It's something that everyone will most likely deal with at some point in time.
My grandfather had a weekend cabin on the river in VA. The tank leaked,.. not much,.. but it did leak. He 'cheated' on replacing it for years - the water pump and the power to the water heater was only on when it was used. The slope in the garage allowed it to drain away for the walls. So it was like this for about 10 years. Think it was finally replaced.
The house my dad was in had the tank split in the middle of the night in the basement. We had two inches of water in the basement, out the door, and across the drive way... My dad was a interior space planner,.. so lots of drawings. He didn't have a proper way to store the old drawings,.. so a lot of things got drowned.
And just recently my FIL had their tank go. But the house is pushing 15 years,.. so it's sort of time for things to start going... Oh,.. and then the line between the wall and the toliet went. That was a bigger mess as no one was home when it happened. The bathroom AND the basement got that..
I remember as a pre teen,.. the house we had used copper pipes, the norm for the time. Because we used well water, the water ate the copper in places. We had some pin holes develop.
When we moved into our new house,.. I got the braided washer lines. I wanted that extra safety layer. All my supply lines are copper,.. and nothing should freeze either... Oh that's a rat too.. have a two inch split in a supply line after it freezes... been there done that,.. That's a long story into itself.