Water heaters
Rheem Marathon MR50245C Electric Water Heater, 50 gal
Prices are the equipment only — the appliance, before install labour. Every product in this catalogue currently has at least one real, seller-observed equipment price (see the SKU verification and price observation notes on each product). Get contractor quotes for the install itself, especially for anything needing new electrical circuits or condensate drainage.
Conventional resistance-element electric tank with a lifetime-warranted, non-metallic fiberglass tank — no compressor, no heat pump efficiency, but a tank that structurally can't rust through.
Our take
This is the case for NOT buying a heat pump water heater: a household with cheap electricity, no room for the HPWH's air-space and noise requirements, or simply wanting the lowest-maintenance option money can buy. The tank is genuinely lifetime-warranted because it's wound fiberglass rather than glass-lined steel, so the failure mode that ends most conventional tanks — corrosion through the shell — doesn't apply here. The tradeoff is UEF 0.91: roughly a quarter the efficiency of the heat pump units in this catalogue, because it's pure resistance heat.
Best for
Households prioritising a tank that will outlast the house's other appliances over the running-cost savings a heat pump would deliver.
Watch out for
Straight resistance heat is the most expensive way to make hot water per kWh. Compare your actual electric rate against a heat pump unit's operating cost before assuming 'lifetime warranty' is the better deal.
What sellers are actually charging
Real listings, read on the date shown — none currently in stock at the observed price. Prices change — click through to check before you act on any of them.
| Seller | What you get | Price | Stock | Seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SupplyHouse.com
online retailer |
equipment system | $1,943 | out of stock | 2026-08-16 |
Equipment price is not installed price. The listings above are what the hardware costs. Installation — labour, electrical, refrigerant lines, permits, removing the old system — is typically a similar amount again, and varies more between contractors than between brands. Where we have an installed figure it is labelled as such and comes from someone who actually installs.
What owners and installers report
Collected from trade forums, owner communities and video reviews. Every report links to the original. We synthesise and quote briefly — we don't republish other people's writing.
Reliability and failures
What breaks, when, and how often — from people several years in.
Thin evidence — too few independent reports to call this a pattern. Shown because it may still be worth asking your contractor about.
A plumbing-forum commenter, in a thread about whether to buy a Rheem Marathon lifetime-warranty tank, said their own experience with plastic-tank water heaters has been that the fitting connections where they enter the tank tend to fail over time -- a design-level durability concern about the tank material/construction rather than a specific single unit. A general remark about the Marathon poly-tank line, not confirmed against the 50-gallon MR50245C specifically. No post date is available on this forum's page.
“I have not had good luck with heaters which had a plastic tank. The connections often fail where they connect into the tank.” — hj
Pros thoughts on Rheem Marathon tank · Owner/trade forums (misc.) · read it in context
Company-blog roster of reported Marathon failure modes (leaks within days, heating-element failures, vacuum relief valve defects, thermostat inconsistency, mineral-buildup noise). No named reviewers, dates or links to underlying complaints — read as a hypothesis of what to look for, not a verified claim. Two more promising venues (Bogleheads, TractorByNet) were checked and returned either a paywall or no citable claim either way.
How Did A 'Lifetime' Water Heater Fail? Rheem Marathon Water Heater Problems · Independent trade-company blogs · 2025-06-18 · read it in context
An owner reports their 18-year-old Marathon water heater has never given them any trouble under a lifetime tank warranty.
“This heater has a lifetime warranty on the tank and has never given me any trouble.” — not-a-plumber, 2019-01-05T16:20:59-0500
Reported on the Marathon line; size not stated — included here because it's the same family and counts toward the totals above.
https://www.plumbingforums.com/threads/heat-pump-water-heater-or.14203/ · PlumbingForums.com · 2019-01-05T16:20:59-0500 · read it in context
Warranty and manufacturer support
What actually happens when owners make a claim.
Thin evidence — too few independent reports to call this a pattern. Shown because it may still be worth asking your contractor about.
A trade professional notes Rheem Marathon tanks are composite construction with a lifetime warranty, and describes Rheem's 4-year warranty extension kit as adding a second anode rod.
“Rheem Marathon is composite and lifetime warranty. Rheem 4 year warranty extension kit adds a second anode rod.” — GReynolds929 trade, 2024-04-27T13:58:54-0400
Reported on the Marathon line; size not stated — included here because it's the same family and counts toward the totals above.
https://www.plumbingforums.com/threads/heat-pump-water-heater-location.25956/ · PlumbingForums.com · 2024-04-27T13:58:54-0400 · read it in context
Sources are linked so you can verify any of this yourself. We don't mirror content — Amazon in particular permits no republication of review text, so where we use retailer data we show the aggregate rating and link out. How we collect and weight this →
Compare against
Rheem Performance XE50M06ST45U1 Electric Water Heater, 50 gal
Rheem's baseline resistance-electric tank: 50 gallons ('Medium' height configuration), UEF 0.93, dual 4500W elements, a 61-gallon first-hour rating, and a 6-year tank-and-parts warranty.
GE Profile GeoSpring Smart Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, 50 gal
GE's flagship heat pump water heater, relaunched under the Profile line with FlexCAPACITY mixing and Wi-Fi control. ENERGY STAR-certified at UEF 4.50 -- the highest efficiency figure in this catalogue at any size.
GE Profile GeoSpring Smart Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, 80 gal
80-gallon version of the same Profile GeoSpring Smart Hybrid platform as the 50-gallon model -- same UEF 4.50, larger first-hour rating.
Rheem ProTerra Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, 50 gal
The default heat pump water heater for most US households: 50 gallons, UEF 3.75, widely stocked and widely serviced.
Before you buy this
Ask for the first-hour rating, not just tank size, and check it against your household's simultaneous demand — showers and laundry at the same time — rather than headcount alone. If it's a heat pump water heater, confirm the room has enough air volume (or a duct kit) that it won't spend winter on resistance backup, and that there's a real route for condensate, not just a nearby floor drain. Confirm the panel has spare 240V capacity. And if you're removing a gas unit that shared a flue with a furnace, ask what happens to that flue once your water heater's draft is gone — an orphaned flue can backdraft.