Water heaters · Repair · Replace · Install
Water heater repair and replacement in Yakima, WA
Pilot that won't light, a tank that leaks, no hot water. We repair when the parts allow it, replace when they don't, and take the old tank with us.
Chapter 01
When the pilot won't light and the tank won't heat
Most water heater calls start the same way: no hot water, or hot water that quits halfway through a shower. Sometimes the pilot on a gas tank won't stay lit. Sometimes there's a puddle at the base of the tank, or a rusty stain where a fitting has been weeping for months. In a Yakima winter, a heater that goes down in the middle of a cold snap stops being an inconvenience pretty quickly.
An older tank fights back. The part you came to fix has often seized in place after years of heat and hard water, and the hardware around it is no better. A plumber can spend an hour trying to free one corroded piece, and the tank is still twenty years old when he's done.
That's the first thing our technicians work out on a visit: is this a repair that will last, or is the tank telling you it's finished? You get the straight answer before anything gets cut, drained or hauled out.
Old corroded gas water heater, the kind of tank we replace and haul away
Repair first, replace when the parts won't budge
If the fix is a thermostat, a heating element, a T&P relief valve or a stretch of water pipe, we repair it and leave the tank where it is. Those parts wear out on a healthy heater all the time, and there's no reason to replace a good tank for a bad part.
When the tank itself has failed, or the old hardware is seized solid, we replace it. The job includes taking the old tank away with us, so you aren't left with a dead heater to deal with in the garage. Residential water heaters, commercial water heating systems, storage hot water systems, tankless units and boilers all go through the same crew.
One of our customers put it plainly: the technicians couldn't free the seized pilot part on her old heater, she asked what a replacement would cost, and told them to swap it out. That's how it usually goes. We tell you what we found, you decide, and the work starts.
Chapter 03
Picking the right heater for the building
A storage tank is still the right answer for a lot of Yakima homes: simple, familiar and easy to service. A tankless unit hangs on the wall, heats water as it's used and takes up a fraction of the floor space. We install both, including Navien tankless units, and we've set them in garages, basements and full mechanical rooms.
Businesses are a different animal. A commercial bank, like the Rheem units we've piped on copper headers, keeps more than one heater in service so a single failure doesn't leave a whole building without hot water. Boilers and complex water heating systems, tankless included, are part of the same trade, and we plumb them for new commercial builds as well as replacements.
If the number on the new unit is the sticking point, Shephard offers Greensky financing for plumbing work. Buy now and pay over time, subject to credit approval. NMLS #1416362. Ask the office for the details when you call.
What to check once the new heater is in
Find the T&P relief valve, the one with a small lever and a pipe running down the side of the tank. Lift the lever once a year and let it snap back. If it drips afterward or won't move, call us. That valve is the heater's safety net, and it should never be ignored.
Keep the thermostat at a sensible setting, hot enough for the dishwasher and showers without scalding a child at the tap. Flush a storage tank every so often to move the sediment out of the bottom, because that grit is what makes a tank loud and shortens its life. A tankless unit asks for the same kind of care in a different form: descaling, which matters most where the water is hard.
And if you ever smell gas near the heater, don't hunt for the source. Walk outside, call the gas utility from there, and then call us once it's been cleared.
Shephard Plumbing holds Washington L&I plumbing contractor license SHEPHPL791N6. The shop answers Monday to Friday, 7 to 5, at (509) 728-3403, or reach the Yakima line at (509) 642-4108.
Commercial · Residential
Tank, tankless, commercial bank
Three installs from our own jobs, side by side. Same crew, same trucks, same way of working, whether it's a single tank in a basement or two tankless units on a commercial mechanical room wall.
Tank
A Rheem electric tank on a stand in a basement install.
Tankless
Wall-hung tankless with the softener and filter manifold beside it.
Commercial
Two Navien tankless units in a commercial mechanical room.
A replacement, in a customer's words
“I had difficulty lighting the pilot on my old water heater, the technicians found the issue and worked at trying to remove the old part but with the water heater being as old as it was the parts and hardware were seized up. So I asked how much a replacement water heater would cost and told them to just replace the unit. They did a great job, both technicians were very personable, very knowledgeable, very professional.”
Prefer to talk it through first? Send the office a message and they'll call you back to set a time.