Plenty of Alton water heaters were bought for a summer camp and are now trying to keep up with a year-round household. That’s the usual reason a tank runs cold. It isn’t broken — it’s carrying a house it was never sized for.
Alton grew by more than six hundred people between 2010 and 2020, to 5,894 at the last census. Some of that is new construction. A fair share, going by the houses we get called into, is people moving into what used to be the summer place — insulating it a room at a time, adding a bedroom, and keeping the little tank that came with the camp.
A thirty- or forty-gallon heater bought for July weekends was never asked to start from forty-degree water in February, or feed a family’s back-to-back showers five mornings a week. Put it in that job and it runs out early in the morning. Then it wears out early, period.
Where the water comes from changes things too. Around the village and the Bay a lot of houses are on Alton Water Works, which quit drawing from the lake long ago — the first town well went in beside the fire station on Route 140 in 1938. Up toward Mount Major, out Route 28 toward Barnstead and along the back roads, it’s private wells, and each one is its own chemistry. Some chew through anode rods. Some leave scale on the elements thick enough to chip. We pull the old anode and look before we pick the new heater.
If the Alton camp has turned into your house, judge the water heater on a January weekday morning. That’s the job it has now.
The question we start with isn’t what was there. It’s who lives there now. How many people, how many showers in a row, whether there’s a big tub, whether the washer runs at the same hour. What counts is the heater’s first-hour delivery, not the gallons printed on the label — and in January, with cold water coming in, that number drops.
Converted camps add one more snag: room. The old tank is often wedged into a closet or a corner of the crawlspace where nothing bigger fits and nobody can reach the drain. Sometimes the right move is relocating it. Sometimes it’s an indirect tank off a boiler the house already has, often the best value there is. Gas or propane tankless can work if it’s sized for winter inlet water. Electric tankless we don’t install; at our water temperatures it wants more current than most of these houses have.
Then we set it up to last. Drain valve you can get at, clearance to pull the anode, expansion tank and the safety fittings the code calls for. And if the place still closes part of the year, a setup that empties completely without taking anything apart.
In Alton, a standard electric tank installed starts around $2,400; a 65–80 gallon electric runs $5,000–$7,000, and a propane or gas tank $6,000–$9,000. Tankless is $9,000–$13,000 installed, gas piping and venting included. An indirect off a boiler you already have runs $2,200–$3,400; replacing the boiler itself starts at $16,000. Repairs on a heater worth keeping usually run $500–$700.
Not automatically. If the one you have keeps up on a January weekday morning, leave it alone. If it runs cold after the second shower, or it’s the original camp tank and past ten years old, it’s doing a job it wasn’t sized for. We’ll look at the house and tell you which it is.
Usually it’s more predictable. Alton Water Works pumps groundwater from town wells and reports that it meets state and federal drinking water standards, so tanks on it tend to age evenly. Private wells vary house to house — some hard, some acidic, some carrying iron. That’s why we check the old anode before choosing a replacement.
Sometimes. But a crawlspace heater is hard to drain, hard to service, and the first thing to suffer if that space gets cold. In a converted camp we often move it somewhere you can reach. Any move is priced up front, and if leaving it where it sits makes more sense, we’ll say so.
In gas or propane, sized for the coldest water you’ll see, it can suit a year-round house well. Undersize it and two showers at once both go lukewarm. We don’t install electric tankless — at our winter inlet temperatures it needs more current than most houses here can supply.
Eight to twelve years is typical for a tank. Harsh well water can cut that short; a yearly flush and a timely anode change can stretch it. If yours is past ten and you’re seeing rusty hot water or damp around the base, replace it on your schedule before it picks one for you.
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