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What did I learn from this experience?

The water heater cost me $415 plus another $12 for the drip pan. If I had replaced both water supply lines and the gas supply line it would have added about $45 more to the cost. I already had bricks to set it on and pipe compound.

This water heater came with nipples to connect the supply lines to. This was not always the case in the past. Since my water heater lives in an interior room I couldn't see any benefit to wrapping it in an insulating jacket.

A friend in the wholesale plumbing supply business told me that the "Big Box" home improvement stores can sell water heaters cheaper than he can buy them. I looked at Lowe's and Home Depot and both were priced at exactly $389.00 plus tax.

Home Depot had a sign up stating they would have one of their contractors install the water heater for $200. I did not check on the details, but I assume they would charge extra for replacement water lines etc.

If the $200 figure was correct, my son and I saved $200/14 hours = $14 per hour (after tax) for our efforts. That does not correct for one trip to town for the original purchase and another one for the drip pan we failed to buy the first time. Of course I did get the material I needed to build this website, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Thanks for visiting. I hope it was worth your time.