Data checked August 6, 2026 · source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

How much does it cost to replace a water heater?

A 40-50 gallon tank swap, priced from the actual equipment price, the actual parts list, and the government wage data for the plumber doing the work.

Where the money actually goes

This is the same quote, taken apart. Every line is a real price from a real listing or a published fee schedule, not a number we made up.

The low column assumes a straightforward job with the cheapest listed equipment; the high column assumes the full parts list, the top of the labour range and the most expensive permit jurisdiction we measured. Most real quotes land in the middle.

What the equipment costs

Source: Home Depot tank water heater category pages, checked August 6, 2026.

Specific products, with the price we saw

Not a recommendation and not an affiliate link. These are the listings we checked on August 6, 2026, so you can see whether the equipment line on your quote is close to retail.

Retail prices move. If one of these is wrong now, tell us and we will fix it with the date.

Parts list

What this job costs in 49 US metro areas

Materials cost roughly the same everywhere. Labour does not. The wage column is US government data; the labour column is that wage run through our published multiplier; the total applies it to the job above. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara comes out 13% higher than Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater on the same work.

Wages: BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 47-2152 — public domain. Metros where BLS suppressed the figure are left out rather than estimated. Totals are FieldPricing calculations from the parts and hours on this page — they are not quotes and no contractor has agreed to them.

What did you actually pay?

Everything above this line is arithmetic on public data. It is honest, and it is not the same thing as a real invoice. If you have had this work done, the number on your invoice is worth more to the next reader than anything we can calculate.

What did you pay in total? Just the number is fine. $1,850, or "about 2 grand". Where? City and state. We publish this; it is the whole point.

When? Month and year is enough. What did it cover? Equipment included? Permit? Old unit hauled away? Anything unusual? This is the part that makes your number useful to somebody else. Email — optional Only used if we need to ask you one question before publishing. Never shown, never sold, never mailed to.

Website

Send it in

No account, no login, no newsletter. A person reads every submission before it appears, so it will not show up instantly. If we cannot make sense of one, we leave it out rather than guess — and if you would rather just email it, that works too.

What actually moves the price

Gas vs electric

Gas adds roughly an hour of labour for venting and the gas connection, and the unit itself costs more. Electric is the cheaper install.

Switching fuel or size

Going from electric to gas, or 40 to 75 gallon, means new venting, new gas line or a new circuit. That is a different job, not a swap.

Access

A tank in a finished basement with a straight path out is a swap. A tank in an attic, a crawlspace, or up a flight of stairs adds hours and sometimes a second person.

Code catch-up

An old install that predates current code often needs an expansion tank, a proper T&P discharge line, a sediment trap or a drain pan added. Each is cheap in parts and real in labour.

Code requirements that cost money

These are the things an inspector will look for, and each one is a line on the invoice that a homeowner often reads as padding. Mostly it is not.

• Expansion tank — Required where a check valve or backflow preventer creates a closed system (CPC 608.3). Adds about $33-$37 in parts. Source.
• Seismic strapping — Two restraints, upper and lower third of the tank, in seismic zones (CPC 507.2). About $25 in parts. Source.
• T&P discharge piping — Full-size, in approved material, terminating outside (CPC 608.5). Source.
• Combustion air (gas) — Two permanent openings, each at least 100 sq in (CPC 506.4.1). Source.
• Garage installs — Ignition source at least 18 in above the floor, plus impact protection (CPC 507.13). Source.

Code citations are to the California Plumbing and Mechanical Codes unless noted, because California publishes its handouts openly. Your jurisdiction adopts its own version of the model code — check locally before relying on any of this.

What we could not verify

We publish this list because a cost page that never admits a gap is not telling you the truth.

• Lowe's and A.O. Smith unit prices — those pages render prices with JavaScript and returned nothing to our fetch.
• T&P discharge piping as an itemised line — we could not tie it to a single retailer SKU.
• Home Depot Type-B vent stick prices — the price did not appear in the served HTML.

How we got these numbers

• Wages — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 47-2152 (Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters), pulled through the BLS public API. US federal data, public domain.
• Billed rate — wage × 1.3 labour burden × 1.70–2.45 overhead and profit, so 2.21×–3.19× the wage. Our assumption, published in full on the methodology page so you can disagree with it.
• Equipment and parts — retailer and supply-house listings, each linked above, checked 2026-08-06.
• Labour hours — Parrish Services — water heater installation time · Corroprotec — how long to install a water heater.
• Permit fees — PermitCalculator water heater permit dataset v2026.Q1.
• Disposal — Dropcurb — water heater removal cost, published 2026-03-20.

We do not use RSMeans or Craftsman cost data. Their licences forbid building a database from them, so every number here traces to a public source or a public listing you can open yourself.

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