Water heaters
Water on the floor, a shower gone cold, a valve that will not stop dripping. Tank and tankless, replaced or repaired, and sized for the house it is in.
What it covers
Most people arrive at this page standing in a basement looking at a puddle, or standing in a bathroom that has just gone cold. This is the page for the appliance behind both: the domestic hot water heater, the unit that feeds the taps, the showers and the machines. Replacing one that has reached the end, repairing one that has not, installing one where there was none, and deciding which kind belongs in the house. Tank and tankless, gas and electric.
A new water heater is more than swapping the tank. We size it for your household, connect it properly, and make sure it is vented and set up safely.
It does not cover the boiler. A boiler heats the house and a water heater heats the water. Where they get tangled is the indirect tank, which makes domestic hot water off the boiler and belongs to both pages. If the radiators are the problem, start at boilers and heating.
And it is the conventional equipment: a storage tank, or a standard tankless unit. The wall hung, high efficiency kind, the one that vents through plastic pipe and shows fault codes on a display, has its own page at high efficiency boilers and tankless.
Repair or replace
Start with the age. The rating plate on the side of the tank carries the date the heater was made, and on a water heater the age decides most of what comes next. An older tank that leaks, runs out of hot water, rumbles or will not stay lit is almost always at the end, and the answer is a new heater.
Water coming through the tank itself is replacement at any age: the steel has rusted from the inside and there is nothing left to repair. If it is running freely, close the valve on the cold water pipe above the tank now. On an older heater, nearly everything else is replacement too. Putting repair money into an old tank is usually money spent twice, once on the repair and again on the heater.
On a newer unit, some problems genuinely are repairs: a small leak at a connection on top, a faulty valve, the gas control, or an electric heating element. Those are parts, and they get replaced as parts.
One thing not to ignore: water coming out of the pipe that runs down the side of the tank. That pipe comes from the relief valve, a safety device, and it only lets water out when the pressure or the temperature inside the tank is too high. Do not cap it. Sometimes the cause is pressure building up in the house's water system, and if your system needs an expansion tank, we will tell you and install one.
Tank or tankless
A tank stores hot water and hands it out. A tankless unit makes it on demand. They answer different questions, and the house decides which question is being asked.
Storage tank
A tank of hot water, kept hot and ready. The simpler machine and usually the simpler swap, because it can often reuse the gas line and the vent the old one had.
Where it wins. A household with a predictable routine, and a spot with room for a tank.
What it costs you. It keeps water hot around the clock whether you use it or not, it can run out during a long run of showers, and the tank itself wears out with age.
Tankless
Water is heated as it passes through, so it does not run out the way a tank does. What it limits is how much hot water you can use at the same time.
Where it wins. A house that runs a tank dry in the morning, and a basement where the space a tank takes up is wanted for something else.
What it costs you. In a Massachusetts winter the water coming into the house is colder, so the unit has to be sized for how many showers and appliances run at once. It often needs a bigger gas line than a tank did, and a vent of its own. Our team is certified with Navien, one of the tankless makers most often going in around here. The wall hung, high efficiency kind has its own high efficiency page.
The version of this worth remembering: the right size matters more than the type. That conversation is easy to have before the old unit lets go, and much harder after.
What the job involves
- Sizing it for your household. What goes back in is chosen for how your household actually uses hot water, not only for what the old unit was.
- Shutting it down and draining it. The gas or power off, the water off, and the old tank drained.
- Out with the old unit. The old heater is taken out.
- Installing the new one. Set in place and connected to the water, to the gas or electric supply, and to the vent.
- Filling it, starting it and checking it. Filled, started, the temperature set, and run with the hot water on to make sure it works and nothing leaks before the crew leaves.
When you need it
- Water on the floor, and you cannot tell if it is the heater or the pipe above it
- A drip from the end of the pipe that runs down the side of the tank
- The shower goes cold with one person in it, in a house that used to manage two
- No hot water at all, or hot water that arrives and then quits
- Hot water that runs brown for the first few seconds every morning
- A low rumble or a crack from the tank while the burner runs
- The temperature at the tap swinging with no change to the dial
- A tank old enough that the rating plate is hard to read
- A second bathroom, a soaking tub or a bigger household since the unit went in
- A gas or electric bill that has crept up with nothing else changed
Why it matters
A water heater holds a tank full of water inside your house, and when one fails at the end of its life it usually does not drip politely. It empties, often into a finished basement, a utility closet, or the room where everything a household owns is stacked against the wall.
Sediment matters for a quieter reason. Minerals settle at the bottom of a tank and the heater has to work through them to reach the water above. That is the rumble people hear. It is also energy spent heating scale, and it wears the tank out faster.
And the one that gets misread most: a relief valve that lets water out is doing its job, which means something else is not. It is a safety device, and when it keeps opening, the right response is to find out why.
Sometimes the house itself is the reason. A heater sized for the household that lived there years ago may not suit the one living there now, especially in a house that has been divided or added onto. The answer is one sized for the house as it is now.
How Connerney handles it
- Licensed and insured. Licensed and insured in Massachusetts.
- The age and the problem, explained. You are told how old the heater is, where the problem is, and whether that means a part or a new heater.
- Checked before we leave. The new heater is started, the temperature set, and the connections checked for leaks.
- Owner run. Bill Connerney owns the business, answers the phone and books the jobs, and our team of experienced plumbers does the work. Rated 5.0 on Google across 20 reviews, and BBB accredited since 2018.
Questions people ask
- The relief valve on the tank keeps dripping. Is the heater failing?
- That valve is a safety device. It opens when the pressure or the temperature inside the tank gets too high. Sometimes the cause is pressure in the house's water system and sometimes it is the heater itself. On an older heater the age matters more than the drip, and replacement is the likely answer. Either way, do not cap the pipe from that valve.
- There is water around the base of the heater. What do I do first?
- Turn off the water to the heater with the valve on the cold pipe going into the top of the tank, and turn the gas control to off or switch off the breaker. Do not try to drain it yourself, because an old drain valve often will not close again. Then call. The first thing checked is the age of the heater, because on an older tank the age decides most of what comes next.
- We keep running out of hot water. Is a bigger tank the answer?
- On an older tank, running short usually means the tank itself is near the end, with sediment built up in the bottom, and that is a replacement, which is also the moment to size the new one properly. On a newer tank, a broken part inside the tank or, on an electric unit, a failed heating element can be the cause, and those are repairs. A household that has outgrown its heater needs one sized for how it uses hot water now, and bigger is not always the answer.
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Where we work
Based in Natick, working across MetroWest Massachusetts.
Plus the surrounding MetroWest towns. If you are nearby, call and ask.
Call us, or request service
Tell us what is going on. If no one picks up, leave a message and Bill will call you back as soon as he can. If it is easier to write it down, the form reaches the same place.