$2100 water heater versus $800
NietzschesMustache
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
I need a new indirect water heater. The oil company quoted me $800 for a 50-gallon. A local plumber quoted $2100 for a 40-gallon. Why the wide difference in price? I plan to convert from oil to gas soon. Should I take the oil company’s offer and then switch to gas, or is there something I should be wary of?
Replies
Why not switch it to gas now?
Because I doubt the oil company would give me such a good price if I was no longer a customer.
I'm not a plumber, but as a DIY homeowner, I have to answer such questions for myself all the time, so perhaps the following will help you figure this out.
If you haven't converted to natural gas yet, and your water heater has failed, aren't you pretty well stuck with replacing your current water heater with one that uses the energy supply source that you have now? If that's the case, the oil company can easily do the job for $800 because they only have to remove the old heater and install the new one - Aprox $400 for the heater (bulk discount) and labor at maybe two hours from start to finish with two guys working, knowing what they are doing, working well together, and all the tools at hand - this ignores travel time and schlepping the old water heater to the dump.
Now to the next quote - do you have natural gas lines to your house, a meter, and lines run through your house to the site of the water heater? Perhaps the local plumber has included all that in his price?
I ask, because, Home Depot's most expensive 12 year, 40 gal, ecostar, natural gas water heater is the Rheem EcoSense at $528 - say $600 with taxes. This leaves $1500 for the installation. Lets say the plumber is part of a big company and charges $80 an hour. That's aprox 19 hours for the install. 2.5 days? I sort of doubt that he's going to plumb your house for gas and install a new gas water heater in 2.5 days. You should maybe inquire just what is included in his quote. But, if he's an independent and charges more like $40 an hour, that's 5 days, and maybe he could do that if his helper is his kid.
Does this help answer your question as to the wide difference in quoted price?
if all the plumber was doing was pipe'n for gas to the water heater.... depending how far and what materials are allowed in his area... it could be a 2 hr job or a 8 hr job... but in no way should it take 5 days to run a single gas line... do a leak down test and have a meter set... not around here anyway... they bring the gas line & meter to the building... you plumb to within 12 inches of it they do the rest... here you can now use the stainless steel flex gas line... a pretty fast install vs black pipe...
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Not really, because the indirect heaters I've found on the internet run from $1200 to $1500 dollars. I don't know if that's retail to a HO or wholesale to a contractor. The price is just for swapping the heater. The cost for converting the boiler to gas is $2000 from the same plumber.The heater plumber wants to use is a Bradford-White which I can't find any prices for.The gas line is already in place with a T near the boiler.
Edited 1/19/2009 12:07 am ET by NietzschesMustache
Ah, wonderful things, assumptions. I know nothing about heating system boiler and indirect water heater systems. So scratch all my earlier comments - you need a real plumber's perspective. :)
You are leaving something out.
And INDIRECT water heater does not use gas or oil or electric.
And I would not be surprised if the suppliers are also quoting completely different class of equipment.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
maybe the plumber quoted a condensing/high efficiency unit. They can run much higher than the lower efficiency models. The oil guy wants to sell you quick and cheap so as to lock more oil sales. That may be his other motive ... oil sales. He can sell cheap if he's guaranteed you'll buy energy product from him for a long while.