Tankless Water Heater Installation, Repair & Service in Antioch, CA

Converting an older Antioch home from tank to tankless

The gas supply is the first thing we check. Many homes from Antioch's 1970s through 1990s building boom have a ½-inch gas line running to the water heater, sized for a 40,000 BTU tank. A whole-house tankless unit can draw four or five times that, so a conversion often means a larger gas line from the meter and sometimes a meter upgrade from PG&E.

Venting changes too. A tank's metal flue usually can't be reused; a tankless unit vents through a sidewall or the roof with the pipe its manufacturer specifies. Condensing models also need a condensate drain. We plan the vent route around your garage layout and handle the permit and inspection.

• Gas line and meter capacity checked against the unit's BTU rating
• Peak hot-water demand calculated in gallons per minute
• New venting and, on condensing models, a condensate drain
• Isolation valves installed so annual descaling is quick
• Permit, inspection, and haul-away of the old tank

Tankless repair, maintenance and descaling

Most tankless service calls we get in Antioch trace back to scale on the heat exchanger or a dirty inlet filter, both of which cause error codes, fluctuating temperature, or shutdowns under demand. A yearly descaling flush with isolation valves takes well under an hour and prevents most of these calls. When a part has failed, typically a flame sensor, igniter, flow sensor, or fan, we read the error code, confirm the cause, and repair it, often on the first visit.

Replacing an aging tankless unit

If your unit is 15 to 20 years old and leaking from inside the cabinet or throwing heat-exchanger codes, replacement usually makes more sense than repair. A replacement can often reuse the existing gas line, but not always the vent: moving from an older non-condensing unit to a condensing one generally means new vent pipe and a condensate line. We check before quoting so there are no surprises.

Under the Bay Area Air District's current rules, most whole-house gas tankless units fall in the 2031 zero-NOx tier rather than the earlier deadline for residential tank heaters. If you're weighing a heat-pump water heater instead, we can check your space and electrical panel.