No hot water, a rusty tint in the tap, a rumble from the closet, or a puddle on the floor. Every one of those has a different answer, and the answer is not the same for a two-year-old unit as it is for a fourteen-year-old one. This is the decision framework: how old is too old, which symptoms mean call someone tonight, which ones are normal wear, and how to weigh a repair against a replacement without guessing.
A conventional tank water heater typically lasts 8 to 12 years; a tankless unit typically lasts 15 to 20-plus with proper care. Rheem states that “traditional tank water heaters typically last 8–12 years” while “tankless water heaters can last 15–20+ years with proper care.” That last qualifier is part of the claim, not decoration: the tankless figure assumes the unit is actually being maintained. Treat both as typical windows rather than hard cutoffs. A well-maintained tank in soft water can outlive its range, and a neglected one in hard water can fail inside it.
Warranty length is a rough proxy for how long a manufacturer expects the tank to hold, not a promise of failure on that date. Bradford White’s current residential warranty document lists tank coverage options of 1, 6, 8 or 10 years depending on the model, plus 6 years on parts. A heavier-duty model with a longer tank warranty is generally built to last longer, but the warranty period itself is not the expected lifespan.
Two things shorten that window: hard water, common enough in Texas to be worth checking your own utility’s water-quality report for, which speeds up sediment buildup (more on that below), and a unit that has never been flushed. Two things extend it: a tank that gets an annual flush and an anode rod that gets checked, and simply buying a heavier-duty model to start.
Gas smell, water leaking from the tank itself, or a temperature-and-pressure relief valve that will not stop discharging are safety issues, not maintenance items. Act immediately, not on your own schedule.
A gas water heater is a combustion appliance connected to a fuel line, and that changes the stakes. Texas Gas Service’s own safety guidance describes a natural gas leak as something you can smell (“a rotten egg or sulfur-like odor”), hear (“a hissing or roaring around natural gas piping, meter or appliance, or if your natural gas appliance fails to ignite”), or see (“unexplained dead vegetation, blowing dirt or bubbling puddles,” or a yellow flame instead of a blue flame at the appliance). That last one is the sign most likely to show up on the appliance this page is about: a gas water heater that will not light is on the utility’s own leak list, not just a pilot problem. If you notice any of those near the water heater, follow the utility’s instructions exactly as the utility writes them, with nothing trimmed. Texas Gas Service’s list is: “DO NOT flip a light switch or ring a doorbell.” “DO NOT open or close windows or garage door.” “DO NOT light a match or cigarette.” “DO NOT use your phone or any electronic device.” “DO NOT start your vehicle if nearby.” And on the do side: “DO leave the area immediately.” “DO call 911 and 1-800-959-5325.” “DO keep others out of the area.” The utility’s instructions do not end with the bullets. They continue: “Remain away from the building until an official familiar with the situation tells you it is safe to return. Once your natural gas has been shut off, do not try to turn it back on. Only a qualified service person may perform this task.” Three of those are wider than people assume: the windows and the garage door stay exactly as they are, neither opened nor closed; the ban covers your phone and any electronic device, not only a phone used inside the building; and if the gas gets shut off, turning it back on is not yours to do, even once the leak is fixed and the house smells normal again. CPS Energy’s guidance for its San Antonio service area runs the same way. Its what-to-do list, in full, is: “Exit the building immediately,” “Leave the door open on the way out,” “Leave the area immediately if you’re outside,” “Go to another location, call 911, and CPS Energy at 210-353-HELP (4357),” and “Stay away from the area until it’s safe to return.” Its what-not-to-do list, in full, is: “Don’t ignore the warning signs,” “Don’t operate anything electrical,” “Don’t turn lights on or off,” “Don’t use a phone in the area,” “Don’t turn a flashlight on or off,” “Don’t light a flame or strike a match,” and “Don’t open the garage door or use appliances.” The first entry on that second list is the one people skip. Noticing the smell and deciding to finish what you were doing is itself on the utility’s do-not list.
