Water Heater Repair in Kokomo, IN
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Howard County winters put your water heater to work
From October through May, groundwater coming into your house is cold, and your water heater has to work harder to bring it up to temperature. On nights that average 21°F, a gas water heater's burner runs longer and more often, and an electric unit's heating elements stay on longer to keep up. That extra runtime wears on the parts that do the work, the thermostat, the heating element, the gas valve.
Howard County has seen 10 winter storms and 51 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and statewide, 17% of households lost power for 24 hours or more in 2024. When the power goes out, most electric water heaters come back on by themselves once it returns, but a unit already struggling with a failing element or thermostat may not recover the way it should. You will notice it as water that never gets fully hot, or runs out faster than it used to.
- 21°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 8 months
- October through May, the months homes here need heat
- 17%
- of Indiana households lost power for a day or more in 2024, and a heater with an electric element or electric ignition stops without it
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new water heater would cut about $50 a year off hot water for a typical Indiana home.
Estimates for a typical Indiana home, compared with an older unit built to the federal minimum, from EIA household energy data and Indiana fuel prices. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when an element, thermostat or gas valve has failed.
Replacement makes sense when the tank itself is leaking.
- Why is my water heater leaking from the bottom?
- The most common reason is the tank itself, rusted through from the inside after years of sediment sitting on the bottom. Once a steel tank corrodes and starts weeping, there is no patch or seal that fixes it, the tank needs to be replaced. Water at the bottom can also come from a loose drain valve or a fitting above the tank, so it's worth drying everything off and checking after an hour to see exactly where it starts. A leak from the tank itself will keep coming back no matter how many times you dry it up.
- Why won't the pilot light on my water heater stay lit?
- Most of the time this means the thermocouple has worn out and can no longer tell the gas valve that the pilot is burning, so the valve shuts the gas off. A dirty or clogged pilot orifice can cause the same thing, and so can a draft reaching the pilot from a vent or nearby door. A weak or failing gas valve will also do it, though that's less common than the thermocouple. A contractor can test which part is actually failing rather than replacing parts one at a time.
- Can a tankless water heater be repaired?
- Yes, most problems on a tankless unit are repairable. Mineral buildup on the heat exchanger, a failed igniter, a clogged inlet filter and sensor errors are the usual causes of no hot water or an error code, and each of those can be serviced without replacing the unit. Hard water speeds up the mineral buildup, so a unit that's never been flushed is more likely to need work sooner. If the heat exchanger itself has cracked or corroded through, that's the one failure that usually means replacement instead of repair.