From personal experience, DO NOT USE HOME DEPOT, LOWE'S, OR ANY OTHER BIG BOX STORE.

They may have a good price on the water heater and basic installation charge, but here's the deal:

Lowe's and Home Depot contract with local installers who do more than half their business installing water heaters one right after another as fast as they can. Yes, they will come out and install your water heater. But, according to them, you'll need these couplings and other assorted parts that they mark up to four or five times the regular shelf price so that the additional parts themselves are almost as much as the basic installation charge.

Oh, and in our case the crew that did ours emptied the remaining water in our old water heater not into the front yard to just soak into the lawn, but right into the cleanout line---along with the sediment from the bottom of the tank. Clogged the line to the street, big time.

Called the plumbing contractor, who argued they did nothing wrong. I sent him the video clip from our security video. They came out the next day.

Never again. Find a local plumbing company and hold their feet to the fire to do it right.

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
Absolutely deal with a trusted local plumber.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
Never again. Find a local plumbing company

Yep. A trusted local plumber is a must-have for a homeowner. I went through a couple before finding my current one, and he's outstanding - communicative, fairly priced, very knowledgeable, and a hard worker.

Well worth it when your house hits one of those "10-20 year house maintenance intervals" where joints, pipes, fixtures, and water heaters start going haywire. I can handle basic plumbing tasks like swapping out a faucet, fixing a toilet flush valve, changing a cartridge, or even replacing a faucet shutoff valve, but for anything bigger or riskier it's nice to just call Michael and know it'll be done right in a timely manner at a good price.

My daughter married a master plumber. Lucky me! He put in a contractor grade Bradford
White for us a few years back. Been bullet proof so far. But you won't find them at home improvement stores a contractor has to get it for you. Can't say how much I don't recall seeing a invoice.

Replace the upper heating element.

quote:

Now, to find somebody who will do it, in the Apopka / Altamonte Springs area (adjacent to Orlando).

Call around and get rough prices over the phone. You'd be amazed at how some will want to over charge you. One of my best friends is a Master Plumber and has a half dozen guys working for him. He told me recently that he quoted a guy $2200 over the phone and the guy kept saying no way, that's way to low. Here the place he called prior had quoted him over $5k. My pal, said "Sir, I'll happily do it for $2200 and I'm making a healthy profit at that price".

He said in today's society there's no reason the customer can't snap a few pics, send them to his cell and he'll give you a quote over the phone.

quote:

Originally posted by sigarms229:
He told me recently that he quoted a guy $2200 over the phone and the guy kept saying no way, that's way to low. Here the place he called prior had quoted him over $5k.

Wow. I know there are regional differences in plumbing pricing (as with all cost of living factors), and water heater costs have probably risen due to pandemic supply and materials shortages, but even $2200 seems 2x-3x higher than expected. $5000+ is just ludicrous.

As I mentioned earlier, I had a higher end (not quite top of the line) Rheem installed last year for just a shade over a grand. And the more average water heater will run you like ~$700 installed around here. ($600ish for the heater and $100ish in labor.)

Sometimes people will give you the "I don't want your business/job quote" $5K is the go ask someone else price, perhaps because of time, schedule or they just don't want the particular job....

Around here, $2200 would be enough of a "go away" quote to clearly get the point across.