How much should a 75 gallon water heater cost to purchase and have installed?
 

Installed by a plumber, not handyman. My brother was quoted $2500 for 75 g tank WH or $4500 for a similar sized tankless. Sounds steep. I told him he should’ve moved out his Macan and Mercedes GLS out of the garage before the plumber came.

The WH themselves in the box stores run $700-1500 IIRC.
Installation can be a serious pain, as I've already experienced, and that might factor into it depending on the situation.

$2500 might be a normal price for a 75gal. IDK.

I recently paid about $2000 for an A.O.Smith 40gal with a new water main shut-off.
Everything was clean and tidy for the worker. Long time customer as well.

I don't think we have install one that big. 40 gal, 70 gal, the install is the same. Normally, my plumber charges us 430.00 per water heater if he's doing the plumbing for the whole house under remodel. The heater itself maybe 12-1500 bucks plus 300 bucks for new valves and fittings.

The last one I had installed by a plumber was under grand. That included removing the old one, which turned out to be a pain in the ass because it couldn’t be drained. I don’t recall the size but it was sufficient for a three or four bedroom house.

Gas or electric? Is it a direct replacement or an upgrade?

Typically you take the cost of the WH and that is about the cost for installation. If you are upgrading to a high efficiency WH that requires a dedicated intake and exhaust then the cost may be more. Here in Colorado, it is now required a licensed plumber do the install and permit pulled so that an inspection can be done. There have been deaths related to CO poisoning from poorly installed WH by DIYers. Here, a gas 75 gallon WH purchased and professionally installed would be at least $3000.

Gas

Both prices are in line for where I live. Bringing the installation up to the current local codes can get expensive. And with gas, you want it done by the book.

I can't fathom a 75 gal tank for a gas WH in a home...why?

My gas WH keeps up with the outflow....YMMV.

Take cold showers :D

consider biting the bullet and pony up for a tankless.

Power-vent will be a little more.

Gas go boom when installed incorrectly. An inspector found a small leak in my furnace.

I've seen a gas explosion level a 3 story apt building I lived in back in college. Home inspector detected a gas leak at my WH when I purchased...house was only two years old :(.

Gas don't play....

Direct replacement v new install can make a big difference.
A direct replacement is 1 gas line and 2 water lines.
No different than putting in a new washer and gas dryer.

I don't see a $2K premium for the tankless water heater. I have two for my housel, & the plumbing isn't much different from one with a tank. Maybe the initial cost is more, but not by that much. I read a Consumer Reports on the longevity of household appliances saying tankless water heaters normally lasted 20 years, which was by far the longest of any appliance. I don't see any real reason for one with a tank.

Water heaters with a tank will last quite a long time if you don’t let the anode go away completely. Change it once in a while and you’d be surprised how long one can last.

It is like asking what a set of 4 tires cost. It can vary so much depending on the situation. 4 - 14 inch tires for a little car is cheaper than one 20 inch high performance tire.

The code changes constantly. There are even increasingly (decreasing?) level of idiots in the world making "idiot proof" an impossible goal. Idiots store gasoline in old leaky cans next to the water heater and the fumes get out and the water heater ignites the fumes and boom. In my city they keep raising the height of the water heater above the ground level. Now it is REQUIRED to have a drain pan, with direct pipe through a wall to the outside. In the past if our water heater leaked, it would run down the garage floor and out the garage door. Yea it would have been a mess, but no significant damage. Now we have the water heater up 24 inches above the garage floor, sitting in a pan with a 1 inch CVPC drain pipe to the outside through the side of the garage wall that would dump out into a flower garden. That is just to be in code.

In the next county north of us you can put a water heater in on the ground level and no drain pan. Cheap, but not real safe.

True on longevity. I had a 75 gallon gas water heater (Rheem) in an apartment building that lasted 17 years. When I consciously started thinking how long it had lasted, it began to leak & needed replacement. It was bought from a plumbing supply instead of a big box store.

I got estimates of well over $3K for a new water heater installed.

Bought the replacement model that dropped in, heater was a little over $1K and install DIY was easy enough.

^^^^ This. I've replaced plenty of water heaters. $2K for a simple replacement is ridiculous.

If electric, tankless upgrade would require 2 or 3 40-60 amp circuits. If gas, sometimes an upsize in gas pipe size.

Agree, it’s nuts.
I can’t believe there’s so many guys here who don’t believe they can competently screw a simple gas line on without blowing up their house. Doesn’t take a Tim Hancock to do that.
Takes all kinds, I guess! :)

what did it do chris? is it leaking, or not firing? i had an old gas one i thought was going bad because i would lite the pilot, it would fire and only heat for a couple minutes and it would shut down again. i did some research and found a youtube video of some funny plumber from the boston area that suggested blowing or vacuuming out the vent screen at the bottom of the unit. mine was completely caked with dust and dog hair from being in the garage leading it to being starved of combustion air.. i simply removed the igniter unit to access the screen blew the dust and hair out and vac'd under the thing and all be if that was the problem. worked like new again.

if you are experiencing the start up and shut down like i did you may consider this being the issue.

