Our water heater had been leaking a little for a while, so I finally decided to replace the tank.
I bought one at Home Depot for $738: 40 gallons, 6-year warranty, natural gas, no self-cleaning feature. It was seriously heavy. I barely got it into my RAV4 with the seats folded down, and I think the body got a small dent. If you can, have two people go buy it, haul out the old one, and set the new one in place. It might be close to impossible on your own.
Taking out the old water heater was the hard part. First –>
- Turn the heater OFF.
- Close the gas valve at the bottom left.
- Close the incoming cold water line at the top right.
- Open all the hot water taps in the house to drain the hot water pipes downstream. (Until the water stops.)
- Next you need to drain the water inside the heater tank: just open the drain spigot to the right of the heater’s switch. I figured only a little would come out, so I kept filling a bucket, dumping it, and repeating, but way more water comes out of a heater than you’d ever imagine. Hook up your backyard garden hose and water the yard with it instead. (It just keeps coming.)
- Once the heater is drained, use a wrench to disconnect, in this order: the short hose connected to the cold water line on the right, the hot water hose on the left, and the hose connected to the gas valve (even with the gas valve closed there’s a faint smell, so plug it with a paper towel).
- Drain the old heater. The water kept coming and coming (I spent about 1–2 hours just draining it..), so in the end my wife and I rocked it back and forth and moved it with something like a dolly. This part was the toughest.
**I recommend replacing the short hoses connected to the water lines (cold and hot) even if they look new. A water heater can leak from anywhere if it isn’t sealed tight, and this project isn’t done if there’s even a tiny bit of moisture. Measure the length of these hoses carefully and buy ones that fit if you can. I thought one of the hoses had a tiny leak, so I stopped to go buy a new one, and it turned into the next day. Water that had been trapped in the hot water pipes kept trickling out little by little, and thanks to that my garage hosted a full-on water fight. (Turns out if you leave the hot water open in the bathroom, the water drains toward the bathroom and sink; close it, and the pressure pushes the flow back toward the water heater. You need to take care of the hoses and every part right away. Because I just closed things up halfway and left it until the next day, it was chaos, and every time someone flushed the toilet or ran cold water, water sprayed everywhere.)
- The wooden board under the water heater was soaked and worn out, so I bought a new board (2FT x 2FT) and nailed it down firmly on top of the old one.
- Move the new heater into place and connect the 2 new hoses (cold and hot) between the tank and the water lines. I didn’t measure the distance between my water heater and the pipes and bought hoses that were a bit long, and bending them into place was really hard. When you install the new hoses, be sure to wrap the threads at least 3 times with Teflon tape (the white tape that helps keep water from leaking).
- Connect the gas. Apparently for gas you use some kind of toothpaste-like paste along with Teflon tape; the adapter on my gas hose already had that paste on it, so I connected it with Teflon tape as well.
- To light the new heater, set it to Ignite. Then, kind of like lighting a match, hold down the round knob for 20–30 seconds and (while still holding it) press the ignite button several times in a row, click, click, click (like striking a flint). The status light on the right started blinking blue every 3 seconds. (That means it worked.)
- Open the cold water line (it should be at the top right).
The new heater is powerful. I like my water on the warm side, so I set it just below “very hot”… and it’s hot enough to burn you. I’ve turned it down 3–4 notches. Also, if you turn on the hot water before the hoses and pipes have completely filled with water, it rumbles like an earthquake and the water sputters out. Watch out!
