<p>Where have you found best deal for water heater (with Install) ? </p>
<p>Our water heater dates back to 1993, when our house was built. We’ve considered proactively replacing it a few times, but we never saw any sales. The basement is unfinished, and there is a floor drain (low risk pf damage if it leaks) … so we just let the old one keep cranking. Still 20 is OLD, so we are thinking about it again.</p>
<p>We’ve also looked into on-demand units, but a traditional unit seems best for us.</p>
<p>Gas or electric?</p>
<p>My old gas water heater was over 25 years old when it failed - probably around 32 years old. I was amazed it lasted so long and so was the plumber I used. It never did leak - it just pretty much quit heating and the outlet pipes were reduced to a very low flow due to corrosion. Up until the very end though, it worked great.</p>
<p>For this one I decided to have a plumber replace it (a plumber who’s done good work for me in the past on a house renovation) and wanted a high quality unit so I hopefully won’t need to fuss with it again. It’s a Bradford-White unit fwiw.</p>
<p>In my last house I just bought the WH and replaced it myself. </p>
<p>If you’re looking for relatively cheap try Home Depot and/or Lowes. They s/b able to give you an installed price I’d expect. If you have a plumber you deal with then you could get a price from the plumber as well.</p>
<p>We are about to replace our gas tank hot water heater with a tankless heater. First of all, there are rebates aplenty if you are switching out a gas appliance (especially if you go from electric to gas). Additionally, our gas company is offering a plan to just add $25 monthly to our bill for 5 years and that covers the whole thing-install, removal of the old unit, the new unit plus a 5 year parts and labor warranty. The only thing we have to pay for is the electrician to put in a dedicated outlet for it outside. We don’t get the rebate if we go this way so the other option is to pay the whole thing up front then get the rebate. If you’re talking electric, I would think you could buy one from Lowes/Home Depot/Sears and get it installed by them.</p>
<p>I buy one from a local or chain hardware store and replace it myself. Getting the old one out is the hardest problem (lots of sand in the tank makes it heavy). Sometimes if you pay for delivery, they will haul away the old one.</p>
<p>Most of the hardware stores can help you arrange for install. If you are going the install route, then look around for the higher quality heaters through plumbers. Last time I looked, AO Smith had nice once, but they would not sell direct to the consumer.</p>
<p>Now that I think about it, maybe your best route is to contact a plumber you trust and discuss it with him. Since you are not in a rush, he might be able to cut you a deal to install it when he has down time.</p>
<p>THANKS for the input.</p>
<p>OURS IS GAS. We have Lowes and Home Depot close Also Sears… a bit further down the road. I am find paying more for a higher quality unit if longer lasting. Alas, we have no good plumber connections. </p>
<p>Tankless just does not seem to make sense for the two of us. It seems about 3x the cost, with little payback. When there was tax rebate a few years back, I found that no household units qualified. Also I read it needs annual maintenance - yuk. Please Add links and further advise if you think we should look more at tankless.</p>
<p>I considered tankless but not for long - too expensive.</p>
<p>We got solar water heater and state tax rebate.</p>
<p>Tankless is the way to go but the fittings and installation requirements are too difficult to overcome when converting from a regular gas water heaters. In some cases it is impossible unless you want to open the walls or the floors. </p>
<p>The major obstacles are the venting and the gas lines. It costs three times to install vents for tankless and the gas line to feed the tankless is much larger in tankless. Basically you need to pull a new gas line for its installation.</p>
<p>We’ve ruled out tankless. In CO (lots of sunshine) it seems that solar might make sense… does it make sense to just do solar water heater, or is that usually done with furnace system too?</p>