For Sale: Busted Water Heater

[MBMorgan]

... only $6000-8000 in the Denver area because that's what I'm told it's worth.

... ok, so the new one is tankless. Shouldn't I get a discount for no tank?

[WayneT]

There’s a guy named Rusty Waters who buys them online.

[MsTwiggy]

Don't buy a broken one for that much, is it industrial why so much

[CaptainMike]

Ahhh, Utopia....

[Jerod Broussard]

Having to replace two within months of each other and the second having a defective Thermopile.....no thanks.

[scottranda]

Find a different plumber. I met with 2-3 plumbers and went with the guy who seemed a bit neurotic bc I wanted someone like that who would install the hot water heater. He even lowered his price maybe $75 to the lowest bid. I just looked it up. $2000 in Sept 2020. I think it was a 40 gallon tank.

bottom line, call around.

[texastweeter]

Am I the only one here who is wondering about that price? We have 2 that run our house (one regular one tankless) and we paid nowhere near that price for either, hell for both combined was much less.

[Oak Smoke]

+1, We have 2-50 gal. that run the house and a tankless in my shop. We don’t have near that tied up in all of them.

[mcook2201]

Definitely shop around. My father ran his own plumbing contractor business for 25+ years and I still associate with several in our area. 6-8k is insane pricing unless your running a boiler.
Even high end residential should be less then 3k.

Plumber must be covering that Rocky Mountain High..

[Dan Deter]

Got ours replaced in October 2020. Can't find the exact amount but it was around 2K. Although we did have another quote that was $1500 higher, so shopping around is definitely worth it.

[RiverJeff]

Just remember if you are using electricity or gas to run a tankless unit when you turn that faucet on the unit goes into action to heat the water through as it leaves in one great big hurry so the demand for heat is one big surge!! and keeps those meters running like crazy! Having a tank can be much more economical to run, if you need instant hot water add a recirculating pump! Please think this over!

[Jim White]

We replaced both of our water heaters during the great master suite renovation. The units themselves were right around a thousand each. I pay my guy John and his assistant hourly, but don't know exactly how much time they spent on it.

The unit in the master bath is in the attic. We did have a licensed plumber on hand the day of that swap (new shower piping went in the same day and we wanted a bonded guarantee on the attic not leaking onto the solid cherry cabinetry below it) and it was a HUGE chore getting the old unit drained enough to lift out of there. Forty years of scale developing can leave you with an extra hundred pounds or so in a 35 gallon tank.

Note to DIY'ers: turn the water on BEFORE restoring power to the tank. (In unrelated news, a replacement heating element is only a hundred bucks or so, but a specialized wrench is also needed.)

[RonB]

We have a well, and the Ph is ~ 5.5, so water heaters don't last like they should. We are averaging about 10 years between replacements, and I do this myself, (and I replaced one for my brother too). Since the current heater should last until I am past 80, I think I am done though.

[Dan Deter]

I've replaced electric ones if the piping didn't need any changes. This last one though was gas and needed changes to how the pipes went, so I happily paid someone else to do it

[Steve R.]

When you say it's busted, what exactly is wrong with it? A few months ago we had the bottom element go out and a plumbing contractor started going over the options for replacement. A day or two later, a different crew came out and we were told they could just do a "tune-up", which involved replacing both elements and thermostat, and cleaning out the sediment that had built up and eaten the element. A few hundred dollars vs a couple thousand in our case. We went the tune-up route and it has been fine.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Our biggest electric cost is the water heater (wife likes really long showers) even though we have 2 HVAC units. I've been wanting to switch to a heat pump water heater which in theory would cool my garage a bit which should also help with the heat in the bonus room above it...

I did originally want tankless units, but the heat pump makes more sense and is slightly cheaper. Plus with tankless I would have had to pay an electrician and a plumber.

[jfmorris]

I think I will go that way next time I buy a water heater. I have an 80 gallon electric water heater in the garage, and the garage is always SO hot in the summer... no insulation above the garage means it gets the brunt of the 135 degree attic. I need to insulate above the garage, but that would mean pulling up a bunch of decking that is there for storage...

[kizeroy]

Wow, that's pretty expensive! We just had our 50 gallon tank replaced in May and it came in around $1100 total. That included installation and haul away of the old one.