Carbon monoxide from any malfunctioning gas appliance is separately dangerous because, unlike a gas leak, it has no smell. Texas Gas Service’s list of “POTENTIAL SIGNS OF CARBON MONOXIDE” has five entries, and only the last is about how people feel:
Four of those five are things you look at rather than things you feel. Soot around the water heater’s vent or flue, or a burner flame that has turned yellow, is a reason to act even if nobody in the house has a headache. The utility is specific about what to do, and specific about the phone: “If you suspect the presence of carbon monoxide in your home or business, leave immediately and use a phone located away from the potential hazard to call 911.”
Water leaking from the base or side of the tank itself, rather than from a fitting, valve or the drain valve, points at the tank rather than at a serviceable part. Rheem’s own guidance lists this alongside rusty or discolored hot water as a sign to replace, and states the scope this way: “If the leak is from the tank itself, replacement is usually required. Small valve or fitting leaks may be repairable.” A tank that is actively leaking from the shell can fail suddenly rather than slowly, so treat it as urgent.
The temperature-and-pressure (T&P) relief valve exists for one reason: to vent the tank safely if temperature or pressure inside climbs past what the tank is built to handle. Rheem’s own explanation of the valve puts it plainly: if “the temperature gets higher beyond expected and the pressure is not released, it may even cause an explosion.” A valve that will not stop dripping or discharging after you test it, or one that never releases at all, is a safety component that has failed, not a part to leave for later. Rheem puts the test among the tank tasks that “should be done, typically on an annual basis,” and describes it this way: “Lift the valve’s handle briefly to make sure water flows freely through the discharge pipe. If it doesn’t release properly or if it continues to leak afterward, replace it to maintain safe pressure levels inside the tank.” A valve that fails that test is a same-day plumber call, not a wait-and-see item.
Work on a gas water heater in Texas is licensed plumbing work, and the statute says so directly. The Plumbing License Law defines “Plumbing” to cover “a fixture, appurtenance, appliance, or piping” used to “supply, distribute, circulate, or recirculate water, other liquid, or gas,” and counts “the installation, repair, service, or maintenance” of such an appliance or piping as plumbing in its own right. The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners administers that law, and gives its own purpose as protecting Texas citizens against “the health and safety hazards that can result from improperly installed plumbing, gas, and medical gas systems.” That is reason enough not to have unlicensed work done on the gas side of a water heater.
Slower recovery than the unit used to have, an occasional pilot outage, or lukewarm water at times are usually a single worn part on a tank that is otherwise sound. Rumbling and popping is sediment, and here we part company with our own source: Rheem files that noise under replace. We file it under maintenance first, and say why below.
The rumbling and popping sound that shows up in an older tank water heater is sediment: minerals and debris settle at the bottom of the tank and, as Rheem’s own maintenance guidance puts it, “often reduc[e] efficiency and caus[e] rumbling noises.” Left alone long enough, the same buildup “often leads to corrosion, leaks, or system failure.”
Our one source on this point reads it more harshly than we do, and it would be dishonest to bury that. Rheem’s repair-or-replace article lists “persistent rumbling or popping sounds caused by hardened sediment on the tank floor” among its “Signs Your Water Heater Should Be Replaced,” alongside water leaking from the base of the tank and rusty or discolored hot water. We cite the other two of those three as replace signals, and we do not cite this one, so here is the reasoning. The same manufacturer’s maintenance article treats the same sediment as a flushing job: one of the tank tasks that “should be done, typically on an annual basis,” not an end-of-life verdict. The word doing the work in the replace list is “persistent.” Noise that stops after a flush was overdue maintenance. Noise that survives a flush is hardened sediment that will not come out, and that is the signal Rheem means. So: flush it first, and if it still rumbles afterward, read it Rheem’s way and start pricing a replacement rather than a repair. Either way, ignoring it is how a repairable unit becomes a replacement candidate early. Rheem recommends flushing the tank as part of that annual maintenance, and in hard-water areas says to “plan to flush or descale about every six months.” The lifespan line in Rheem’s maintenance guidance belongs to the anode rod rather than to the flush: the rod “attracts corrosion to protect the tank’s interior lining,” and “checking it annually can add years to your water heater’s lifespan.”
A pilot light that goes out occasionally, a thermostat or heating element that fails, a thermocouple that needs replacing, or an anode rod that needs swapping are all normal wear items on a tank that is otherwise sound. These are the kinds of repairs Rheem’s own guidance treats as reasonable on a unit “under 6–8 years old” that “shows no signs of tank corrosion or structural leaks” and where “repair costs fall well below 50% of replacement.” A failure in one of those parts does not by itself say the tank has corroded or failed.
