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If your water heater is leaking, if you have no hot water this morning, or if your insurance company has told you the tank has to go, you do not need a consultation. You need a licensed plumber with a tank on the truck. Fast Track Plumbing replaces tank water heaters across Tampa Bay, most of them the same day you call, and the plumber who answers the phone is the one who does the work.
The price we quote includes the permit. It includes the labor, the parts, hauling the old unit away, and the code items other companies bill separately. Nothing is extra.
meet the plumber
Luke, owner, Fast Track Plumbing. State Certified Plumbing Contractor, license CFC1433909, trained at Santa Fe College with roughly seven years in Tampa Bay service plumbing.
He does the estimate, he pulls the permit, and he does the install. On a standard electric swap he is in and out in two to three hours, and he runs three or four water heater jobs a day. If you call and talk to someone about your water heater, that is the person who will be standing in your garage.
Ask him about the condo job in a utility space under the air handler. A thirty seven gallon tank, corroded through the bottom, in a space with almost no room to work. Getting the old one out and the new one in without cutting up the enclosure is the part of this job that separates people who do it every day from people who do it occasionally.
Repair or Replace
Where the water is coming from tells you almost everything.
If it is leaking from the bottom of the tank, the tank is finished. That is not a repairable fault. The steel has corroded through from the inside and no fitting, valve, or element is going to fix it. In Tampa this is what most calls turn out to be, and it is usually age plus hard water working together.
If the water is coming from somewhere else, a fitting, the temperature and pressure relief valve, the drain valve, a supply line connection, that is often a repair and worth doing. Same for a pilot light that will not stay lit, a failed heating element, a bad thermostat, or a gas control valve.
The rule is simple. A leak from the bottom means replacement. Water anywhere else means look closer before spending money.
What's include
This is where quotes stop being comparable, so here is exactly what is in ours. Included in the quoted price:
The one honest caveat: sometimes a job turns out to need more than expected once the old unit is off the wall. Older piping, a drain line that was never run correctly, an electrical disconnect that is not to code. If that happens, we tell you before we do it, not after.
If you are holding three quotes and they are hundreds of dollars apart, the difference is usually not the tank. It is whether the permit, the pan, the expansion tank, and the haul away are in the number or waiting on a second invoice.
Most of this decision is made for you. If you have a forty gallon electric tank in the garage, the straightforward answer is a new forty gallon electric tank in the garage. Like for like is faster, cheaper, and there is nothing wrong with it. The decisions worth actually thinking about are these.
We size from what you have, because it is already matched to the house. Common tank sizes in Tampa homes run forty, fifty, and eighty gallons, with smaller units in condos and utility closets. If you have been running out of hot water, say so during the estimate and we will talk about going up a size. If you have not, there is no reason to.
Whatever the house is set up for. Changing fuel means gas line work or electrical work and it rarely pays for itself on a straight replacement. Gas units run a little more than electric to install.
A conventional storage tank is still a good water heater. That needs saying, because most of what you will read online is written to move you off one. Tanks can run far longer than people expect, especially on softened water, and they would not still be the most common water heater in Florida if they did not work. If you want a tank, we will put in a good tank and we will not spend the visit trying to talk you out of it.
Tankless makes real sense in a bigger house, where the demand is higher and the space the tank takes up is worth something. It costs more up front and it needs annual maintenance in Tampa water. If you are curious we will tell you honestly whether your house is a good candidate, and you can read more about tankless water heater repair and replacement.
Hybrid, also called a heat pump water heater, is the efficiency option and Tampa is genuinely a good place for one. It pulls heat out of the surrounding air to heat the water, so a hot garage is exactly the environment it wants, and it cools and dehumidifies that space while it runs. What you should know before choosing one: it needs a thirty amp circuit, it produces condensate so it needs a drain, and it needs room to breathe, so a tight closet needs louvers or ducting. It is a more complicated machine than a plain tank, and that is the real trade off, not the climate.
Tempa Pricing
Gas runs a little higher than electric across the board. What moves a price inside those ranges:
What condition the existing supply and drain lines are in, and whether anything has to be reworked to pass inspection.
