How old is your water heater?

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Nate R

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Our 30 gal gas was installed in 01 or 02. Will be replaced w/ a 40 gal gas within a year or so.

A duplex my brother bought a few years ago came w/ a Water heater from the 70s. Still working, too! Of course, 2 years later it went out on him. :D
 

Cookie

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Not as old as my furnace was, that was 55 years old before it was replaced in 05. So, the water heater has got a long ways to go before it sees the scrap yard. My cat is 21. I guess, I like old stuff.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Mondays Game plan ...pans under 5 HEATERS TODAY

Today , we are changeing out a Rheem gas imperial
that is almost 10 years old, and still under warranty by a month.. $*00

Change out a 4 year old bradford white 50 gal electric $**0

change out another electric water heater unknown age $***

change out a whirlpool 40 gallon gas that is leaking...$***

another whilrpool heater $***

and their might be a wild card come in today I dont even know about yet

All heaters that I install,

I insist on a pan under the heater,
I dont care it their is not a drain within 100 feet.

5 years from now I am the S.O.B that did not offer them
a pan and now the heater is pissing all over the carpet...
and guess who they want to pay for the damages????..

if they dont want the Therm exp tank,
I cant force it on them., becasue LOWES installers
do not install them

but they will get a pan for an extra 30 bucks.


it feels like a manly day and I have not left home yet...




my 75 gallon gas bradford white is 4 years old.
 
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Cass

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If the system is closed it maybe a code requirement...I know here it is....
 

Gusherb94

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water heater

our house was built in 1990 the water heater is a 50 gallon ruud high recovery thats original to the house so that makes it 19 years old, my grandma had a 40 gallon ruud also from 1990 that worked up until just last september when her neighborhood flooded that was replaced with a bradford white :), the overtaxed 50 gallon water heater in our apartment bldg is from 1996. all three of these places are on city water which comes from lake michigan.
 

Redwood

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Gusher, have you checked to see if the overtaxed 50 in your apartment from 1996 was one of the units that had a defective diptube?
It could explain the "over taxed"
 

Gusherb94

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Gusher, have you checked to see if the overtaxed 50 in your apartment from 1996 was one of the units that had a defective diptube?
It could explain the "over taxed"

well actually redwood its the only water heater serving 2 apts each with 1 bath 1 washer and kitchen with dishwasher plus the 1st floor store :eek: thats what i mean by overtaxed, though oddly it doesnt run out too often :). I dont think the dip tube in this one is defective though i see it was manufactured at the end of that whole fiasco.
 

Ian Gills

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About 80 years now.

HumphreyAutomaticC1.jpg
 

DX

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A water heater replacement is a lot cheaper than water damage.

The IPC has a paragraph that requires a pan when damage from leaks is possible, i.e. if it's not on a bare or tiled basement slab near a drain or in a crawl, etc. Don't know the paragraph number off hand, but someone showed it to me recently.

If you're under IPC, the installer may be liable if he omits the pan.
 

jbclem

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As someone who owned a service business (auto repair) for many years, and knows something about honesty, I want to mention the obvious about this free water heater business. The honest thing to do would have been to tell the original owner about the free replacement water heater. Although it's not your fault that he went out and bought a water heater before the warranty fact came to light, it is still his warranty, not yours. All you had to do was call him up and tell him about it, and ask if he wanted to have the free water heater. There's probably a better than 50-50 chance he would have said no and you could have kept it guilt free. But maybe if he was a person who knows the value of money, and had extra space in his garage; he would have taken his free water heater and put it up for sale at half price and earned $200 plus to help pay for the Home Depot water heater he shelled out for.

Had you done this, you would have gained more PR than you can imagine, the home owner would probably have told all his friends how honest you were. And they would have told their friends. Also, you could have advertised that you were an honest plumber and it wouldn't have been the usual advertising bs. That's worth infinitely more than the money you earned re-selling the short warranty water heater. Not to mention what ever guilt you may be carrying around after taking advantage of two customers. And believe it or not, you would feel good about yourself for many many years, especially if you continued to operate this way.

I know it's hard to turn down free things, but this was a test...hope you've learned something from it.

jc
 

Dunbar Plumbing

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As someone who owned a service business (auto repair) for many years, and knows something about honesty, I want to mention the obvious about this free water heater business. The honest thing to do would have been to tell the original owner about the free replacement water heater. Although it's not your fault that he went out and bought a water heater before the warranty fact came to light, it is still his warranty, not yours. All you had to do was call him up and tell him about it, and ask if he wanted to have the free water heater. There's probably a better than 50-50 chance he would have said no and you could have kept it guilt free. But maybe if he was a person who knows the value of money, and had extra space in his garage; he would have taken his free water heater and put it up for sale at half price and earned $200 plus to help pay for the Home Depot water heater he shelled out for.

Had you done this, you would have gained more PR than you can imagine, the home owner would probably have told all his friends how honest you were. And they would have told their friends. Also, you could have advertised that you were an honest plumber and it wouldn't have been the usual advertising bs. That's worth infinitely more than the money you earned re-selling the short warranty water heater. Not to mention what ever guilt you may be carrying around after taking advantage of two customers. And believe it or not, you would feel good about yourself for many many years, especially if you continued to operate this way.

