Bradford White MI403S6FBN

We recently purchased the above 40 gallon water heater. We were charged $800. I did not see it until after installation. It sits so low to the ground (much lower than its predesessor) that I am concerned if we get water in the basement, it would not take much for the water to get inside the unit. I think it would take a minuscule amount of water to wreck the water heater. Is this correct? The installer wants to charge $200 to place bricks under the newly installed water heater to raise it up some and reconnect it. I wish the installer would have asked us before installation about the wisdom of raising it. Although we rarely get water in the basement, it is a worry. Should we pay more to lift the water heater?

I always install the heater on the ground, but then we have few basements here. As a practical matter, if the water gets high enough to "damage" the heater where it is, it would probably also get high enough to damage it if it were a couple of inches higher. The water would have to get high enough to enter the air inlets on the back of the heater, because the combustion chamber "door" is sealed.

All WH are made that way now. They needed to maintain approximately same overall height, with new larger "techy" burner compartment.

The critical thing on a WH is the gas valve...if that gets submerged, the valve MUST be replaced. The valve itself may end up being higher or at the same height as the bottom of the tank on your old one. The new ones are required to have protection from igniting flamable vapors.

quote; The critical thing on a WH is the gas valve

The critical thing is "when does the gas burner get submerged", because at that point the system has to be disassembled and all the water removed from it.

You can recover from a submerged burner, you should NOT try to use a gas valve that has been submerged...that was my point.

As far as I know, no manufacturer will authorize any repair of a WH which has been submerged up to the gas valve.

My point is that the cost of repairing the FVIR system on any water heater where some of the components have been submerged could make it uneconomical to do it, nor would I give any guarantee on the future operation of the water heater if a customer insisted on it being repaired. Meaning, that I probably would not do it. I am not sure that $200.00 would be enough to raise it because it would need to be drained and some piping might have to be revised, depending on how it was connected.