Open 24/7 for emergencies
Catlett has no natural gas heat by the Census count, so a new water heater is electric at $2,757 to $5,493 or propane at $3,379 to $5,485, permit included.
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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Rather talk now? (703) 997-9757
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 Catlett
Not one owner home in ZIP 20119 heats with natural gas, by the Census count. Electricity heats 526 of the 1,040 and propane 301, and the water heater usually burns or draws whatever heats the house: two elements and no flue beside a heat pump, a burner, a gas control and a flue where propane feeds the furnace, priced on the natural gas row at $3,379 to $5,485. The County permits them differently; see below.
Close to 180 homes in the ZIP predate 1940, some in the old railroad village, and about 470 were built in the 1990s and 2000s out among the farms. In the oldest, the plumbing came after the house, so the heater sits wherever it fit: a stone cellar, a closet off the kitchen, a closed-in back porch. In the newer ones it’s usually in the basement near the well’s pressure tank, and one that came with the house has outlived the usual run of a tank.
Inside the village, FCWSA’s little Catlett system serves about 74 hookups from two bedrock wells; its pressure advice is below. Everywhere else the house has its own well, and the well, the pump down in it and the pressure tank belong to a well company. What a well can do to a water heater is send it sand and grit, which settles on the bottom and buries an electric tank’s lower element.
The Weather Service gauge on Cedar Run near Catlett crested at 18.2 feet on July 12, 2013, third on its list of record crests, the same day flash flooding closed roads in Catlett, and it topped its 15 foot flood stage again in April 2014 and July 2025. At 21 feet, the Weather Service says, the Route 806 bridge goes under and water reaches buildings nearby.
By the numbers
From the Census Bureau’s 2020 to 2024 survey. Median year built and heat count owner-occupied homes only.
ZIP 20119 as a whole: every Catlett address, the village included. The Census place for the village alone has too few homes for steady figures.
What you’d notice
In an all-electric house the lower element does most of the heating. When it quits, often buried in sediment, the hot water lasts a few minutes and turns lukewarm: an element replacement, priced before we start.
An electric tank has two elements. When one fails the water still warms, just never all the way; it’s a common, fixable part.
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
Outside the town limits, Fauquier County issues the permit. It wants one for any fuel-fired water heater, propane included, and for any heater being moved; an electric one swapped for a similar unit in the same spot counts as an ordinary repair. Trade permits go out over the counter the day the application comes in. Source.
A burst tank doesn’t wait on paperwork: under Virginia’s building code the replacement can start first, as long as the permit application reaches Fauquier County’s Building office by the end of the next working day. Source.
On FCWSA water (Bealeton, Catlett, Marshall, New Baltimore, Vint Hill and its other systems), FCWSA says it can’t guarantee uniform pressure, and that over 80 psi the customer should install a pressure regulating valve at their own expense. Homes on private wells aren’t covered by this. 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.
Pressure matters on FCWSA’s village system, sediment on a private well. Whoever quotes a Catlett water heater should ask first.
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.
Alex came out today to check out my water heater. He was on time and was super helpful in answering my questions. Would definitely have SwiftPro out again.
Where we work
Next door to Catlett: Calverton, Casanova, Midland, Nokesville and Bristow.
Questions
A March 2018 windstorm kept Fauquier County’s 911 center busy with trees and wires down. With the power off, an electric tank makes no new heat at all. A propane model with a standing pilot keeps heating, since its gas control needs no outlet; power-vented and tankless models go cold with the lights.
Where they cross cold space, yes. Fauquier County’s building criteria assume a 17 degree winter design day and frost 24 inches down, and the Warrenton co-op station seven miles off dropped to 2 degrees on February 20 and 21, 2015. Lines to a heater in a crawlspace, garage or closed-in porch can freeze on such nights, and a frozen cold line means no hot water either.
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 Catlett 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.