I know it's hard to turn down free things, but this was a test...hope you've learned something from it.

jc


Who are you, Dr. Phil? Sounds like you got a guilty conscious for ram-rodding your customers for years and now it's a "come-clean" and point fingers tell all. Pfft!



When I got those tickets for him and his wife for the fireworks show,

They told about 5 different groups of people, and since I've done work for them as well, 2, maybe 3 have kicked off of those referrals.


I don't care what anyone thinks about it on the internet; I'd do it again in a heartbeat and not think bad at all of the choice.


BTW,

I spent $16,000.00 with auto mechanics last year. Paid more than some chump flipping burgers for the year. Tell me why an alternator is $200 more than what I can buy it for at KOI. Markup

It's always to dwarf the hourly rate; stick it to them on the price and core charges. Homie don't roll like that; I price it "fair".


Like I said; it happens again, I'll have whole basement full of free water heaters, and since I gots my own already, I'll sell those at "discounted price" which will have them worshipping the ground I walk on, giving me cookies, softdrinks, sugary snacks while I'm sitting in their basement playin' X-box while they're getting me some G-dam pizza dammit! Hurry back!

I can't work without a free meal in me!

Customer today offered me a small bowl of ice cream, fancy that ****!
 
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Ladiesman271

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I don't care what anyone thinks about it on the internet; I'd do it again in a heartbeat and not think bad at all of the choice.


Shame on you!

An honest plumber would have looked at the warranty code on the water heater on site and told the home owner that his tank was still under warranty. The home owner could then make the choice on whether he wanted the warranty replacement tank (installed or otherwise). The home owner could have always returned the newly purchased water heater.

There ought to be a law about that. Whoops, there already is. That type of behavior can lead to license revocation and criminal prosecution in all 50 states under the criminal code!




Customer today offered me a small bowl of ice cream, fancy that ****!



Hope that person liked you. Did you ever see the Sienfeld episode about that? George refused to eat the desert with "the boys", but the "boys" who ate the desert all got violently ill!
 
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Redwood

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Hmmm
A.O. Smith is one manufacturer I would be clueless about what the date code meant until I looked it up on their website or called it in...

Typical A.O. Smith S/N: MH************X

"MH" really does not translate into a date by just looking at it.

On the other hand some manufacturers are fairly easy like S/N: 1198******X for instance.

Perhaps Laddy Boy has the A.O. Smith date codes committed to memory but I doubt it...
Given the 64K RAM that he is equipped with and the amount of useless garbage he stores for spewing out it's hardly likely...
 
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Cass

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Honestly

.jbclem...Did you honestly inform your customers, when you had the auto repair business, that there were lifetime guaranteed parts that were available for and extra cost so that when their brakes wore out they didn't have to purchase pads or rotors or drums again....that way all you would charge for was labor....when the time came for replacement and the customer wouldn't have to spend the $$$ over and over again...on parts...
 
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Dunbar Plumbing

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Shame on you!

An honest plumber would have looked at the warranty code on the water heater on site and told the home owner that his tank was still under warranty. The home owner could then make the choice on whether he wanted the warranty replacement tank (installed or otherwise). The home owner could have always returned the newly purchased water heater.

There ought to be a law about that. Whoops, there already is. That type of behavior can lead to license revocation and criminal prosecution in all 50 states under the criminal code!








Hope that person liked you. Did you ever see the Sienfeld episode about that? George refused to eat the desert with "the boys", but the "boys" who ate the desert all got violently ill!


You can lock me up, handcuff me with e-cuffs, I'll take the soft pink fluffy ones. You all are a bunch of thread wreckers.


A leaking water heater when a customer commits to me straining my hemmorhoids to pull it up 13 steps and over a couple others, then into my truck straining to get it in the bed, carefully without damaging carpet or tile, linoleum,

That water heater is now my property as I'm being told to haul away the old water heater.


I don't care if the customer used it as a makeshift safe and shoved $100 bills in it,

That's my property when the customer commits me to remove it, haul it away.

Honest plumber is the one who put this exact scenario up on the internet, not giving a flying **** what anyone thinks...got that?

What makes me think now is I bet I've been in this boat before and didn't check enough of them, thinking I might of passed up quite a few opportunities this way.

This makes me sad, and I could have a basement full of warrantless water heaters to keep me in the balance for every water heater replacement that turned out harder than expected.


Ehhh-yup!


Everyone please continue while I eat my bowl of ice cream waiting for more replies.


Not one person asked me how many times I've told a person that their tank is under warranty, and saved them a bundle, with them thanking me profusely and generating work because I was a plumbing commando from my office chair. Go put that in your pipe and smoke it!


(feels backside to see if swelling went down from yesterday's water heater replacement)

Oooohe, it's bad, real bad :D


Music while you're enjoying your wait for an apologetic response, NOT!
 
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DX

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Very interesting thread.

Rugged, the ethics of it are between you and your conscience. The legal part is simple: if you sold the original AO Smith, you committed fraud. If you didn't sell the original AO Smith, you're guilty of nothing. You simply discovered value in someone's garbage.

What I find amusing is all the whining about having to schlep the heater up the stairs. Pretty simple, either
1. You got paid for it, did it willingly and presumably you know how much to charge for your labor, or
2. You did it for free, in which case I'd like to hire you AND sell you some swamp land... :)

Didn't read anywhere about the HO putting a gun to your head to haul it away.
 
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