oh ok. thanks for answering my question. The water is not coming out with much pressure on the first floor. On the second floor, there is no water coming out at all. The water was working perfectly the day before we closed. I setup my account with the water company and they said the water is turned on. The water company sent someone but left a notice, I am not yet occupying the residence so I wasnt there, I cant live in a place that has no running water.

It's not bacteria that react with the anode rods. It's more likely the naturally occurring sulfates that are in your water that become hydrogen sulfide gas in your water heater. It could be that you have the hydrogen sulfide in your water and the heat just causes it to exit the water to the air where you can smell it. If you have hydrogen sulfide in your cold water as well, that could be caused by bacteria. You need to get your water tested to know for sure. Take 1- liter samples of your cold and hot water to a local independent lab to determine sulfur, sulfates, hydrogen sulfide, iron, hardness, pH, TDS. Ask the lab how to collect the samples to ensure accurate results. Then you can determine your best course of action because you will knur where your problem is. If it is purely a hot water hubby the powered anode is probably a good solution. However, the most reliable solution will likely be to remove the sulfur compounds from your water. Switching to an electric water heater will not affect the problem at all.

And different experience... Our water is 45 grains hard. That's ludicrous hard. Average life of a WH around here is around 2 1/2 years. Some go a year or so longer but no one I know has gotten longer than 5 years. The plumbers around here love our water. We have a softener that is correctly sized and gives us 0 hardness water I drain and flush the WH every spring and all I get out is clear water and the plastic drain valve is smooth and operates like the day it was new. I've pulled the anode every five years and at last check it was deteriorated some but not ready for replacement. Our 50 gallon A.O. Smith LP water heater was installed in 1995... 19 years ago and shows no signs of needing replacement. Not even a snap, crackle, or pop when the burner fires. In my experience the life of a WH is directly proportional to the quality (or lack of) of the water it sees and the preventative maintenance it gets. Seven years into your softener's life it won't help to change up now. As Jake said the drain valve is probably seized or clogged with crud and whatever calcium deposits are precipitated at the bottom of the tank are like a cinder block, BUT think about these things when you do replace your WH and start out on the right path and get longer service life. This post was edited by justalurker on Thu, Nov 13, 14 at 17:32

Could this be a leak? Yes, it could. But there are other possibilities that replacing the heater will not cure. A leak, especially from a gas water heater, is highly unlikely to be intermittent. Thus the water at the bottom would continue to become greater. Nothing in the description indicates that to be the case. If the water supply is municipal, this is the time when the incoming water supply gets quite cold, just above freezing. Long hot showers are enjoyed and if a heater is set at 120 degrees, almost all of the flow from the shower head is from the heater. The flue gases from burned natural gas are, by volume, 2/3 water vapor and 1/3 carbon dioxide. That flue gas water will condense upon contacting cold surface--- just like the outside surface of a cold drinking glass. Turning the heater from 120 to 140 for a few days is a simple sensible test to determine if the water is condensation. If it is condensation, and the heater is replaced, and the condensation continues-- your landlord will not be pleased at the unnecessary expenditure.