Hi all-

Not the original owner of my house.  I have an old secondary water tank that is now connected inline with my hot water system.  My 50 gallon hot water heater was originally tasked with heating the water both for itself as well as the reservoir in a cross-connected tank measuring ~ 29″ diameter x 67″ high.  That’s gotta be at least 100 gallons I’m thinking.  (It’s the blue tank in the attached photos.)  The way these tanks are cross-connected won’t be terribly apparent in the photo but it’s quite quirky what with a mixing valve of some kind and pipes running in between the 2 tanks and the house lines.  I’m not a plumber but I’m sure there is / was method in the madness.

I have since dismantled the rotting redwood hot tub, and this tank looks like it will be a real problem real soon, so it’s gotta go.  There is a utility doorway into the crawlspace where this is located.  It measures maybe 27″ inside stops and if I remove the whole door including jambs / threshold I probably have 29.1″.  There’s nothing fancy about the framing / finish carpentry on that door, so that’s a possibility.  So, given the 29″ diameter (measured once, heh) it might just make it out, but I just have a hunch that I’ll run into not having enough clearance.  Things always seem to go that way!

Anybody have any experience cutting up one of these tanks?  Or could I sledge it down (never mind not much clearance in the crawlspace to go Paul Bunyon w/ the sledge).  I vaguely recall reading an article (FHB? Family Handyman?) that if you use a circular saw w/ a metal cutting blade, you’ll do much better than a recipro saw w/ a metal blade.

Welcome your input & thx!

– TK

PS, we’re a family of four.  I’m prepared for the fact that we might get an unpleasant surprise that the 50g heater on its own will create some hot water challenges, but that will be a secondary problem.  The thing is 20 years old so owes us nothing… needs to be replaced soon regardless.