Our WH history has been a mix, original builder WH was gas, lasted probably 20+ years, at that point I spotted tankless, I installed it, and it lasted many years, but it had valves internally that eventually wore, leaked, moved on to a Bosch tankless, simpler, but again it eventually failed, major part, so it was time, but by then I just wasn’t up to doing the swap, tankless had gotten way more expensive, and my plumber just wasn’t into them, so I went to a regular tanker, he installed, added the drip pan and drain, trouble free for at least to years now, strapped n safe! I did add a recirulator pump/valve, the valve is at the far end of the home, so it puts the hot water back into the cold water side, so we get hot water back there faster, cold water may not be real cold, but it’s worth the cost as it saves a lot of water, waiting for the shower to get warm enough… I’m sure I wrote of the various work in the past in this Building group, maybe even the tankless travails… Today, and I missed it on the WH, but I would have gone heat pump, as we’ve done with out A/C a while back… Also watch for Energy Star ratings, as some rebates won’t happen with out the rating… Unless that’s been cancelled lately…
But today, anything happens, my plumber gets a call, old time local family business, fair, not cheap, but super trustworthy… My 84 year old body just isn’t into what it used to be!
1987!!??!!! Definitely change it. If you are willing, spring for a hybrid (heat pump) hot water heater and your electric bill will go down by $20+ a month. And when you get the new water heater installed, put.a pan thing underneath it with a drain and you won’t have to worry about it flooding in the future.
My daughter and SIL just bought a house a few weeks ago. The insurance company is requiring them to replace the hot water heater. Yesterday they got a quote for installation only, $1000 for a standard HWH, and $1500 for a hybrid HWH! That’s an insane price for a couple of hours of work. I am considering installing it myself because of that.
Well, maybe depends on location, but to replace our old Bosch Tankless with a new 50 gallon American Standard WH ran us ~$2700 a few years ago, new metal stand, leak pan, draining outside, and earthquake strapped…Northern Calif… Long time solid plumber we use for anything serious, stands behind their work completely… It was more than I wanted to tackle, has been trouble free… I later added a recirculation pump/valve to lessen the hot water time to the farthest, master bedroom…
I had removed the original 40 gallon WH, replaced with two tankless units, an Aqua Star, then the Bosch, good wile they lasted, but… I think a tankless replacement would have been over $3500…
I paid $2235 for a 50 gallon electric HWH, removal of the old heater, installation of a drip pan and the drain pipe through the crawl space to the outside and installation of the existing earthquake strap onto the new HWH.
Google Gemini said that was reasonable. DH didn’t want to replace the 1987 heater and got into a sulk.
People are allergic to taxes, which Congress must pass. They see the taxes on their pay checks or 1040s. Slowly people are learning the 50% tariffs on steel are going to be paid. The real effect on things like cars are yet to come. Auto companies have been eating them and that will end. Tariffs on food from Mexico and Coffee from South America are hitting grocery stores. Housing costs will be another surprise - lumber, copper and cement have had big price increases.
I think you posted that on the wrong board. Not home repair related.
Just a quick comment, though. I had to have some service done on one vehicle. The shop manager said that prices for auto parts are already going up. They’re trying to minimize the impact to their customers, but they can’t absorb it all. So, they’re having to increase prices to reflect the tariff prices on auto parts.
Probably not worth paying attention to, but when my hot water heater had to be replaced a couple of years ago I opted for a hybrid. $4400. I think my particular unit is a lemon. I won’t go into details except to say that I did not follow up on the issues when I should have. It is currently set to just heat water the old fashioned way.