I am in the market to buy a new gas hot water heater and was wondering what are some good Brands & models to look at. I want it to vent out the roof. I have a family of five.

Electric WH - A.O. Smith - 12+ years old We've never had a problem until this week - then all of a sudden, no hot water. We're renters and had no choice but to call maintenance. The maintenance man came this afternoon and increased the thermostat from 130 degrees to 140 degrees. After we told him AGAIN that this would do nothing as the WH wasn't working at all, he discovered the fuse had tripped, cutting power to the WH. He turned the power back on to the WH, but when we asked him to decrease the thermostat back to 130 degrees, he said it didn't matter, then disappeared. In about a 1/2 hour, we were getting hot water. However, during this time, we also discovered 2 warnings on the WH against setting the thermostat above 130 degrees - scalding, potential hazard, etc. Also, we found about 2" of standing water in the pan underneath the WH - something we've NEVER had before. Further, we found a small amount of water on the top of the WH at the joints where the incoming lines meet the WH. NOTE: We couldn't find a TPR valve on the WH as pictured on the internet, but there may be one on the back side of it -- the WH sits in a pantry, and we can't access the back side. Also, we don't know if this figures into the problem, but our water is extremely full of minerals. We searched for info on the internet and found just enough info to get confused and scared (is it going to blow up?). Thus, we cut the power to the WH at the fuse box. We don't know anything about water heaters, and, apparently, neither does the maintenance man. Any advice on how to proceed is appreciated...