Replacing the Downstairs Hot Water Heater

[Editor's Note: Here's a look back to September, with one of those blog posts that shows up as a way to help me keep track of key events of homeownership.] When the water was lukewarm at best and the power vent was running constantly, as we headed into the Labor Day Weekend, it was a pretty good indication that the downstairs gas water heater was having trouble. Installed and inspected in mid-2009, I preferred to think this 75-gallon workhorse still had life left in it. The pilot light was still alight, but the burner was not firing up except sporadically. It was time to call in the experts.

I called in two different plumbing firms that have both provided service here. So, if Google says the national average cost to replace my system is $3,000, why were all the estimates at least twice that? (I love my home but I sometimes I get a little overwhelmed by home ownership!) I do feel like there was once a world in which licensed service professionals tried to be thorough in examining and diagnosing problems and then coming up with the most cost-effective solution. In my early days of homeownership, I remember the guys saying things like: “If we can save you some money here, we’ll find a way to do it.”

Nowadays, it feels like these firms are owned (or inherited?) by people close to my age but who would rather get to retirement and a life living at the beach faster. How else to explain a lack of interest in figuring out the problem and instead jumping to the sales pitch for an $8,000 tankless water heater?

In the end, though, I know when I’m over a barrel (or a tank, as this case may be), and it’s not like I can live without a hot water heater for the master bedroom and kitchen and laundry room. I went with the plumber who seemed interested in why my old unit had begun to malfunction, and who’d actually replaced my first hot water heater back in the first few years I owned the house, before I’d done any renovation work on it. That happened on Friday the 13th, so now you know the biggest present I unwrapped for my birthday!