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Price includes delivery of the new unit, draining and removal (including removing it from your property) of the old unit, connecting the new one to the household plumbing and electric or gas system, purging the air out of it, installing a new drain pan, lighting a gas unit's pilot light, and testing it to be sure it heats water.
How to buy a tank-type water heater, the most common kind:
There are four things to look at.
First is capacity and dimensions. You need to know the dimensions of the unit you have so you don't get one that won't fit where you need to put it. You need to know the capacity so you don't get a smaller one. You probably want a larger one, but never go smaller. Most homes were built with a 40-gallon heater, so a 50-gallon is a nice upgrade. Also measure the door you need to take it through; if you have a 40-inch hole for the unit but a 32-inch door, that 35-inch water heater you're drooling over is completely out.
Second is fuel. Water heaters run on either gas or electricity. If you don't know which you have, go look at it. If there's a stovepipe sticking straight out the top of it, you have a gas unit. Normally you get one that uses the same fuel, but if you have gas heat and an electric water heater, call the gas company and ask them if there's a discount for running multiple gas appliances. Normally there is because the more units you have, the more gas you use. And they especially like gas water heaters because you heat water all the time; not even Siberians run their furnaces 365 days per year.
Third is configuration. There are manufactured home units (inlet and outlet on the side), standard, low-profile (short and squat), narrowline (tall and thin), and cabinet (looks like a washing machine). Manufactured home units are used in...well, trailers. The intent was to get the plumbing off the top of the unit so a cabinet could be installed above the water heater. If you're not working with a trailer you won't use one of these, and if you are working with a trailer, if you're willing to run a little pipe you can install a standard unit. I know it works fine because I've done it. Cabinet units were popular in the 1960s for installation in laundry rooms because they look like a third appliance, not a water heater, and you can stack stuff on top of them. These are really expensive and they're limited to 40 gallons capacity (nothing bigger fits in the cabinet), so we only sell them to people replacing worn-out cabinet units. Low-profile units are used mainly under stairs and in attics, and narrowline units are used when the architect added to the floor space for living in a small home by making the mechanical closet scrunchy. Which I've always hated: Let's say, just for the fuck of it, that your Temperature and Pressure Relief Valve pops. Plumbing the T&P R is a recent phenomenon; for most of its history people just pointed the T&P R at the back wall and called it good. Now let's say the water heater boils over and the T&P R pops. The room the unit is in will immediately fill with live steam. To get it to stop, you gotta cut off the power at the breaker, right? Well, guess where the breaker is. If you said "in the room that's currently full of live steam," you receive a GO at this station. Now understand: the National Fire Protection Association could solve this problem tomorrow by requiring that all residential breaker panels be mounted on the wall in the hallway and covered by either a print of CM Coolidge's "His Station and Four Aces" or a photo of George Bush (or a photo of an orangutan or a jackass, if you prefer his fresh-faced look). Not only would that clearly mark the location of the breaker box, it would vastly increase the sales of prints of dogs playing poker. So it's all good.
Okay, where were we? Oh yeah. Warranty. There are four warranties on water heaters: three-year, six-year, nine-year and twelve-year. Your three-year water heater has one 3600-watt element in it. It's vastly overworked, which is why this unit only has a three-year warranty. Don't get one of these. The six-year water heater usually has two 4500-watt elements. A nine-year heater has one 4500-watt element at the bottom and a 5400-watt element at the top, and a 12-year unit has two 5400-watt elements. This affects two specifications: first-hour temperature rise and recovery rate. First-hour rise is most important if you have the unit on a timer. If you work outside the home and put your water heater on a timer, take the first-hour temperature rise and use it to calculate the turnon time for the unit. If your unit has a 120-degree FHTR and you keep it set to 120 degrees, you should set the unit to come on an hour before you come home. That way, if the water got completely cold--it won't--it will be nice and warm when you walk in, because it won't take the whole hour to get it up to 120. Recovery rate is the number of gallons of water the unit can heat from 45 to 140 degrees in one hour. You will occasionally see a unit with a recovery rate of more gallons than the unit holds. If you do it'll be a 12-year heater. What this means is that the unit can take a whole tank of water from 45 (which is a common tap-water temp) to 140 in less than an hour. You're thinking "aren't they the same thing?" Well, no. First-hour rating is for people who regularly use all the water in the tank; recovery rate is for people who usually get out of the shower while the water's still hot.
There is a device in your water heater called the sacrificial anode. It's a magnesium rod that corrodes so your water heater doesn't have to. 12-year units will have two.
Price? A 6-year, 40-gallon unit is $189 IIRC. A 6-year, 50-gallon unit, which is the most popular water heater in America, is $219. Twelve-year units can run as much as $400. (Don't ask me about commercial water heaters. They are REALLY expensive.)
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