My hot water is coming out yellow or light brown. Abacus plumbing gave me an estimate of $6,000 for replacing two 40 gal. water heaters (in attic) with one tankless. There is already an adequate gas line and an outlet at the location. Is that a reasonable price? It seems high to me. Another option is to do maintenance on the two existing tanks. The estimate on that was a little over $2,000. He said to do the maintenance he would need to install a check valve and expansion tank. I have a water softener from Aqua-tex. The Abacus guy said that when the softener was installed they should have installed a check valve and told me about changing the anode rods in water heaters to titanium ones. And also that an expansion tank should have been installed. Is all this true and do you think the prices are fair?
Pete
Tom: Well, a couple of pieces of information I don’t know, so I’m going to have to just assume. I’m going to assume they’re older water heaters, and they’re not new. If they were older, I would say that first off, the $6,000 to remove that whole gaggle, as you said earlier, of water heaters, and get rid of them …
Charlie: It could be a pride. Like lions.
Tom: Yes it could. And put in a new on-demand, that’s a very fair price.
Charlie: Yeah.
Tom: It’s what it’s going to cost. I think in the long run, with your water softener and that on-demand, you’ll be nothing but happy all the way down the line, and you won’t have to do anything else. I don’t think I’d put two grand into restoring those unless they were brand new water heaters, and I doubt they are.
The other option I would ask Abacus about, that maybe would help a little bit, is one 40 gallon water heater and a backup booster, a much smaller on-demand booster on that system, and maybe they could get the price down a little bit with that. I don’t know, but that’s what I would look into. I would not repair those old ones if they’re old. If they’re less than three years old, maybe, but I don’t think I’d do that for two grand, no. Water softener and an on-demand, you’ll be good for twenty years.
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