Just wondering what a reasonable price for a 40 gallon ao smith water heater(Pro Max - GCV 40) install on a Saturday would be. I drained all of the water from the old heater and the installer was at my mom's home 1.5 hours. I would expect it costing more than usual since it was a Sat. but he charged over $900. Am I out of line thinking this is too high? My mom asked how much it would be as she was going to pay him before he left but he said he would send a bill and didn't give her a total. I would appreciate any thoughts.

That sounds high to me, though possibly not exorbitant. I found online retail prices for an AO Smith GCV40 ranging from $320 to $450, and the plumber should be getting a discount rate beyond that. Even if he is not, paid the $450 price plus a generous 50 for additional parts, that is over $250 an hour. If you figure in an hour travel time though, that works out to $160 an hour, much closer to what I would expect for an after hours call; generally double the 'normal' rate.

Talk to the owner of the company instead of haggling with the plumber; let him know that you really appreciate the after-hours service but would like to know if this is his normal pricing schedule. It may not do you any good, but cannot do any harm. If he is any kind of professional at all, he should be able to explain the charges to your satisfaction.

Good luck!

Thanks for your response. I plan to call the company and will definitely talk to the owner - great idea! Thanks again.

A lot of plumbers I know will charge a percentage on top of what they pay for the water heater. They claim that they sell plumbing supplies as well as install them, in actuality they buy them for you and mark them up. Also, if he had to go to the store and buy the water heater, then deliver it and carry it to the install location, then they are going to charge for all that too.

But with all that in mind, it still seems kinda high.

you must also think about the job itself. While my company does many types of home repairs. We sometimes over charge because of several factors such as in this case, How easy is it to get to the heater. Does everything have to be brought through an expensive area of the home which might be damaged if something falls over? Do walls or doors have to be opened up to do the job. Perhaps the heater has to be lifted over some other mechanical device. Is the basement a junk yard? All of which will cost us more money to do the job. Sometimes just the owner of the home themselvs can cause the cost to go up. Some time demands from them make it harder to do the job. For that we charge enough to get through this but enough to pass the job onto someone else who could care less or doees not understand what they are getting themselves into.

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price of water heater install

If the heater is in an easily accessable area and it is a like-for-like replacement then $450 sounds a bit high. However, if the heater is NOT easily accessable or if it needs seismic (earthquake) restraints that the old heater doesn't have, or if it needs any plumbing work beyond replacing of the flexible connectors then $450 might be low.

As stated, get some more estimates.