Gas water heaters are expensive

Throw in a hybrid yourself. No permit, no gas pipe. No flue.

Why is the piping to expansion tank leaking? Valve leaking or crap job of sweating the copper pipe.

Check the expansion tank. It could be gone also.
 
Donald said:
Throw in a hybrid yourself. No permit, no gas pipe. No flue.

Why is the piping to expansion tank leaking? Valve leaking or crap job of sweating the copper pipe.

Check the expansion tank. It could be gone also.
Click to expand...
A hybrid would be a bad idea because they make noise and the closet is located right outside my bedroom. The piping leading to the tank was corroded.
 
AZjeff said:
Did you ever look at and/or replace the anode rod? If you have a closed plumbing system you need the expansion tank.
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My house was built in 1977. Have two 50 gallon hot water tanks. One tank for the West wing and the other for the East wing. Never had one expansion tank nor needed them. Yes I have a closed system.

Never had any hot water surges from cracking the hot water open from this demonic excess pressure people are worried about.

Several videos showing PEX and copper can take 1000psi of pressure before failing. Now in real life, if you have anything over 150psi, your tank blow off safety will open. Never had one of those open either.

Now the anode rod, by all means replace them. Powered rods are even better. Big fan of replacing anodes and flushes.
 
Bumping this thread back up, instead of starting new.

Earlier in this thread I described installing, what I thought was a low mileage water heater, gifted from a friend, who was renovating his house. Well now, I'm the one doing renovations, and after the gas was turned off, and back on, the pilot doesn't want to light in the gifted unit.

Checking Home Depot and Lowes, water heater reviews, and neither Rheem (home depot) and A.O. Smith (Lowes) seems to get particularly good reviews (something like 10% the lowest rating).

Should I just close my eyes and pick one? Or, does anyone have a better suggestion? Trying to keep cost to $1000. Going to install myself.
 
Nessism1 said:
Bumping this thread back up, instead of starting new.

Earlier in this thread I described installing, what I thought was a low mileage water heater, gifted from a friend, who was renovating his house. Well now, I'm the one doing renovations, and after the gas was turned off, and back on, the pilot doesn't want to light in the gifted unit.

Checking Home Depot and Lowes, water heater reviews, and neither Rheem (home depot) and A.O. Smith (Lowes) seems to get particularly good reviews (something like 10% the lowest rating).

Should I just close my eyes and pick one? Or, does anyone have a better suggestion? Trying to keep cost to $1000. Going to install myself.
Click to expand...
Thr thermocouple probably needs to be cleaned. I had the same problem on my previous WH and some light swipes with fine sandpaper fixed it. Google is your friend.
 
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If you can see a spark from the clicker/ignitor, the thermocouple is probably bad. I had to replace that on my Whirlpool branded 40gal tall some years back.
 
walterjay said:
You Tube it for a clear understanding.
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Nope and nope.

On this particular unit, access to inside is not easy. I just went out in the dark, pried out the viewing window for the pilot, put a long BIC inside, to the pilot port, and got it to light off. Immediate crisis averted. Still thinking about a new unit, though. We'll see how I feel in a couple of days. Got lots of other things on this house that need attention also.
 
The biggest scam that the large plumbing companies run is the Fall/Winter heating "tune-ups" and the Spring/Summer AC "tune-ups"...
$29, $49,$69... specials so they can have some knucklehead tell you your heat exchanger is about to go and you need a new furnace OR... you need a new capacitor for your AC...$425 please.
 
Cropduster172 said:
The biggest scam that the large plumbing companies run is the Fall/Winter heating "tune-ups" and the Spring/Summer AC "tune-ups"...
$29, $49,$69... specials so they can have some knucklehead tell you your heat exchanger is about to go and you need a new furnace OR... you need a new capacitor for your AC...$425 please.
Click to expand...
$425 would be cheap around here. A friend of mine has a 7 year old system not operating properly. HVAC guy told her over the phone it would be $4,000.00 in labor to fix
 
Our gas-fired water heater died around seven years ago.

I went to Home Depot, and selected a comparable replacement priced at around C$600. (Tax in, it would still have been < C$700.) They would not sell it to me because I don't have a gas-fitter's licence. (I had planned to install it myself and have it inspected afterwards. Nope, not allowed.)

So, I called a big local company, and all-in it was around C$1400.

Perhaps I should have converted to an electric tank at that time - I replaced one for a friend a few weeks ago. The tank was c. C$600, plus I had him buy a couple of flexible connection hoses with Shark bite fittings, so all-in he was at about C$750.
 
Number_35 said:
Our gas-fired water heater died around seven years ago.

I went to Home Depot, and selected a comparable replacement priced at around C$600. (Tax in, it would still have been < C$700.) They would not sell it to me because I don't have a gas-fitter's licence. (I had planned to install it myself and have it inspected afterwards. Nope, not allowed.)

So, I called a big local company, and all-in it was around C$1400.

Perhaps I should have converted to an electric tank at that time - I replaced one for a friend a few weeks ago. The tank was c. C$600, plus I had him buy a couple of flexible connection hoses with Shark bite fittings, so all-in he was at about C$750.
Click to expand...
That would infuriate me to the end of time! There's one gas line to attach. A high school kid could do it.
 
Hall said:
What's happening around many places is all the 1-2 man plumbing shops (and HVAC) are getting bought out by bigger companies and then start dictating and controlling rates. I've told this story before about calling a 'local' plumber to replace a small water heater at our office. They answer the phone with the local company's name, the (old) website still works, etc, etc but a different company's van showed up. Quoted us $3500 to replace this (paper towel roll for scale):

View attachment 300994
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A towing company near me thankfully has stayed reasonable but they bought up two other tow companies so different label same head company. That tank is so small it looks useless.
 
Nessism1 said:
That would infuriate me to the end of time! There's one gas line to attach. A high school kid could do it.
Click to expand...
Yup, I would have tested the gas connection with soapy water to ensure there were no leaks - or could have left it open and let the inspector do the connection. Either way there would have been no safety issue.
 
Sounds kind of pricey, but a lot could have to do with inflation and perhaps increased labor costs. The last time I had a water heater installed was a 40 gallon in 2020. Was a Bradford White and I think total it was maybe $1500 installed by a plumber that we'd used before for drain cleaning and a sewer line issue. It was well done and he used an aluminum tray under the water heater. I guess that's typically used these days.
 
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