When and how to change an electrical water

August 23, 2015 4:50 PM

I'm trying to figure out whether (and, if so, when) to change our electrical water heater.

We live on the fourth floor of a condo building in the Boston area. We have an 80 gallon electrical water heater, which I fear is approaching the end of its life. There are no leaks as far as I can tell, but some rust on the bottom. It's a little unclear how long the heater has been in use, but I think it's safe to say it's been used for 10 years now (it has a 6 year manufacturer's warranty).

Questions I have:

- There's a not insignificant chance we'll want to sell the unit within the next six months. Is the expense for a new water heater something we'd likely be able to recoup in the sale?

- How long can I prudently wait before changing it? Is it safe to wait until I see leaking? Is leaking likely to happen very slowly at first (in other words, will I have a warning?)

- What is a new water heater and labor likely to cost in the Boston area? Do you have recommendations for brands? (and, if in the Boston area, contractors?)

- Is it worth it to buy the heater myself at, say, Home Depot, and then find a plumber to install it (while I'm somewhat handy, I think doing this myself is beyond my ken)? Home Depot has installation services -- are they any good?

- Are tank-less electrical water heaters any good? (I've heard stories about fluctuating temperature, not working well with a dishwasher etc.). Because we are in a condo, gas heaters are not an option.

Here are some photos of the current state of things.

Thanks so much for any and all advice and guidance.

posted by AwkwardPause to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

Best answer: 1) Local market conditions would dictate this, but in general, probably not. If all the other appliances were new, perhaps it would be worth replacing, but otherwise probably not. Or, looked at another way, if this is the only work that your condo needs, it would be worthwhile to do so that potential buyers wouldn't need to do anything, otherwise, not. A home inspector will flag this, but it is very common to find a water heater past warranty.

2) I would wait until it starts leaking because that will likely be after you sell. It could be fine for years. Generally, leaks develop relatively slowly, though they can come faster. You have a drain pan underneath the heater; is it connected to a drain so that it won't flood if it leaks? Also consider your tolerance for going a few days without hot water.

3) You probably don't need an 80 gal heater to replace this. The bigger the heater, the more heat you lose in standby losses. 50 gal or 60 gal is probably fine, unless you draw a lot of baths and use other hot water at the same time. This is also a good time to consider low flow showerheads, if you don't already have them. The heater will be around $500, but long term it makes sense to buy a more expensive model with a longer warranty. Labour is a few hours.

4) Possibly, if your plumber is willing. Get some quotes and then compare.

5) Tankless: probably not for you. You need a lot of electrical power to run a whole home tankless water heater, like 50-60A at 240V. Your condo probably doesn't have the spare capacity for this. Do consider a heat pump model. The GE Geospring can be had around $1000 and will deliver quite significant savings as your electricity is quite expensive in Boston. There may be rebates available in your area. It removes some heat and moisture from your home, which is negative in the winter, but nice in the summer.
posted by ssg at 5:12 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: There's a not insignificant chance we'll want to sell the unit within the next six months. Is the expense for a new water heater something we'd likely be able to recoup in the sale?

No, probably not. Water heaters are not something that most buyers look for or care about. They might notice that a new one is there, but I don't think that it packs the emotional punch that you need in order to get a positive ROI out of it. As far as I've ever heard, about the only things that get you positive ROI are kitchen and bath renovations, and only if they are really high-impact and done at low cost. (In other words, cut corners but make it look good.) Oh, and outdoor stuff like landscaping, decks, etc., assuming the house is sold in the summer.

I guess you could debate the ethics of selling a unit with an aging water heater, but I would personally not pay money to replace it if I knew I was moving out in six months, unless it was literally squirting water out of it like a prop from Das Boot.

About the only thing that I'd do is keep an eye on the thing, and perhaps turn off the water feed if I was going to be away from home for a weekend or something, in case it does go.

