Originally Posted By: Kestas
If it wasn't so tight, I believe more people would change the anode rods. Long time ago I tried to remove an anode rod and just gave up.
You just need a longer pipe on the end of a breaker bar. I used a 3 foot pipe, they sell them at home depot, just find one that fits, I suppose you could go longer at 4 or 6 feet. On a couple of them, I heard a big crack noise when it gave way. We thought we had broken the tank, but that's just the nut finally giving way. That happened on 2 of them. With just the 18 inch breaker bar, the whole tank would just shift. And yeah, they don't really want you to change them and they don't really care to make it easy to change.