A garage at floor level is the easy case. An attic is the hardest: the tank has to come out through the opening it went in through, and a tank that will not drain has to be carried out of the attic and outside the house to empty, which on a full eighty gallon unit is a serious piece of work. Second floors and tight utility closets sit in between. We do attic installs, they cost more than a garage swap, and we tell you why on the estimate rather than after.
Moving a tank out of an attic and down to a lower floor is a real project rather than a swap, and it is priced that way.
If the old install was missing a pan, an expansion tank, or a shutoff valve, those go in.
If you have a competitor written quote, tell us. We price match most of the time. Financing is available at any price through Acorn Finance. Call for terms.
One note on the numbers you have probably already seen. Search for what a water heater costs in Tampa and you will find averages closer to a thousand dollars, and unit prices of four to seven hundred at the home improvement stores. Those unit prices are real. They are the tank only, sitting on a pallet, with no labor, no permit, no pan, no expansion tank, and no haul away. That gap is why so many people in this market feel ambushed by a real quote.
Permit & Code
We pull a permit on every water heater replacement, and the fee is inside the price we quote you. The work gets inspected.
There is a common belief in Tampa that the drain pan and the expansion tank are invented add ons. They are not. They are code, and an installation without them does not pass inspection. We did not write the rules, we follow them.
The relevant sections of the Florida Building Code, Plumbing:
requires a pan under a storage tank water heater installed anywhere a leak would cause damage. That covers attics, second floors, and anything above finished space, and the pan needs a three quarter inch drain line running somewhere approved.
governs the temperature and pressure relief valve discharge. The discharge line runs full size, with no valve and no threaded end, and it terminates within a few inches of the floor or at an approved receptor.
requires thermal expansion control when a check valve or backflow preventer closes the system, which is common on newer meters in this area. That is the expansion tank.
Codes are amended, and local building departments interpret them, so confirm current requirements for your address with your local building department or ask us during the estimate.
The two things we most often find missing on someone else work are a shutoff valve on the cold line and an expansion tank. Neither part is expensive. Putting them in after the fact, and re-inspecting, is what costs money.
Tempa Water Conditions
Tampa water is hard. The City of Tampa 2025 water quality report puts average total hardness at 211 milligrams per liter, which is 12.3 grains per gallon. The United States Geological Survey classifies anything above 180 as very hard.
Here is what that does to a tank. According to the USGS, when hard water is heated, as it is inside a water heater, solid deposits of calcium carbonate form. That scale can reduce the life of the equipment, raise the cost of heating the water, lower the efficiency of an electric water heater, and clog pipes.
In practice it looks like this. Sediment, the gritty mineral layer, settles on the bottom of the tank. On a gas unit it sits between the burner and the water, so the burner has to work harder and run longer to heat the same water. It also holds moisture against the steel. The sacrificial anode rod, the metal rod inside the tank whose job is to corrode so the tank does not, gets used up faster than it would in soft water. Once it is gone the tank starts corroding from the inside, and eventually it perforates. Luke describes what he finds on those tanks as potholes eating through the steel.
Two things help, and we are straightforward about the limits of both. An annual flush clears sediment before it packs down. Treating the water so it is not hard when it arrives at the tank addresses the cause instead of the symptom, and it is why we look at whole home water treatment as part of water heater work rather than a separate upsell. Neither is a guarantee. Tank life depends on the unit, the water, how hot it is run, and a certain amount of luck. What we can say is that a tank on treated water in this market has considerably better odds than one on untreated water.
If you would rather fix the water than keep replacing tanks, read about our whole home water softener systems and water filtration systems.
warning signs
If it is leaking, shut the water off at the cold line and call. A failed tank empties its contents onto the floor, and in a second floor or attic install that becomes a ceiling repair on top of a water heater replacement.
insurance requirement
This is a common call in Tampa, and it usually sounds the same. A homeowner is selling, refinancing, or renewing, a four point inspection gets done, and the water heater comes back as a problem. Carriers commonly start flagging a unit somewhere past ten years, though every carrier sets its own threshold and there is no single statewide rule, so check your own policy or ask your agent what they need.
