Reliance 6 6 SOMS K 6 Gallon Compact Electric Water Heater

This water heater works great and is constructed very well. I'm using it inline with a large whole house natural gas water heater. The gas water heater is outside on one side of my house and it took forever for the tap water to get hot. My pipes are in the attic so it was easy to install this. I have this right next to shower pipes on a shelf and I get hot water instantly. Before this little water heater runs out of hot water, hot water from the large water heater will start filling it. Where I live, it costs 3x more to use electric over natural gas. If electric is cheaper for you, this water heater or a larger version may be all you need. I'm sure it would fit under large sink enclosures too. This one filled up with water it weighs about 100lbs.I like the traditional cylindrical water heater format. The parts are all standard water heater parts that you can pick up from any home improvement store. So, the only time I would have to contact Reliance is if the tank starts leaking.There are ports on top to optionally have the input and output ports on top. I used the top optional hot water port to add a second magnesium anode. I also replace the stock aluminum anode with a magnesium anode. I took regular 0.9 inch diameter magnesium water heater anode rods and cut them down to 10 inches with a reciprocating saw with bi-metal blade. I popped out or unscrew the plastic trim piece to fit a socket in there to undo the old one. I took it slowly using auto trim removers and large screwdrivers. I used an 18V Milwaukee impact wrench and everything came apart easily. I have a feeling a normal ratchet would take the port plugs or anode out easily too. I wrapped all the connections and plugs with teflon tape 6 times around. There are no leaks and I could position everything however orientation I wanted. I have ball valves on both side hot and cold water ports and brass street elbows to point the connections up. It's then connected to my piping with 24" flex corrugated copper connectors bent for heat trapping. The plastic drain is fine on this unit, but I replaced it with a dielectric nipple, 3/4 brass ball valve, 3/4 brass pipe to garden hose connector, and a brass garden hose cap. The ball valve allows for easier sediment removal and I've had the plastic valves get stuck open with sediment before. Inside, the top cold water inlet port has a pex dip tube as you would expect. The side hot water outlet has a curved pex tube that goes to the very top of the unit right under the hot water outlet port on top so you get the hottest water in the tank. Very smart! The tube moved easily to accommodate the second 0.9 inch anode.The water heater needs to be hard wired into your electrical system on it's own 20 amp circuit. The internal wiring is 12 gauge which is great. I don't have to worry much about it melting. Some other manufacturers may use smaller wiring which doesn't make sense. The temperature selector is under the front cover and it's easy to change the temperature. The heating element makes a quiet hissing type noise and is a basic $10 one.The water heater has a lot of insulation. I still bought a R-11 water heater blanket to cover it up. The three ports on top radiate heat. I covered them up with pieces of pipe insulation I had left over when I insulated my pipes. I also covered the top part of the T&P valve with 1" pipe insulation loosely placed.My unit was a little banged up when it arrived and the T&P valve was damaged. It leaked a lot. I ended up buying a standard one from the local Ace hardware store. There is no cushioning in the box. There is a little cylindrical plastic insert to center it in the shipping box and a couple of cardboard sheets for spacing. Amazon customer service was great! I am totally satisfied with this purchase.FYI, you can get a similar 10 gallon Kenmore from Orchard Supply (i.e. looks exactly the same as the 10 gallon version but with a Kenmore name plate) for about the same price or cheaper as this one. The 10 gallon version is bigger dimensionally but not by much. There are also larger versions still.

Box looked like it was dropped out of the truck and had big hole in the side. No packing inside the box when I opened it. Hot water outlet had poked the hole in the box. I noted there were no thread protectors on the inlet and outlet. I give it a quick look over and looked good at first glance. I put it in my hunting camper out in the boondocks 2 hours away. That's when the trouble began. Fitting kept trying to cross thread. After an hour of trying to hook it up, I pulled the whole thing back out of the camper. That's when I noted the water outlet threads was damaged on bottom side where I could not see it. Being hours from a store, I had to pull the outlet off the old tank to replace the bad one. Reinstalled the water heater and it worked like a champ. Fire the guy who is packaging these because they have no clue what they are doing. As for the water heater, It is awesome and works great.

I just converted my home from 2 50-gallon Hot water tanks to a tankless system. My home is piped with a recirculation line for instant hot water at each faucet. I installed this little unit to use as a recirculation tank system with a pump to keep this feature when I went with a tankless unit. Although a tankless system will give you endless hot water, having a recirculation system with this small 6-gallon tank eliminates what most call the "Cold Sandwich" effect. Without it, you will have a delay in hot water until the hot water from the tankless unit reaches your faucet pushing out the cold water sitting in that line. My home is 3200sq ft with 3 1/2 baths. This little 6-gallon unit is perfect for my home size and recirculation setup. I did have to return the first unit I ordered as the electric heating element popped on power up. Second unit I received worked great. And YES, I did make sure the tank was full of water before I powered it up. For those that don't know, all electric hot water tank elements are made to operate in water. If you attemp to heat them up with no water, only air they will pop every time. Guess I just got a bad one and it happens.... Overall a great little unit, easy to install and also has top in/out ports if that are plugged from the factory. In case you need to feed these from the top, just remove the plugs and swap them for the side nipples. Then take the plugs and use them on the side openings. Easy!

I bought this electric water heater for a friend's camper to replace a built-in propane water heater. It works great and heats up water fast. The water heater is used exclusively for washing hands and dishes, so I can't comment on how long the 6 gallons of hot water will last when taking a shower. We used a 12 gauge commercial grade extension cord (also purchased from Amazon) that is wired directly to the water heater and is plugged into a receptical at the RV park where the camper is permanently parked. We merely plug the cord in when arriving at the camper and unplug it when we leave. We will need to drain and add RV antifreeze before winter arrives so the water doesn't freeze in the heater and lines.

I used this to create an "emergency shower" system, in case of grid failure and loss of natural gas for heating water. I discovered that I did not want to have a "no shower" situation when we had a local power failure due to a windstorm. I was lucky as our RV was all set up for a shower at the time, but I realized I needed a backup just in case.It only takes about 15-20 minutes to heat up 6 gallons of water at 1250 watts, so this is 300-400 watt-hours - not a bad load on our backup power system with 4000 watt-hours per day of available power. While we have propane, I did not want the hassle of getting that connected, and I would rather keep the propane for the generator for charging the batteries when the sun is not shining... :)