If the repair costs less than half of what a new, installed unit would cost, and the tank itself shows no sign of corrosion or a shell leak, repair it. Past that line, or once the unit is well into or past its typical lifespan, replacement is usually the better spend.
Rheem puts a threshold on it: “if repair costs exceed 50% of the price of a new unit, replacement is almost always the better investment.” Below that threshold, and especially on a unit under 6 to 8 years old with a sound tank, a repair is the economical choice. A new thermostat, heating element, thermocouple or anode rod costs a fraction of a full replacement and buys back years of service on a tank that has no structural problem.
Above that threshold, or once a unit is 10 to 15-plus years old and starting to show a second or third failure, Rheem’s guidance treats replacement as the better investment even if the current failure is technically repairable. The math stops favoring repeated smaller repairs on a unit nearing the end of its typical service life, and a new unit resets the clock with a new warranty rather than patching a tank that is already past the typical lifespan for its type. A repair job is priced the way any other Texas plumbing call is priced, and that is not one common structure. As our own pricing guide puts it, the state does not set prices or prescribe a pricing model, so a shop may quote a flat rate per job or time and materials. See what a plumber charges in Texas for how each one is built, rather than repeating it here.
What actually drives the cost of either a repair or a full replacement, without a specific dollar figure attached: tank size, gas versus electric (gas units and their venting cost more to install than electric), whether you are replacing like-for-like or switching from tank to tankless, and any code-required upgrades that come with the swap, such as an expansion tank on a home with a closed plumbing system. Get more than one quote before committing to either path. The range between a straightforward like-for-like swap and a tank-to-tankless conversion with new venting is wide enough that a single ballpark number would be misleading either way.
Replacing a water heater also means a permit: every Texas city we have checked against its own published pages requires one, including for a straight like-for-like swap. See do you need a permit to replace a water heater in Texas for what that means city by city, rather than repeating the permit question here.
Tankless costs more to install and typically outlasts a tank unit by several years, but it is not the right call for every house. This is not a full tankless buying guide, just the one factor that belongs in a repair-or-replace decision.
If you are replacing rather than repairing, the tank-versus-tankless choice is worth a moment because it changes both the upfront cost and the expected lifespan of what you are buying. A tankless unit’s 15-to-20-plus-year expected life, against a tank unit’s 8-to-12-year window, means a tankless replacement is a longer-term bet: a higher installed cost up front, often including new venting and gas line sizing, against fewer replacement cycles over the life of the house. A straight tank-for-tank swap is the simpler and usually less disruptive project, and the more common choice when the existing venting and gas line already fit. Neither is the automatically correct answer, and working through full installation-cost tradeoffs belongs to its own piece, not to a repair-or-replace decision. If you go tankless, budget for the possibility that your existing gas line or venting was sized for a tank unit and needs upsizing, which a plumber can confirm on the same visit that quotes the job.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, each published by the body that sets, measures or administers the thing it describes. We record the document’s own date and the date we read it, because published pages change without notice.
| Source | Document date | We read it |
|---|---|---|
| Rheem Manufacturing Company — Water Heater Lifespan: When to Repair vs. Replace | published 2026-03-25 | 2026-09-18 |
| Rheem Manufacturing Company — How to Keep Your Tank and Tankless Water Heaters Running at Peak Performance | published 2025-12-22 | 2026-09-18 |
| Bradford White Corporation — Limited Residential Water Heater Warranty | edition 238-39699-00ZAN (03/25) | 2026-09-18 |
| Rheem Asia — What Is a Temperature and Pressure Relief Valve, and Why Is It Important for Storage Water Heaters to Have Them? | published 2020-06-04 | 2026-09-18 |
| Texas Gas Service — Natural Gas Safety brochure | undated | 2026-09-18 |
| CPS Energy — Natural Gas Safety FAQ | undated | 2026-09-18 |
| Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners — Compact with Texans | undated | 2026-09-18 |
| Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners — Plumbing License Law (Occupations Code Chapter 1301), plain-view edition | September 2025 edition | 2026-09-18 |
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