Repair it, or replace it?

One symptom settles it on its own

Water coming from the tank itself, rather than from a fitting above it, is treated by this tool as a replacement. Everything else on this page is a matter of degree, and that one is not, which is why it overrides age, warranty and maintenance history in the verdict above.

The other symptoms are scored by degree, and the tool shows the points each one adds; the scoring is our own rule, listed on the methodology page. This site has no published figure for what fixing a pilot, an igniter, sediment or an anode rod costs, or how much life it adds, so it does not estimate them.

Why the quote in your hand outranks everything else

Published repair prices are a range, not a prediction: $150–$700 for a tank^[1] and $300–$1,300 for a tankless unit^[1], and the guide says the price depends on the type of problem and the parts that need replacing. The number that decides your case is the one on the piece of paper in front of you, which is why the tool asks for it and says plainly that it is the missing lever when you leave it blank.

Framing it as a share of replacement is what makes it actionable. Take a $180 repair (illustrative assumption, not a market quote) on a six-year-old tank: it is 8 percent of a $2,325 straightforward replacement. The same $180 on a fourteen-year-old tank is buying time on an appliance one year short of the 15-year top of the federal range^[2]. The tool computes that share against a straightforward like-for-like swap using the same installed-cost engine as the front page, so the two tools cannot quietly disagree with each other about what replacement costs.

Two things deliberately do not enter the verdict. Nothing here knows your water chemistry. And nothing here knows whether you are about to sell the house, which changes the calculation completely — a repair that is poor value over ten years can be entirely correct over ten months.

Questions people actually ask