Water Heater Repair, Replacement, & Installation

This may point to a broken fill tube. They often make these of some plastic or manufactured material, and they lead from the top of the water heater down inside the tank, sometimes even to the base. These make sure that when you’re using the hot water, it sends incoming cold water into the lower part of the tank, assuring a good mix and a slower cooling of the water that’s already hot. When these break, the cold water comes in at the top and immediately cools water there. The out valve that leads to your shower or faucet is also on the top, so the result is barely warm, tepid showers after only a few minutes, very frustrating! Whether we can replace these at a lesser cost than the water heater depends on whether other parts such as the anode rod have also worn away. So we inspect thoroughly and inform the homeowner of the best and most affordable solution. 

There’s 2 common reasons for this:

1. A broken burner, with a poor flame because of incorrect gas/air ratios, can cause this. If it’s repairable, our plumbers will get your hot water running again quickly and affordably, so call us, and get that estimate today. Remember, if we do the work, then the estimate is free.
2. Mineral build-up in the tank itself can reduce heat transferred to the water. While flushing the unit can help, this often shows a unit that needs replaced. Another way to diagnose this is to listen for a grinding or crashing sound coming from your water heater, a sure sign of mineral buildup.

Avoid this with regular maintenance on your water heater. United Installer Plumbing can set up an annual schedule with you for your home, so call or speak with your plumber today. 

The first thing to check is where it’s coming from:

• If the leak is from either the drain valve or relief valve, usually on the top or side of the unit, then it can often be repaired.
• If the leak is coming from anywhere else, especially anywhere on the tank, it’s critical to call a plumber immediately. This situation can quickly result in water bills and water damage cleanup that make a plumber’s invoice seem small by comparison, and can even be dangerous to residents, so don’t wait.

The shorts answer is around 6-10 years depending on the manufacturer. The real world answer is different depending on the circumstance, but here are the main things that help a water heater last longer: 

1. Annual Maintenance: Scheduling a maintenance every year has a huge impact on a water heater’s life expectancy. Most manufactures include multiple maintenance steps in their water heater instructions, heres a sample from an Aosmith model, and notice that not doing maintenance voids to warrantee. So what’s a poor homeowner to do? Budget for a yearly maintenance, it saves money in the long run, really it does.
2. Filtration of the water entering the water heater.The water quality that goes into a water heater affects how long it takes for scale or buildup to accumulate within the tank, and how long items like the valves and anode rod last.
3. Whole home water pressure problems. Every home has a special valve, called a PRV valve, right before the home that limits home water pressure to around 50-60 PSI. If this valve goes bad, higher pressure can damage valves throughout the home, including the ones on the water heater. If we catch it in time, we can often replace the pressure tank instead of the water heater, and this is also one of the things we look for on annual maintenance calls.  

Simply put, the higher the efficiency, the lower the amount you’ll pay to heat each gallon of water. So a 73% efficient water heater, even though it’s Energystar rated from a quality manufacturer, still results in a quarter of your energy going to warm the air outside your vent instead of your hot water. Higher math isn’t really required here; common sense is to pick the best efficiency for the greatest long term savings, but keep in mind that higher quality water heater units cost a little more too.  Biting the bullet with a higher quality unit means not only a longer warranty and lower bills, but with proper maitenance, also a likelyhood of a longer product life.

Buy cheap often or buy quality less often, it’s really as simple as that.

Answers for those with regular tank-style water heaters depend on home size and usage. Essentially, sizing water heaters is mainly done with published sizing lists using gallons per minute. This makes sense when you consider that a regular water heater heats the water in its tank, then uses this once hot water begins to flow. 

A larger tank means hot water won’t run out as soon but there are 2 cost considerations:  

1. Sizing up can cause a small rise in your water bill. Regular water heaters are not 100% efficient. Energystar certified gas storage water heaters are between 67% and 73% efficient, meaning 27-33% of your gas bill for it is is lost up the chimney! Since this is a percentage, it means increases in hot water tank size increase this wasted energy as well as the available hot water.  
2. Larger tank sized are larger and may require renovations to the installation area to bring them up to code, so installation cost may also be higher. 

Wow, this one’s hard! Generally, the cheapest way to replace a water heater is to use what was there before; a gas water heater replaces a gas water heater and an electric replaces an electric. This way installation costs don’t include too many added renovations like adding gas lines or high voltage electrical outlets. 

There is a large discussion on electric vs gas, but seriously, as plumbers we find them not that different. Additionally, changing from gas to electric or vice versus is almost always much more expensive that simple replacement. We tend to recomend going like for like in most cases.

This is usually caused by sediment or worn parts caught in the outgoing piping of the water heater. Many water heaters have what are called dip tubes that are attached to the incoming water supply and run down to inlet water at the bottom of the tank. These often plastic, and on older unites can crumble and clog the outgoing piping.  If it’s only the hot water, it’s usually the water heater itself or a valve or part on it, but each situation is different.  Get an estimate and we’ll show you exactly what you need to fix you issue.

 If it’s making a knock noise or rumbling loudly, it may have a good amount of sediment in it. Home owners can flush this or call a licensed plumber to do so, and usually this helps, but sediment buildup almost always affects the life of a unit if it’s gone on long enough to cause these sounds. Annual flushing and pretreatment are ways to assure this never happens to your water heater, and to assure it has the longest lifetime possible. Sadly, replacement is likely needed when you hear these sounds. 

Usually this points to a buildup of sediment and minerals within the water heater. If it’s not rumbling, a maintenance visit might help, but usually, the hot water is smelly but cold water isn’t, it’s time to replace the water heater. Still, we’ve seen odd issues, so having the unit inspected is your first step.

Sadly, most homeowner’s insurance only covers the cost of the water heater, based on what it would cost to simply buy one, not the labor and expertise to install and bring it up safely to code. So expect that it will only pay a portion of the costs to replace. Our experience is these types of policies usually cover around 50-70% of the cost to replace the units.

We don’t mind filing paperwork on your behalf, and we’ll help any way we can, but our experience is these policies help, thye just don’t offer complete coverage.

Generally, higher costing units with longer warranties last longer.  They’re just made to higher tolerances. Also, the home-owner still must maintain them to realize a long life for the unit and to maintain their warrany.  Nachi.org has a great article on this, and they should know.