Water heater repair in Manchester, NH

Lake Massabesic and Manchester Water Works

Manchester Water Works, a city-owned utility, draws nearly all of its supply from Lake Massabesic on the Manchester and Auburn line. The utility owns much of the forested land around the lake to protect it, and it filters and disinfects the water at its treatment facility near the shore before pumping it into the city mains. Its service area reaches past the city limits into parts of Bedford, Goffstown, Hooksett, Londonderry, Auburn and Derry.

Massabesic water is soft. Glass-lined tanks on this supply rarely clog with the thick crusts seen in Midwestern cities, and tankless units can often run a long while before their heat exchangers need descaling. Soft water has a tradeoff, though: it tends to consume the sacrificial anode at a steady pace, so the rod that protects the steel shell can be thin long before the burner or elements show any sign of trouble.

The utility adjusts the water chemistry to limit corrosion in household plumbing, which helps copper lines and fittings. Homeowners still see the occasional pinhole leak in older copper near the heater, especially where dissimilar metals meet without a dielectric union.

Tenements, capes and where the heater sits

The Amoskeag mills once employed tens of thousands of people, and the housing built for them still defines much of the city. Wood-frame tenements and multifamily blocks crowd the streets of the inner West Side, Rimmon Heights, the Hallsville area and the neighborhoods around Corey Square. In these buildings each apartment may have its own small heater in a granite or fieldstone basement, or the owner may feed every unit from a single big heater, or from a boiler paired with an indirect tank.

The North End holds larger colonials and Victorians, many with oil or gas boilers in full basements. Out toward Bakersville, the South End and the neighborhoods near the Mall of New Hampshire, postwar capes and ranches sit on poured foundations, usually with the water heater beside the furnace. Townhouse developments on the city's edges often tuck a gas tank or a tankless unit into a utility closet off the garage.

Fieldstone basements stay damp and cold. They are the places plumbers find rusted tank bottoms, corroded flex connectors and pilot assemblies fouled by dust from crumbling mortar.

Long winters and frozen pipes

Manchester winters regularly bring stretches below zero, and January supply water from Massabesic arrives in the upper 30s. A 40-gallon tank that handles a family's mornings in September may struggle to finish two showers back to back in February. Recovery time grows too, so a heater that seems slow in the dead of winter is often working correctly and is simply undersized for the season.

Cold snaps also freeze supply lines in tenements where pipes run along exterior walls or through unheated back porches. When a line thaws and splits near the heater, water can pour into the basement for hours before anyone upstairs notices. Plumbers in the city get a wave of these calls after every serious arctic outbreak.

Nor'easters that knock out Eversource power leave electric heaters cold and can stop power-vent and direct-vent gas units as well, since their blowers and controls need electricity. Standing-pilot atmospheric tanks keep heating through an outage, which is one reason some owners of older buildings stick with them.

The problems plumbers see most in Manchester

• Cold showers by mid-February because a modest tank cannot keep up with upper-30s inlet water.
• Spent anode rods on soft Massabesic water, leading to early tank leaks once the rod is gone.
• Indirect tank problems in buildings heated by oil or gas boilers, including failed zone valves and circulators.
• Burst lines after freezes in tenements with plumbing along outside walls.
• Backdrafting in masonry chimneys shared by an old boiler and a gas heater.
• Rusted tank bases in wet fieldstone basements on the West Side and around Hallsville.

Typical water heater prices in Manchester

Southern New Hampshire labor costs run close to the Boston fringe, so Manchester pricing lands a little above what plumbers charge in much of northern New England. Carrying a tank down narrow tenement stairs or replacing a corroded chimney connector adds to the bill.

Licensing and permits in Manchester

New Hampshire licenses plumbers through the Mechanical Licensing Board, which operates under the state Office of Professional Licensure and Certification. The same board licenses fuel gas fitters, so a gas water heater job calls for someone holding a valid gas fitter license as well as the plumbing work done by a licensed plumber. Many Manchester contractors carry both credentials. The OPLC website has a license search, so a homeowner can confirm credentials before the truck arrives.

Inside the city, water heater replacements go through the Building Regulations division of the Planning and Community Development Department at City Hall. A city inspector then looks over the gas piping, how the vent ties in, and where the temperature and pressure relief line drains. Towns such as Bedford, Hooksett and Goffstown run their own building departments with their own fees and schedules, so the permit office depends on the address rather than the zip code.

Boilers, indirect tanks and oil heat

Many Manchester homes still heat with oil, and a good share of those make domestic hot water from the boiler, either through a tankless coil inside the boiler or an indirect tank beside it. Tankless coils scale up over time and deliver lukewarm water when demand climbs. An indirect tank usually performs far better and lets the boiler shut down between calls in summer, though it ties hot water to the boiler's health.

Homes on Liberty Utilities gas have more choices: a standard atmospheric tank, a power-vent tank that can exhaust through a sidewall, a condensing tank or a wall-hung tankless unit. Propane is common in the outer parts of surrounding towns where gas mains do not reach. Liberty and Eversource have, at times, offered NHSaves rebates covering heat pump and other efficient heaters, so look up the current offers before choosing.

Venting in old Manchester chimneys

Brick chimneys in tenements and older colonials were built for coal and later oil. When a building owner replaces an oil boiler with a sealed condensing gas boiler, the gas water heater is stranded by itself in a flue far too large for it. On a frigid morning that flue stays cold, the draft never gets established and combustion gases can roll back into the basement.

Plumbers usually solve this with a stainless liner sized to the heater, or by moving the heater off the chimney entirely with a power-vent or direct-vent unit. A carbon monoxide alarm on every floor, required for many dwellings in New Hampshire, is the backstop. If one sounds in a basement with a gas heater, leave the building and call the gas utility's emergency line.

Repair or replace in Manchester

When a Manchester heater is younger than about eight and only a thermocouple, element or relief valve has quit, fixing it is the sensible call. Massabesic's softness wears down anodes, so a tank that never got a fresh rod may begin leaking at the seams sooner than its warranty suggests, and a leak from the tank body itself means replacement. For tenement owners with several aging heaters, replacing them on a schedule before February is cheaper than emergency swaps during a cold snap with tenants waiting.

If a building runs domestic hot water off a twenty-year-old oil boiler, pricing an indirect tank or a standalone gas heater at the same time as boiler work often makes sense. One crew, one permit visit and one round of venting changes tends to cost less than two separate projects.

Around Manchester

Bedford and Goffstown mix Manchester Water Works service with private wells, and well owners there often deal with harder water, iron or radon that affects heater choices. Hooksett has its own village water precinct in parts of town. Londonderry and Derry combine public water with wells on outlying roads. Nashua to the south and Merrimack buy their water from Pennichuck rather than Manchester. Each of these towns issues its own building and plumbing permits.

Water heater questions from Manchester