Without seeing photos it's hard to judge just how bad this thing really is, but I don't think of 10 years as being that old; I've had high-quality tank units go 20 years before replacement, although they weren't showing rust. But keep in mind that the outer sheet-metal shell that you see when you look at the unit from the outside isn't the thing actually holding the water: there's that sheetmetal shell, then insulation, and then the inner water tank, which is made of thicker metal. Rust on the shell could just indicate humidity in the area where the heater lives, rather than a severe problem. On the other hand, if what you're seeing is rust being deposited by water that's seeping out of the insulation from deeper inside the heater, that could be really bad.

You can have someone drain the tank (or drain it yourself) and see what sort of rusty crap comes out, and then pull the sacrificial anode and look in there with a fiber optic camera to inspect the tank interior ... but again, with only six months to go? I'd probably play the odds, myself, and not poke at something that's not currently a problem. (Also, you should expect that anyone who you bring into look at the thing is going to tell you to replace it. I've had plumbers offer to replace water heaters that were six months old.)

Regarding the tankless heaters, you can start quite the religious war over them, but at current energy prices they don't seem to be a winner in terms of costs. Certainly it wouldn't make sense to put one into a house you're planning on selling, since you won't be around to recoup the costs and the buyer may or may not care about it (some people might; I wouldn't, in fact I'd probably consider it a negative because I don't like the things due to their inability to produce low volumes of hot water, but to each their own). Where they really shine is when they're installed close to the point of use, which if you're talking about replacement of a tanked heater is probably not the case. Save that debate for the next house in any event.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:19 PM on August 23, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks so much, this is really helpful and also significantly bringing down my anxiety levels about this issue.

To Kadin2048: Here are some photos: http://imgur.com/a/f5pjs. And one of the backside of the heater/the pan drain: http://imgur.com/OgAg01V

I'd be happy to take more/add if that were helpful.
posted by AwkwardPause at 5:43 PM on August 23, 2015

Best answer: From a buyer's POV, it's not going to do much--a hot water heater is a very minor expense (usually about $1K between the heater and the labor) and so at most it might be something they'd use as a negotiation tool. Kadin2048 is absolutely right that you shouldn't install a tankless water heater if you're going to move--I have a higher-end model, and while I like it a great deal, it also cost 8K.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:04 PM on August 23, 2015

Best answer: It seems like other posters would discourage you from replacing until you really need to. I just wanted to add that if you do need to replace, you might save some money by leasing a hot water heater. I didn't even know that was possible until we bought our house, but indeed, our heater is owned by New England Water Heater. As buyers, the lease was a small ding against the house, but not enough to keep us from buying.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 6:46 PM on August 23, 2015

Best answer: We have an 80 gallon hot water heater from 2003 that just sprang a leak tonight. And we are in the North of Boston area (I just asked my husband if he posted as a sock puppet with some details changed). You can probably wait as long as you don't mind the idea that it might start leaking (and by "leaking" I mean spraying a lot of water from the connection area such that you have to shut off the water to make it stop) at an inconvenient time and you will be out of hot water until the heater is replaced. We had no warning before the leak, though we'd noticed in the past couple of months that our water wasn't as reliably hot as it used to be and there were some weird pressure issues sometimes. It is a pain to not have hot water on a Sunday night/Monday morning, but there are plenty of dudes who can do an install of a new one tomorrow, and the cost is going to be about $1400. We are going down to a 50 gallon tank from 80. All that said, if you're going to be moving soon, I don't think it's worth it to get a new one just yet. The housing market in Boston is so hot, I don't think this is going to be a make or break issue for a buyer.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 6:52 PM on August 23, 2015

Tankless water heaters take a lot of amps and volts; 60+ amps and 220 volts ... your existing fusebox and wiring probably exclude that as an option.
posted by buzzman at 7:06 PM on August 23, 2015

My $0.02 after looking at the photos is that it doesn't look that bad. I think it's probably just surface rust on the sheet-metal exterior. Also, the heater is in a catch pan, and the pan appears to even be connected to some sort of drain, which gives you a little safety margin if something does go wrong. (I assume that was probably installed when the unit was built but it's nice; if it's not code it ought to be.)

