Ruud brand water heater age decoder, manuals, company contact information.
The water heater age guide on this page works for these brands: Ruud & Professional water heaters.
In this article series for all water heaters we give contact information for water heater, geyser, cylinder, calorifier manufacturers and for water heater installation, operation, & troubleshooting manuals.
The page top illustration illustrates an older residential gas-fired Ruud water heater.
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Ruud water heater serial numbers encode the heater age in the first four digits of the serial number as
MMYYnnnn
or for some older Ruud water heaters the age may be encoded as
MYY nnnnn or as
AAN MYY nnnnn
Other Ruud water heaters that may be sold under a different brand name include
Professional Water Heaters and Richmond Water Heaters.
Illustration: Above, a Ruud Eclipse commercial grade water heater. Below: a Ruud water heater manufactured by Rheem in 1972.
[Click to enlarge any image]
Edwin Ruud was a Norwegian inventor who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s, patenting his first water heater invention in 1889 - one of the early and key water heater inventors and designers in the U.S. By 1897 Ruud had incorporated as Ruud Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, forming the first high-production and oldest-recognized water heater producer in the U.S. - still in business!
Ruud.com website excerpt:
While working in Pittsburgh in the 1880s for industrialist George Westinghouse, young Ruud built the first automatic, storage tank-type gas water heater. The unit went into production around 1889 and patents followed soon afterward. Ruud eventually bought the rights to his invention and in 1897 organized his own company to make water heaters. - retrieved 2022/01/21 original source: https://www.ruud.com/about/
Below: an old Ruud gas fired water heater in Poughkeepsie, New York. We were concerned about the long horizontal run of the gas flue vent connector.
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Below you will find questions and answers previously posted on this page at its page bottom reader comment box.
On 2022-05-15 by (mod) - age of an old Ruud water heater - (made by Rheem)
@Joe,
Thanks so much for following-up.
Your building age (1973) serves as a great sanity-check on a guess that the water heater was manufactured in month 8 of 1972.
So we see on some older Ruud water heaters that the standard decoding of
MMYYnnnn
might for some heaters be simply
MYY nnnnn
or there may be preceding digits separated by a space as we show above on this page.
Note on your Ruud water heater label that the full serial number appears to be
R00 872 39340
And the label notes that the Ruud water heater was actually manufactured by Rheem.
On 2022-05-15 by Joe - age of original Ruud water heater installed in a South Carolina home built in 1973
@InspectApedia-911, Columbia, SC USA. Building was finished early 1973. Condo. Water heater is still working fine. I just replaced it because of its age. My AC unit was just replaced also. The AC Guys said it was the oldest still working AC unit they have ever seen. The AC unit was dated 1972.
Both the water heater and the Central Air Unit were working just fine. I replaced them both just to be on the safe side.
On 2022-05-14 by InspectApedia-911 (mod) - What is the age of my water heater?
@Joe,
possibly 8/72
What are the age and country/city of the home where this Ruud heater is installed?
On 2022-05-14 by Joe
What is the age of my water heater?
[Photo abovee]
On 2021-06-05 by inspectapedia.com.moderator (mod)
@Larry Scarfia,
It is interesting that the company doesn't give the dimensions of their water heaters even in the manual. However the contact information for Ruud is above and you might give them a call to ask
let me know if they're helpful
On 2021-06-05 by Larry Scarfia
What is the diameter of a rude 40 gallon natural gas water heater?
On 2021-03-27 by Nira
Age of water heater
On 2021-01-16 by danjoefriedman (mod) - want a catalog for A O Smith - Bradford White Water Heater & RHEEM Water Heater
The information and PDF downloads on the page above are free for you to use, Fahimkhan, but we cannot provide the water heater that you asked about.
We do not sell anything. No products, no services.
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On 2021-01-15 by Fahimkhan
RUUD water heater is equivalent to A O Smith - Bradford White Water Heater & RHEEM Water Heater my email is
fahimbina786@gmail.com send me full catalogue sorry I didn’t introduce you myself I was working in jeddah S.A Bradford White Water Heater since last 28 years looking Job
On 2020-03-30 by danjoefriedman (mod) - combustion shutoff device has tripped on water heater - how to fix?
I'm not sure exactly what device on your heater has tripped.
Perhaps you can attach a photo.
In any case you can try cycling the power off video get off for 30 seconds or a minute or longer and then back on and you can look for resettable switches and controls such as a flue gas spill switch or a heater temperature high limit reset switch
Some flue gas spill switch detectors use a simple reset-button found right on the switch itself.
On 2020-03-30 by Bud
Help combustion shut_off device tripped locked out is there a way to fix it thanks
On 2017-05-04 by (mod) Ruud electric hot water age information
Dorothy you'll need to find the serial number as that's where the age is encoded.
On 2017-05-04 by Dorothy
Looking for the age of my Ruud electric hot water heater midel # PE 40-2
On 2015-02-19 by John
I have a Rudd Hot water tank with a serial # 1100co1603. can you tell me how to find out how old this is
...
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