Water Heater Installation

Needing to replace my water heater soon. It’s a 40 gallon tank style (gas). I would consider myself relatively mechanically inclined but have not installed/replaced a water heater before. Done a variety of plumbing projects while re-modeling bathrooms, etc...is this something I should fork out the money for (and any ballpark estimates? I live outside Atlanta)?

or should I just buy the new one and attempt the install on my own?

thanks in advance!

 

Do it yourself. Pretty easy if you’re comfortable with basic plumbing. I hate paying big $$$ for something I can do myself, I just replaced my gas water heater and took about 2 hours. Installing my suspension was way more difficult!

 

If you’re comfortable with the gas line— It’s very easy. Buy the supply line kit that includes compression fittings. I’d bet you save over $1k DIY’ing.

 

Thanks fellas for the suggestions. Definitely comfortable with basic plumbing and minor gas line work. Eases a little of my forethought stress hearing you guys’ say give it a go ✊

 

From an explosion? Yeah I was gonna say gas is no joke. And anytime a gas line is opening a leak test needs to be done. Depending on location the gas company can be liable. They will test at no charge here for any work done.

 

Piece of cake, unless you have health restrictions it's a two beer job.

 

Hell, if my son-in-law can do it, YOU can do it!!

 

Muuhahahaha.....

 

Paging Dr. @15whtrd

 

I definitely feel like it’s a DIY job. But do not mess up on the gas installation. Get a little spray bottle with soap and water to spray on the joints when you’re complete. This is how you check for leaks. Also, the ventilation of the water heater, make sure you get it right and everything attached properly. If the new water heater is shorter/taller, you need to extend/shorten your venting. You don’t want back pitch, you do want to eliminate any possibilities of it coming apart. Typically a home has double wall venting inside the walls all the way to the roof along with 1 inch clearance from combustibles, a.k.a. wood. And a single wall vent from the heater to the double wall at the ceiling or wall. In my area, three screws are required at each joint to keep them from coming apart and each single wall ventilation piece needs to be crimped, so it can be a male slid into the following piece of pipe. Usually about an 1”to 1-1/2”. Just think direction of flow, you don’t want flu gas escaping the joints.

Crimpers
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Malco-Redl...VSCitBh0c2wTTEAQYASABEgJm1PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Double cut tin snips. You can get away with a hacksaw or sawzall as well as just straight cut tinsnips. But I use something like this.
Malco M2004 10 in. Double Cut Aviation Snips

$77 Malco M2004 10 in. Double Cut Aviation Snips

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ZOMTYU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_YHCBQVSA4AS1DSCBFT8R?_encoding=UTF8



While I agree this is very possibly a DIY job, if the previous water heater was installed correctly and it is a direct change out. But, as Chris @ColoradoTJ pointed out, if you get it wrong, bad things can happen. I’ve done 100s if not 1000s of them, so it’s easy for me to say DIY. Sometimes poorly, previously installed water heaters as well as bad venting inside the wall etc. all plays a factor. So, replacing like for like isn’t always a good idea if it was shit to begin with LOL. This is one area that California has pretty strict regulations on installation. Earthquake straps, T&P termination, flu venting etc. I can’t emphasize enough how critical it is to get the flu and gas correct. Also if it is in your house, a drain pan, Otherwise known as a Smitty pan, with a drain to the outside of the house is good measure and code in my area, as well as piping the T&P valve to the exterior of the home. For something that looks so simple, there is a lot going on for it to be correct. You don’t have to worry so much if it’s outside the home walls, but certain things are always critical. I’ve seen some seriously shitty and dangerous installations!

Think you could post a picture and its location in the home? I always prefer garage and outdoor WH shed installation for safety and flood reasons.

 

The gas connection is the simplest part of the job.
I'll throw a wrench in the mix and suggest an on demand water heater. I installed a Bosh unit 15 yrs ago and couldn't be happier. So long as we has NG and water we have hot showers, makes it really nice during power outages

 

Damn thats crazy. Saddest part is its so avoidable. At a minimum a CO detector would have likely saved them as well i would imagine.

 

Super simple! But critical. I’ve seen people over tighten the adapter into the water heater gas valve and split it. Causing a gas leak that I just happened to find while changing out some water flexes. Could’ve been bad given the right circumstances. But you’re right, easy if you know what you’re doing.

