I wrote before about our 35-year-old Sears water heater, in our home.
But in 2005 we bought a nearby two-flat, to save it from the threat
of teardown.  Last November when a tenant moved in, after the
building had been vacant for a few weeks, he reported that
when he turned on the hot water it was very hot, but after a few seconds
it turned lukewarm, and stayed lukewarm.

The plumber found two problems.  A valve had failed,
allowing the cold supply to mix with the hot output.  
Also, there is a kind of dip tube, a long tube that drops in from the top,
that is supposed to put the cold supply into the bottom of the tank.
This was made of plastic and had completely failed, so that
as soon as water started to flow out, the cold water flowing in
was mixing at the top instead of going to the bottom.

This latter problem (or possibly both problems) can certainly
be attributed to cheap materials.  It is unlikely that the dip tube
in our 35-year-old model is made of plastic.

The manual for the Sears 1975 model says to flush every year.
I did this once, after five years, and the water came out
perfectly clear, so I never bothered to do it again.
Chicago water comes from Lake Michigan, which I suppose
doesn't have much lime in it, and I think it is pretty well filtered.

At 09:23 AM 4/9/2010, you wrote:
>Yes, thinner metals, poorer galvanization and lesser quality stainless, higher acidity in water, or if on well other elements if not filtered, depending on source.  Even a Home Depot thermostat is not made to the standards and specifications as the similar one you buy at the supply house ­ a couple of skew numbers.  You get what you pay for, and in many cases, such as water heaters, you cannot buy the same quality you did ten or even twenty years ago. 
>Humbly supplied opinion, based on thirty years of empirical evidence, and no science.
>Best,
>Leland
> 
>From: [log in to unmask] 
> ( ... )
>Question still unanswered:   are water heaters no longer as durable, as all the Old-Tymers sittin' around the stove at Joe-Bob's Peat Moss & Bourbon insist?   

Martin C. Tangora
University of Illinois at Chicago
[log in to unmask]

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