Rusty Hot Water in Freshwater: A Tank That Was Never Serviced

The situation

A homeowner in Freshwater was running a bath when she noticed the water coming out reddish-brown. Not a one-off tinge, it was coming through every hot tap in the house. She called us to find out what was going on.

What we found

The hot water system was an electric storage tank, around 10 years old, and as far as we could tell it had never been serviced. Every steel storage tank has a sacrificial anode inside it, a rod that corrodes on purpose so the tank itself doesn’t have to. It’s meant to be replaced roughly every five years. Left alone, the anode eventually wears away completely and the tank starts corroding instead, which is exactly what had happened here. The rust wasn’t coming from the pipes; it was coming from the inside wall of the tank itself.

Ten years is about when we expect a steel tank to start failing if the anode’s never been touched. The rust in the water is the tank telling you it’s running out of protection.

Once a tank is rusting internally like this, there’s no repair that fixes it. The tank itself needs to be replaced.

The fix

We recommended stepping up to a Rheem stainless steel storage system rather than another standard steel tank, since stainless steel doesn’t corrode the same way and avoids this exact problem recurring in another 10 years.

She called us the day before, and we had the replacement booked in and completed the next morning:

• Removed the old, corroded tank and took it away for environmentally responsible disposal.
• Installed the new Rheem stainless steel tank.
• Fitted new valves and pipework to the connection.
• Installed a tempering valve so the hot water delivered to the taps meets current regulations.

The outcome

The household went from rust-coloured bathwater to a same-morning fix, with a tank that won’t develop the same corrosion problem again. No more guessing whether the next bath will run clean.

Noticed discoloured hot water in your own home? It’s usually the tank, not the pipes. Our hot water installation and replacement team covers Freshwater and the rest of the Northern Beaches. If you’re not sure whether your system needs replacing or just a service, see the signs your hot water system is failing.