Jeepers.....that's a heap of moola.

I've replaced my 40 gal. electric one here myself a couple times.

$3-400 for the heater and the rest is just my time and elbow grease.

They can build a 911 motor, but can't replace a water heater.:D

I need to mover to OR just to install water heaters, take my laborers with me, undercut everyone and leave my CA lic plate on. That's a lot of money. Where's the heater, in the basement mounted sideways?

It's the H2O... scary stuff for air cooled guyz :D

They should not be so rigid and try the water variety. They even shift themselves:D

It was leaking underneath. It’s 16 years old though. I wanted to DIY it but my bro says no. It’s his house and his money. He could’ve saved a bunch.

About 3 months ago I had a 50 gallon, 65,000BTU, non-powered HydroJet water heater installed along with adding an expansion tank and the total was $2011.00 including removal and haul away of the old water heater. I am not sure how much more a 75 gallon is but it can't be that much more.

Water heater business is a scam. Fell for it once, to my credit I negotiated down but still stupid to pay what I did. Recently worked with look 171 and bought a WH locally for $700, replaced my defective unit same day by myself, and the shop took my old WH as scrap for free. Heck if I can dot almost anyone can.

nuts

I did a tankless el for $250 inc an up rated breaker
use sharkbites way quicker then silver solder

When I first looked at tankless water heaters, I decided on propane because the electric ones drew 160A each at full tilt. My main panel is only 200A, though we'd probably never hit the full 320A running both. The two I have deliver 6+ gpm and we use an average of .23 gal./day. (The tankless water heaters are the only gas appliances we have. The rest of the house is electric.) There is only me & the wife though.

You use propane to heat the house also?

I love tankless water heaters only if its a newly remodel home. I learned my lesson early on when these things came on the market. I put in the next biggest units available for the size specify by the mfg. Now, I install two little ones to run each side of the home. Its much more efficient eliminating re-circ pump and all the other PITA, costly items. Unless its a smaller home where one will do the trick, then we install re-circ pump and timer. Most people do not maintain them yearly and life shortens. Many are too cheap to install the scale filter, a very important item. They are great investments with endless hot water and a huge space saver. I run conventional water heaters in all my rentals. Change them out every 12 years. Good or bad, I send my workmen out and get rid of them to eliminate problems with whiny tenants. No electronics to go bad, it just works. I am ok with an electric cook top. I really like the new convention cook tops. Electric oven is far superior. Iknow these things but I do not cook. Can't cook. I may burn down my house if I boil water.

Dave, if you think about it, 400 labor isn't that bad. It takes a couple hours to perform the actual install depending on the location and the size of the heater. Plumber makes 100 per hour? He has to go get the new heater and get it to you yet he has to haul the old one back to dump it. That's a couple hours of work. Maybe a helper to get the dang thing in there especially the 75 gal giant. This includes his over head. Gas isn't cheap.

Hey man, I am glad it worked out for you.

We paid $1875 for two 50 Gal gas Rheem heaters and expansion tank with new (rerouted) plumbing. The original two heaters had been plumbed incorrectly/efficiently so they were plumbed in pseudo parallel. New guy plumbed them correctly in series so the first tank is set to get water warm and the 2nd at normal operating (hot) temp. We've also got a water circulation pump to provide close to "instant" hot water even at the furthest bath/shower.

Jeff. No I don't heat the house with propane. Like I said in my post, the tankless water heaters are the only gas appliances. The rest of the house is electric. Plus, like I said, the daily average propane usage for me & the wife is .21 gal./day (or slightly less than a quart for the two water heaters). I have a 250 gal. tank that was filled on 5/31/18 and refilled on 6/23/20 with 146.6 gal. The last time I descaled mine was seven years ago & I had no scale then after three years of use. I think my water softener (80K grain) is doing a good job.

Just by having the water softener, it will lengthen the life of those tankless water heaters another 10 years.

It really rare to find homes that has electric heat up here. Most are gas except some of the home or condos that were built in the 70s where they are all electric. How's that electric bill during winter months

My electric bill is zero. I have solar panels (should break even maybe next year) and sold 3 megs of power back to SDG&E last June (@ 2 cents/kW - what a ripoff). I ordered a Tesla Model Y for my wife which I'm going to use that 3 megs to charge in the future. If I have to pay them because of chrgeing the car, I may just add more panels.

Interesting. I want to install solar panels dedicated to my AC unit but not hook up to the grid in anyway. Have a switch on those muggy days without full sun during the summer or to keep power from flowing back into the grid. I know, it isn't allowed. Other then that, I would be glad to pay for power on all other items through out the house. We don't use all that much power beside the few lights and microwave to heat up left overs and the kids on their computers.

Could depend on your WH location, specifically if it's in a closet. I recently replaced water heaters in my rentals and the water heaters fit in their respective closets but the door opening was too narrow and required me to do some construction.

For my house, I installed a Tankless and that required me to enlarge the gas supply line.