightfox wrote to Ogg <=-

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one) be a better overall replacement/upgrade?

Yes. I'd thought about a tankless heater, as the current heater is in a
crawl space. We could extend the main water cut-off up into the
upstairs space and mount the heater upstairs and never have to go into
the crawl space again.

We don't have gas, I haven't heard good things about AC tankless
heaters.



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Dumas Walker wrote to Nightfox <=-

Yes, it is. I have never tried one. Back when I thought about getting one (c2010), there were mixed reviews on them. I think the tech has improved since then.

I have one in my house, installed it in 2021. Having unlimited hot
water is a good and bad idea with 2 kids in the house. :)

Our hot water heater was located in the kitchen. Removing the heater
and relocating the tankless heater on the outside wall of the kitchen
freed up a lot of room.

Incidentally, when we have power outages, I can run an inverter off
of my car in the carport outside the kitchen to power my refrigerator.
I can also use the inverter to power the water heater since it uses gas
for heating and only needs electricity for the circuitry.




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Ogg wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one)
be a better overall replacement/upgrade?

It's a 40 gallon heater in there now. I know the rest of the heater is
in good shape as it's used infrequently, drained each time, and our
water is incredibly soft.


... The inconsistency principle
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I'm loathe to replace the heater, ...

And why is that? Wouldn't a small 10gal heater (or even an inline one) be
a better overall replacement/upgrade?

Is 'inline' another name for those instantaneous tankless water heaters?

Yes, it is. I have never tried one. Back when I thought about getting one (c2010), there were mixed reviews on them. I think the tech has improved since then.


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Hey poindexter!

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:17:08 -0700, you wrote:

I'm loathe to replace the heater, wondering if anyone has had experience with using helicoil inserts or retapping the threads on a hot water
heater. Also wondering how to do that and not get metal shards in the
heater tank...

I just replaced my water heater a week ago. It took about 4 hours total, and an hour of that was draining the old one, going and buying the new one, and carrying both in and out of the house with the help of my son.

Sounds like you're spending more time avoiding replacing it than it would take just replacing it. Or is it the cost difference you're trying to avoid?

To be fair, mine was leaking from the base. It needed to be replaced.

Regards,
Nick

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Dumas Walker wrote to Nightfox <=-

Yes, it is. I have never tried one. Back when I thought about getting
one (c2010), there were mixed reviews on them. I think the tech has improved since then.

I have one in my house, installed it in 2021. Having unlimited hot
water is a good and bad idea with 2 kids in the house. :)

LOL it would be a bad idea probably for me also. I might never get out of the shower some days. :D


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Accession wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Sounds like you're spending more time avoiding replacing it than it
would take just replacing it. Or is it the cost difference you're
trying to avoid?

Cost difference, knowing it's in good shape internally, and not wanting
to haul out the old one.




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On 20 Jul 2026, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...

We don't have gas, I haven't heard good things about AC tankless
heaters.

When we were replacing our HVAC system we went with a tankless water heater at the same time. If we wanted to go with an electric one we would have had to upgrade the electrical service to our house, so went with the natural gas tankless water heater.

Even then they had to run another (larger) gas line from the gas meter directly to the tankless heater.

It's mostly been good, the first year we had them come and flush it out for us, and after seeing how easy it is, we've done that ourselves ever since.


Jay

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Warpslide wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

When we were replacing our HVAC system we went with a tankless water heater at the same time. If we wanted to go with an electric one we
would have had to upgrade the electrical service to our house, so went with the natural gas tankless water heater.

Yeah, for this house project I was hoping to go tankless, since
winterizing when we leave is a pain in the butt. We do have 220 going
to the AC heater, but heard so-so-things about electric tankless
heaters.

We went tankless, I usually flush it once every 6 months - we have
extremely hard water. Thankfully, it's outside in a carport which makes flushing it super easy.




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poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Warpslide <=-

Yeah, for this house project I was hoping to go tankless, since
winterizing when we leave is a pain in the butt. We do have 220 going
to the AC heater, but heard so-so-things about electric tankless
heaters.

We went tankless, I usually flush it once every 6 months - we have extremely hard water. Thankfully, it's outside in a carport which makes flushing it super easy.

I should have said, we went tankless at my home - not at the cabin I'm
talking about.

I had a nice chat with a plumber named "moose", he's going to rethread
the bolt holes in the cabin heater next week.



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I had a nice chat with a plumber named "moose", he's going to rethread
the bolt holes in the cabin heater next week.

Ahh... moose is posing as plumber now. What day moose showing up at cabin? Natasha and I finally catch him and flying squirrel!

LOL

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