<chuckle> To some of us, water heaters, laundry, refrigerators & freezers in the garage are rather foreign.
Bryan, did it really corrode through? or did the overpressure/overtemp valve go? Deb & I came back from a long weekend to about 10 sq. ft. of wet carpet. After a fairly long troubleshooting period, turns out that water hammer from the front load washing machine was almost certainly killing it. I put a pressure gauge on the drain and watched while the washing machine cycles. The needle pegged at over 175psi with the water hammer. I now have a big set of hammer arrestors mounted at the washing machine valve.