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A new water heater installed with the permit runs $2,757 to $5,493 for an electric tank, $3,379 to $5,485 for gas or propane and $8,886 to $10,486 for tankless.
Price range
$2,757-$5,493
8yrs @ 7.99%
$39/mo
15yrs @ 9.99%
$30/mo
Monthly figures on the starting price, the whole price financed, on approved credit. The lender sets the final terms. How financing works
Get your price in writing
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Water heater repair and replacement in Centreville, 20120 and 20121, gas or electric, tank or tankless, with the permit and expansion tank in the price. The water heater estimator gives your exact number.
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews
Two of our plumbers wheeling a new water heater up a Northern Virginia walkway, the van at the curb.
Licensed and insuredVirginia Class A contractor #2705192276
24/7 emergency serviceOften same-day, and we will tell you honestly when we can get there.
Our own plumbers, our own trucksNobody here is a subcontractor with a magnet on the door
The price is settled before the workYou see the number in writing before anything is taken apart
What it costs
Installed, from our water heater estimator, which is the price book. Everything is in the number: the permit and the inspection, the expansion tank, the drain pan, hauling the old one away, and the labor.
Electric tank, installed
$2,757 to $5,493
or $46/mo at 0% APR for 60 months
Gas or propane tank, installed
$3,379 to $5,485
or $56/mo at 0% APR for 60 months
Power vent tank, installed
$5,957 to $7,494
or $99/mo at 0% APR for 60 months
Tankless, installed
$8,886 to $10,486
or $148/mo at 0% APR for 60 months
Monthly figures: 60mo @ 0% APR on each starting price, the whole price financed, on approved credit. Longer plans lower the payment and cost more in total. The lender sets the final terms. How financing works
How the house vents picks the row; where you land inside it is the tank size and the warranty. A hybrid heat pump water heater is quoted at the visit, never from a page.
Keeping the one you have? A yearly water heater flush slows the sediment down: $99 right now, normally $199. A tankless descale is $300, regularly $350. Or get the flush every year with Comfort+ membership, $199 a year, along with a dryer vent cleaning, a sewer camera inspection and heating and cooling maintenance visits.
What’s different in Centreville
With close to three quarters of Centreville homeowners heating with gas, most water heaters here burn gas too. In a townhouse the tank often stands on the lowest level beside the furnace, sometimes in a closet higher up; in a single-family house it usually shares the utility room with it. The median home went up in 1990, so the tank you have now is rarely the builder’s. It’s the second or third, and the date on its label says how far along this one is.
Watch the flue. Houses of this age usually started with the furnace and the water heater sharing one metal flue. When the furnace was swapped for a high-efficiency model venting out the wall in plastic, the water heater was left alone on a flue sized for both, and a small tank on an oversized flue can draft poorly. The fix is a liner sized for the water heater, or a power vent tank, $5,957 to $7,494 installed, which pushes its exhaust out a side wall through its own pipe.
About a quarter of homes here heat with electricity, and their water heaters are usually electric too. Fairfax County’s appliance permit page is plain about gas: a gas water heater needs a permit and a chimney vent certification even like for like. Converting to tankless with new gas piping makes it a residential plumbing permit instead. On an electric tank the county’s own pages don’t agree, so we don’t promise a swap goes without one. Where a permit is needed, gas or electric, ours is in the price.
Pressure is the other thing wearing on these tanks. Almost every Centreville house went up after Fairfax County started requiring a pressure reducing valve in 1972, and that valve closes the house off from the street, so heated water has nowhere to expand but the tank and its relief valve. That’s what the expansion tank in every replacement we price is for, and why a weeping relief valve here earns a pressure reading.
By the numbers
From the Census Bureau’s 2020 to 2024 survey. Median year built and heat count owner-occupied homes only.
What you’d notice
If the furnace beside it was replaced and the water heater now vents alone, look at the draft hood on top. Rust streaks, soot or water drops there can mean exhaust is spilling instead of going up the flue. Turn the gas control on the tank to off and call.
On a gas tank that’s usually the thermocouple or the gas valve, both repairs. A burner that lights but smells of exhaust is different: shut it off and call.
