Water heater repair and replacement in Great Falls.

A Great Falls house tends to want more hot water than one tank makes. The county’s tax records put the middle house at four full bathrooms, more than one in four has five, and most have a finished basement, often with a bedroom or den of its own. Run three showers at once on a single 50 gallon tank and the last one goes cold, so plenty of houses here carry two heaters side by side, or one for the main floors and one for the basement suite.

The fuel varies house to house. A little under half the owner homes burn natural gas and about four in ten heat with electricity. About one in twelve run on propane, and a propane water heater is a gas model set up for it: it vents the same way and sits on the same price row, $3,379 to $5,485 installed on the flue you have. An electric tank runs $2,757 to $5,493. Fairfax County wants a permit for any heater that burns gas, propane included, even like for like.

Close to a quarter of the private wells the Health Department has mapped in Fairfax County are inside the Great Falls Census area, and well water is hard on a tank in its own ways. The county tells well owners to check that their treatment equipment works, and names softeners and neutralizers. A neutralizer raises the pH by dissolving minerals into the water, and those settle on the bottom of the tank; softened water eats through the anode rod faster. On a well, the anode and the sediment are the first things we look at before we tell you a heater is finished.

Nine in ten houses here have a full basement, and that’s where most heaters stand, often next to a finished room. A tank that lets go down there soaks carpet and drywall before anyone sees it, so the pan under a new heater, and where its drain line goes, matter more than usual. Both come with every replacement we price.