The builder was as dodgy as hell and went broke a couple months after. They built the house sideways and had to redesign as the front door would have been (effectively) in the back yard.
The telecom guy alerted the fact that about 60 of the roof tiles were cracked in half and the apprentice who put the tiles in the kitchen stuffed it severely.
The house has never had any mods that I know of.
I think I will do what you recommend. I will switch the system off, shut off the cold water intake, leave it for a few hours to cool, and remove one of the lower blank plugs down the bottom (has multiple outlets on the tank but only 1 is used) and see what comes out, then flush it.
Hopefully it last until december when I will have time to go and get a good deal on a rheem and get someone to install (pains me to pay for sometging I can do myself, but legally its an issue)