A drip from a valve can be fixed. Water from the tank itself can’t; once the lining goes, the only fix is a new heater, and sooner beats later.
If the basement took water
A water heater usually sits on the lowest floor of the house, so it’s one of the first things standing water reaches. Three checks, then call us.
Leave it off and don’t relight it. The warning label on a gas water heater says not to use it if any part has been under water, and to have a service technician replace the gas control.
Shut its breaker off at the panel, but only from somewhere dry. The elements and the thermostats get checked before it heats again.
Mop it up and look again in an hour. Water that comes back with no rain is the tank or a valve, not the storm.
Call us after a storm and we’ll check it: the gas control or the elements, the burner, the venting and the drain pan. If it has to be replaced, you get the price in writing before anything comes out.
Permits and pressure
Virginia lets emergency replacement work start first, with the permit application in by the end of the next working day. Source.
Fairfax Water promises 20 psi at the main and no uniform pressure, and the pressure reducing valve on your side of the meter is yours to buy and keep up. Over 80 psi, the Virginia Residential Code calls for one, and an expansion tank with it. Source.
Our Virginia Class A contractor license, 2705192276, is on the side of the van.
Choosing who installs it
Questions worth asking anybody who quotes you, us included.
In a Centreville house whose furnace went high-efficiency, the water heater may be venting alone on a flue built for two. A good installer tests the draft before connecting a new tank to it, and tells you whether it needs a liner or a power vent instead.
A gas water heater always needs a permit, an electric one often does, and skipping it tends to surface when the house sells. Ask whether the quote includes it and the inspection.
Most houses here have a check valve or a pressure reducer on the incoming line, so the heated water has nowhere to go. An expansion tank gives it somewhere, and leaving it out is how quotes come in low.
A thermocouple, an element or a valve is a repair, not a new heater. A good plumber says so, and saves the replacement talk for a leaking tank.
Two of our crew going over a work order before the day's calls.
From our Google reviews
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews. Read them on our reviews page.
Jim was very professional, knowledgeable and polite plumber. He installed a water heater for us. After the installation he educated us on the maintenance and the new set up. I strongly recommend Jim/SwiftPro. Plus SwiftPro price was very reasonable/20% below other estimates.
Questions
It can. Fairfax County’s appliance permit page points to the Virginia Residential Code, which exempts replacing an appliance that isn’t fueled by gas or oil, but the county’s when a permit is required page lists the direct replacement of a water heater as permit work. Where the county wants one, it’s in our price. A gas water heater has no such question: a permit and a chimney vent certification, every time.
Often, if there’s an outside wall close by for the vent and the gas line can carry the load. If it can’t, a bigger line goes in under a Fairfax County residential plumbing permit. A tankless unit runs $8,886 to $10,486 installed, against $3,379 to $5,485 for a gas tank on the flue you have, and the visit settles whether yours qualifies before any number is final.
Hard enough to matter. Fairfax Water rates its water moderately hard to hard, and across its plants in 2025 the readings spanned 3 to 10.8 grains per gallon, enough to leave a layer of sediment at the bottom of the tank each year. A yearly flush clears it out while the tank is young enough to be worth it.
Installed, with the permit, the expansion tank, the pan and the haul-away: an electric tank $2,757 to $5,493, a gas or propane tank on the flue you have $3,379 to $5,485, a power vent tank $5,957 to $7,494, and a tankless unit $8,886 to $10,486. The estimator gives your exact number in about a minute.
Ready when you are
Call, or send the form at the top. The age on the label and what it’s doing tell us most of what we need, and you get the price before anything comes out.
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing
4230 Lafayette Center Dr N, Chantilly, VA 20151
44679 Endicott Dr, Suite 211, Ashburn, VA 20147
Virginia Class A contractor license #2705192276
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing is a licensed, BBB Accredited (A rating), independently owned heating, cooling and plumbing company in Chantilly, serving Centreville and the rest of Northern Virginia. Virginia contractor license #2705192276. 5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews on Google, Angi, Yelp, the BBB and Facebook. SwiftPro maintains a dedicated HVAC team and a dedicated plumbing team.
From SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Chantilly. Housing figures are the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024, for each place named; permit, water and sewer facts link to each office’s own page and were checked in September and October 2026.