I'd roll with it as-is, taking perhaps the minor precautions of: (1) making sure everyone in the house knows where the water shutoff is, in case something happens; (2) turning the water off if you're going to be away for a while. Honestly, both of those are just good things regardless of the state of your water heater.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:25 PM on August 23, 2015

If you turn off the water to the tank and drain the tank, you can do a couple of things to inspect its insides. Naturally, it'll cost you whatever 80 gallons of water costs, but of course you can turn off the water supply to the tank and then take a few showers before getting on this. Just, you know, don't forget you did that.

Take a look at this page on This Old House.com for some maintenance tips (as well as a link to an install guide), but what you want to check are these: the anode, which is used up over time and which, when gone, will allow a massive increase in the speed of corrosion inside; the heating elements (probably one near the top and one near the bottom, both sticking into the side of the tank) which can be corroded and lose their effectiveness (which you may well have noticed in terms of the tank's refractory period); and flush the tank of sediment, which could consist of the aforementioned corroded stuff and whatever came in with the supplied water. You can also do a visual inspection of the tank for corrosion of the walls-- especially if that anode is gone.

Don't have a supply shut-off valve? Put that on your wish-list when (if) you get a new tank. Without that value, you've got to cut off your unit's water supply.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:08 PM on August 23, 2015

If you have basic plumbing and electrical skills, it's really not that hard to replace an electric water heater yourself. Just connect the new one like the old one. Although, hiring someone to do it usually takes care of delivery and disposal as well, which is a great advantage over doing it yourself.
posted by ShooBoo at 10:24 PM on August 23, 2015

We've never premptively replaced a hot water heater so you're probably good for awhile but do keep an eye on it. That drip tray is nifty but it does mean you might not notice a leak for awhile. The last one I replaced (well, my landlord) I'd noticed a few drips on the floor, called the agent and left a message and they sent someone over right away and were incredibly grateful I'd called because it was moments away from totally dying and flooding everything.

That said, I'm particularly paranoid about them because my family have had them die in spectacular fashion in practically every home we've had. Seriously, if I rent X apartment, they will be replacing the hot water system at some point soon, they just don't know it yet. We sit around telling stories about this when we catch up. My favourite was when my baby sister called me at my step mother's house (mother didn't want to risk step mother answering) to tell me there were 'clouds in the back yard'. She must've been 3 years old and had no idea what she was supposed to be telling me.

So don't invite me or any of my kin to visit you'll probably be fine until you sell.
posted by kitten magic at 11:55 PM on August 23, 2015

Devil's Advocate question here: How much damage would it cause if it sprung a sudden major leak? And if you were not home for several hours? Do you have a hose ready to drain it if necessary while you are waiting for a plumber? Have you been doing the yearly maintenance drain?

Ours looked perfect from the outside, a 6 year 80 gallon gas model at 11 years, and there had been no warning at all and it was still heating water beautifully when I found it gushing from the bottom last fall. If it had been in the attic or upstairs in a closet, I'm certain we'd have had signifigant damage to the house. In the frustrating/lucky way this house was built, it is in the garage and there was no damage, though it did cost extra to replace because it is a direct vent. We were just lucky that the water heater install company had one in stock locally, or we'd have had to wait 3 weeks to get one ordered.

Even if you are probably going to sell in 6 months, it may not be worth it to wait. And professional install is worth every penny.
posted by monopas at 1:50 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you, all, this is very helpful and reassuring, though it is exactly the scenario monopas describes that keeps me up at night. And we do live on the fourth floor of a condo building. The longer I wait, the closer we'll likely be to when we sell -- what's the saying? The best time to get started on a project was yesterday. Maybe I'll at least get a quote or something.
posted by AwkwardPause at 3:52 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Do you know that the rust you're seeing on the outside is just on an outside cover? There is a whole other tank inside of it. See this to understand how they're built. Your outer shell may just be rusty because it's cheap metal, and you have humidity. It doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the inside tank itself.
posted by mareli at 5:05 AM on August 24, 2015

It's probably not worth replacing it at this time. A little rust around the base of the water heater is more-or-less expected (depending on the location). That said, it is something that the home inspector will probably make a note of, and it could become a negotiation point. They may ask for you to make an allowance for replacement in your price.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:24 AM on August 24, 2015