What we can tell you is that we do this constantly. We do not perform four point inspections. We fix what fails them, and we can usually get out quickly, because these situations tend to come with a deadline attached.
One detail worth knowing if an insurer is already involved: make sure whoever does the work pulls the permit and gets it inspected. Unpermitted work on a water heater can complicate a claim later if that unit ever causes damage. We pull the permit on every job as a matter of course.
The Process
Connect
You call, and you talk to the plumber who will do the work.
Inspect
We look at the unit, the location, and the piping, and quote a firm price with the permit included.
estimate
You pick your warranty term from the options in the estimate.
We pull the permit, install the new unit, and haul the old one away.
The work gets inspected.
On timing: most standard replacements are same day. The limit is the plumbing supply house, which closes around five, so if we can still get to the counter we can still do the job today. An attic install late in the afternoon is the one case where we will usually put you on tomorrow morning rather than start something we cannot finish properly.
Licensed and insured
There is no manufacturer certification specific to tank water heaters, and we would rather say so than invent one. What matters on this work is the license, the insurance, and whether the installer pulls a permit.
LICENSED
CFC1433909
INSURED
Licensed & insured
PERMITTED
Permit + inspection
Recent Projects
You can verify us in two places without taking our word for anything. The Google Business Profile has the reviews and the rating. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation license lookup will confirm CFC1433909 is active and in our name.
Local Service Area
Water heater calls come from across the whole service area, so if you are in Tampa Bay and not on this list, call and ask.
One local note on rebates, because it depends which side of the bay you are on. Duke Energy Florida offers a rebate on qualifying heat pump water heaters and Tampa Electric does not currently offer one for water heaters. Check the utility name on your electric bill to see which applies to you. Duke also requires a free home energy check before it will pay a home improvement rebate, so that is the first step rather than the last. Rebate programs and amounts change without notice and the customer files the paperwork. The federal tax credit for efficient water heaters expired at the end of 2025 and is not available on units installed now.
Common Questions
Yes. A water heater replacement requires a permit in effectively every Florida jurisdiction, and the work is inspected. Your plumber should pull it. We pull it on every job and the fee is included in the price we quote. Skipping the permit can also cause problems with a homeowners insurance claim later if the unit ever causes damage.
Required. The Florida Building Code, Plumbing calls for a pan under a tank installed where a leak would cause damage, section 504.7, and for thermal expansion control where a check valve closes the system, section 607.3. Without them the installation does not pass inspection. Both are included in our quoted price. Confirm current requirements for your address with your local building department, since codes are amended and local interpretation varies.
It is very common in Tampa, usually after a four point inspection and usually on a unit past ten years old. Thresholds are set by each carrier rather than by any statewide rule, so ask your agent what they specifically require. We handle these regularly and can generally move quickly, since they usually come with a deadline.
Yes. We will install a unit you supply, including a Rheem. Customer supplied units carry a thirty day warranty from us and nothing longer, because we cannot vouch for how the unit was built, stored, or handled before it got to us. Worth knowing: the same model line sold at retail is sometimes built to a lower specification than the version sold through a plumbing supply house, with a plastic drain valve in place of brass and a single anode rod.
Less than the national figure, because the water here is very hard. Eight to twelve years is the usual national range and Tampa tanks commonly come in under that, especially with no annual flushing. A tank on treated water has considerably better odds and can run well beyond that. There is no guarantee either way, since it depends on the unit, the water, the temperature it runs at, and some luck.
Usually, yes. Most standard replacements are same day jobs and we run three or four of them daily. The constraint is the plumbing supply house closing around five, so the earlier you call the better. Attic installs late in the day are the exception and normally go to the next morning.
If it is leaking, shut off the cold water supply and call. If it is old and your insurance company is asking questions, call before it becomes an emergency.
Firm price with the permit included, most replacements same day, and the plumber who quotes it is the plumber who installs it.
Fast Track Plumbing, 400 N Ashley Dr Suite 1900, Tampa, FL 33602. State Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1433909.