Water Heater Installation in Downtown Rowlett

Rowlett's first post office opened on April 5, 1880, under the name Morris, after its postmaster, and the town took the name Rowlett from the creek. The Dallas and Greenville Railway passed through in 1886. The town became a municipality in 1952 with a population of 250. Interstate 30 bypassed it in the 1960s, and then Lake Ray Hubbard, impounded in 1968 with its dam completed in 1969, changed everything: by 1973 the population was about 1,600, by 2000 it was 44,503, and the 2020 census counted 62,535.

Those numbers explain the housing. When a town grows from 250 to more than 62,000 people, almost all of it is built in a few decades, and the oldest streets are a small core. Downtown Rowlett is that core. Our shop sits on the edge of that core, 0.4 miles from Main Street.

Whether the house is 30 years old or 70, the checks are the same, and they are cheaper to do at the fit check than on install day:

• Shut-off valve. Does it turn without a fight?
• Water connectors. Flexible connectors are replaced, not reused.
• Gas line and shut-off. A sediment trap, a quarter-turn valve and a leak test.
• Vent. A steady upward slope, tight joints and clearance to anything that burns.
• Relief valve and pipe. Run down to a safe spot, not capped.
• Location. An attic or upstairs heater with no pan is the biggest risk.

The attic page and the replacement page explain the code items, and the signs of failure guide lists what to look for first.

Rowlett buys its water from the North Texas Municipal Water District, which describes it as moderately hard because of minerals in Lavon Lake. The district's tables show 183 mg/L total hardness in January 2015, which is 10.7 grains per gallon by its divide-by-17.12 rule, and 122 to 160 mg/L in sampled months of 2022 and 2023. In an older house, that scale is joined by whatever older pipes shed, so a tank that has never been flushed often has a thick layer. A gentle flush, a few gallons at a time, is the way to start. The flushing guide has the steps.

Atmos Energy delivers gas in Rowlett and Oncor delivers electricity, so an older house can usually switch. The EIA's 2020 survey puts gas at about 48% of U.S. main water heating fuel and electricity at about 46%. A hybrid heat pump heater is estimated at $3,000 to $5,500 and a tankless conversion at $3,800 to $7,500, and in an older house the gas line and the space are the first questions. The tankless page shows the arithmetic.

Our shop is 0.4 miles from Main Street, 0.9 from the station and the library, and 1.6 from Rowlett High School, in straight lines. A like-for-like swap takes 3 to 5 hours and the quote comes in writing before the old heater is touched. Texas requires work for customers to be by a plumber licensed through the State Board of Plumbing Examiners, and Texas cities set their own permit rules, so we confirm what Rowlett requires.