Water heater repair in Alhambra, CA

Alhambra's wells and the basin cleanup

The City of Alhambra operates its own water utility, and in a typical year roughly two thirds or more of its supply comes from city wells in the Main San Gabriel Basin, the large aquifer that underlies most of the valley. The remainder is Metropolitan Water District supply, filtered at the F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in La Verne, which mixes Colorado River and Northern California supply.

That basin carries a long industrial history. Decades of solvent use by factories and dry cleaners left trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in parts of the aquifer, and the EPA listed areas of the San Gabriel Valley as Superfund sites in the 1980s. Alhambra responded by building wellhead treatment: one plant, funded partly by the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority and running since 2008, uses activated carbon to strip solvents from several city wells, and the city has added nitrate removal at other well sites. Water leaving those Alhambra plants meets drinking standards, yet carbon and ion exchange for nitrate leave the calcium in place.

So Alhambra homes get hard water, often well above 250 milligrams per liter of total hardness. A gas tank fed that water forms a thick lime cake on its bottom within a few years, and tankless heat exchangers scale up quickly. Softeners are common in remodeled homes and nearly absent in older rentals.

Bungalows, back porches and detached garages

Alhambra grew along the Pacific Electric Red Car lines, and neighborhoods such as the Midwick Tract, the streets around Alhambra Park and Almansor Park, and the blocks north of Main Street are full of houses from that period. Many were built with a raised wood floor and a small crawlspace rather than a slab, and the original water heater, if there was one, often sat on the enclosed back porch or service porch beside the kitchen.

Over time many owners moved the heater out to the garage behind the house, which means a long run of pipe and a slow wait for hot water at the kitchen sink. Others kept it in a porch closet that now needs proper combustion air vents, a pan and a drain line to satisfy current code. In a few houses the heater sits in an exterior closet bolted to the side wall, where stucco and wood framing around the cabinet have softened from decades of drips.

The city also has a dense mix of postwar apartments, 1960s and 1970s dingbat-style buildings and newer condos along Garfield Avenue, Atlantic Boulevard and Valley Boulevard. Those buildings tend to use stacked closet heaters or a shared boiler, and an owner replacing one unit often has to match a vent shared with neighbors.

Quakes and wind in the San Gabriel Valley

The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake was centered only a few miles southeast of Alhambra and damaged older brick buildings, chimneys and unreinforced storefronts throughout the area. Heaters in old porch closets that were not braced fell over or pulled loose. Since then the state has required double strapping on all heaters, and Alhambra's inspectors check them along with a flexible gas connector and a sediment trap.

The valley's other hazard is wind. The Santa Ana windstorm of late 2011 toppled hundreds of old trees across Alhambra, San Gabriel and Pasadena and knocked out power for days. Downed limbs crushed some detached garages and outdoor heater closets, and flue caps on roofs were bent or blown off. After any big wind event, look at the vent cap above your heater before relighting it.

The problems plumbers see most in Alhambra

• Lime cake in tank bottoms that makes gas heaters bang and boil on Alhambra's well water.
• Tankless error codes from scale in remodeled Midwick Tract homes with no softener in the line.
• Rotted porch-closet floors under heaters in 1920s bungalows where a slow drip went unnoticed.
• Long waits for hot water from heaters moved to detached garages at the back of deep lots.
• Corroded galvanized connections at the heater in houses that still have original supply pipe; the leak page shows where Alhambra plumbers look first.
• Shared or undersized vents in apartment closets along Garfield and Atlantic that limit replacement models.

Alhambra water heater price ranges

Alhambra's prices sit close to the rest of the western San Gabriel Valley. Bungalow jobs climb when the crawlspace hides failing gas pipe, when a porch closet has to be reframed, or when a heater is moved closer to the kitchen to shorten the wait for hot water.

Alhambra permits and the CSLB

Water heater replacements in Alhambra need a permit from the city's Building Division, whose counter is in City Hall on South First Street. The inspector checks seismic straps, gas connector and shutoff, vent pitch and clearances, the relief valve discharge line, and combustion air for closet installations. Older houses with heaters in porch closets often need small upgrades to pass, which is worth knowing before you choose a contractor on price alone.

Alhambra plumbers doing jobs over $500 must carry a C-36 card from the Contractors State License Board. The board's website lets you confirm the license, its bond and any disciplinary history in a minute. Alhambra has many small family-run plumbing shops, and a good one files the Alhambra permit itself and meets the inspector on site.

SoCalGas, Edison and going electric

In Alhambra, SoCalGas runs the gas mains and Edison runs the power grid. A gas smell near a heater means leaving the house and calling SoCalGas from outside. Edison, SoCalGas and state programs have run rebates at times on heat pump water heaters, which are well suited to the valley's warm air.

The obstacle in a 1920s bungalow is usually the electrical service. Many still run on 60- or 100-amp panels, sometimes with original knob-and-tube wiring in the walls, and a heat pump unit needs a dedicated circuit. A 120-volt heat pump that plugs into an ordinary outlet is one workaround. A detached garage with its own subpanel can be another.

Scale, softeners and replacement timing

Flushing an Alhambra tank once a year slows the lime buildup, though on water this hard a neglected tank may be too clogged to drain fully by the time someone tries. Tankless units need a descaling cycle at least yearly, and twice a year without a softener is not excessive. If you are already replacing a heater, adding a softener loop or a scale-reduction cartridge at the same time protects the new unit.

Most tanks here last around 8 to 11 years. A unit that is past ten, leaking at the base or making loud noises despite a flush is usually ready for replacement. For bungalow owners weighing options, the replacement page lays out tank, tankless and heat pump trade-offs.

Around Alhambra

Monterey Park, just south, operates a municipal water system on basin wells and treats for contaminants too. South Pasadena has a small city water utility of its own. San Gabriel and Rosemead are served mainly by private or district water systems such as the San Gabriel County Water District and San Gabriel Valley Water Company, and San Marino gets water from California American Water. Each city issues its own building permits, and the El Sereno side of Los Angeles across the border falls under LADBS and LADWP.

Water heater questions from Alhambra