 

And use teflon tape or pipe putty for your gas connection to insure no leaks.

 

Teflon works fine, 3 to 5 wraps, clockwise when facing the end of the pipe. I like pipe dope better, sometimes I even use a combination of the two. Teflon first and then a little dope on top to make a nice and smooth connection.

 

Also make sure you have clearance, new water heaters are fatter because they have more insulation than older ones.

 

Thanks for the detailed post! Here’s a few pictures (mediocre quality, and I didn’t have a chance to pull insulation off). The vent ties into my furnace vent a few feet away. I was hoping to be able to find a new unit that exactly (or closely) matches the old one so the swap would be as straight forward as possible. Judging off the shitty pictures, does this setup seem relatively standard? The unit is located in a utility room in my basement

 

I did my natural gas fired water heater myself last year. And my combustion gas exhaust also ties to the furnace combustion gas exhaust duct that is 5 ' away.

As mentioned a time or two above your "work point" has got to be your combustion gas exhaust duct. Everything else can be adjusted to match up. But get the new water heater exhaust flange to end up in the exact same place as your existing. I did it all myself with my wife assisting just the setting of the tank on the stand.

 

OK you’re in the basement I see. Some of those adjustable vent 90s look twisted oddly, make sure none of that comes apart. A good carbon monoxide detector is advisable in that area. They did hard pipe it to your water heater, hopefully you can sweat a little pipe. It looks like they installed the expansion tank pretty close to the female adapter on top of the heater. That isn’t something we have to deal with much around here.

Hopefully you find a new water heater with the same inlet and outlet centers. I would probably install some dielectric unions. You have to be careful with those so you don’t cook the plastic isolator. Or Cut the tank off in a place easy to put a coupling again, then cut above the tee where you can put another coupling away from that joint, install the female adapter and tee on the new water heater then reattach the tank and existing cold line with couplings. Or cut all that shit out and just redo it with the expansion tank a little closer to the shut off valve so you’ve got room to work. I like unions or flex lines for ease of future replacement. But I don’t know the codes in your area.

 

I don’t like this joint. It looks like they could’ve twisted the eccentric adjustable 90 a little more square with straight vent pipes. It looks like the theme has been aluminum foil HVAC tape. Good idea to get a roll of that. I typically use some short self tapping tech screws. But again, I don’t know the code in your area. The tape should be sufficient.

A little trick we use to make sure the vent is drafting correctly. Light a match just next to the flu on top of your water heater and then blow it out. Hold the match a few inches away from the gap between the heater and the hat,
you should see the stream of smoke being sucked to the vent. rudimentary but it gives you an idea if it’s drafting properly.

 

I don’t like the 90 going into the furnace flu, I thought it was supposed to be some sort of combo or ty

 

you’re right, it does look kind of weird. I would like to see a wye. Almost looks like they butched a hole in it and wrapped the shit out of it with aluminum foil tape.

 

yeah the venting looks suspect. not up on latest furnace vent codes - usually those are tied to the manufacturer recommendations.

For me, I'll do any and every last bit of work on the house - except gas. Too much risk there for my tastes. Between venting and possible leaks, I would really rather be safe than sorry.

Regardless what direction you go - get a combo explosive gas/carbon monoxide detector to stick in there.

 

My $.02, maybe even swap out that gate valve w a ball valve. Those gate valves corrode pretty quick. Make sure your venting is lapped the right way too, it’s directional.

 

We moved into a new house last month and I immediately put CO detectors in several areas of the house.

 

Awesome, its actually code to do so I am pretty sure, although there is no stipulations as to what height to put them, it just has locations. I believe the proper placement is about 4-5 feet off the ground. I have the combo smoke/CO on the ceilings since the combo ones were easier to find, and its good to have backup in addition to the dedicated CO sensors I have around chest height in the kitchen and garage. On the second floor, i have them at foot height, since there isnt appliances upstairs and any CO would be coming up from the downstairs.

 

My wife wanted to get CO detectors for our current house, as we’ve them in past houses and as she was a fire/medic said they were very important . I told her no, don’t need them and she sort of flipped out. As a guy that did HVAC for a good part of my adult life I explained to her that the only gas appliance we had was the grill outside. Sort of funny. BTW, I hate not having nat gas to my house.