No hot water, rusty water, or a tank that’s finally leaking — we replace and repair water heaters across Franklin, sized properly for the house instead of just matching whatever was there.
Franklin sits where the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers meet to form the Merrimack, and it was built on that water power. The result is a housing stock that skews older than anywhere else in the Lakes Region — dense neighborhoods of nineteenth-century multi-family houses and worker cottages that have been repaired, subdivided, and re-plumbed repeatedly over 130 years.
That history is the plumbing here. Galvanized steel supply lines that have narrowed to a pencil’s width inside, cast-iron drain stacks that have rotted through at the basement floor, lead-jointed connections at the old fittings, and layers of partial upgrades where one owner replaced the kitchen line and left the rest. Most Franklin plumbing problems are age problems, and the honest advice is usually about sequencing: which section to replace this year, which can wait, and which one is going to fail on you in the middle of a cold snap.
The city has municipal water and is connected to the state-run regional sewer system, so most of the developed area is off wells. That simplifies diagnosis but doesn’t simplify the work — getting new pipe through a hundred-year-old balloon-framed wall is its own skill.
Out on Webster Lake the mood changes completely: a ring of camps and cottages, some converted to year-round, most not, all needing the same seasonal shutdown and startup as the rest of the region. Franklin also has a growing base of rental property, and landlords here want the same three things everywhere: fast, honest, and priced so it makes sense on a working building.
In an older Franklin house, a rusty-brown first draw in the morning that clears after ten seconds usually means galvanized supply pipe, not a water quality problem from the city. It’s the inside of your own pipe you’re seeing.
Most water heaters get replaced with whatever was there before, which is fine if the last one was right and a mistake if it wasn’t. A 40-gallon tank that ran out of hot water every morning for twelve years will do exactly the same thing for the next twelve. We ask what actually happens in your house — how many people, how many showers back to back, whether the tub is oversized — and size from that.
Tankless is genuinely good in the right house and oversold in the wrong one. The thing nobody mentions in the brochure is incoming water temperature: a tankless unit rated for a warm climate loses a large share of its output when the well water coming in is in the low 40s, which is normal here for much of the year. A unit that delivers plenty in Virginia can leave you short in a New Hampshire January. We size for the cold-inlet reality, not the box.
For seasonal camps there’s a third consideration: whatever goes in has to be drainable, because it’s going to be shut down every fall for the life of the unit.
Installed, a standard tank water heater in the Lakes Region typically runs $1,400–$2,600 depending on size and fuel; a tankless unit runs $3,800–$6,800 installed, more if gas line or venting work is needed. Repairs to a unit worth saving usually run $200–$600.
A standard tank water heater generally lasts 8 to 12 years. Hard or acidic well water — common across the Lakes Region — shortens that, sometimes considerably. If yours is past ten and you are seeing rust in the hot water or moisture around the base, you are on borrowed time and better off replacing on your schedule than on its.
In a year-round house with high hot water demand, often yes — endless hot water and lower standby loss. But New Hampshire's cold incoming water cuts a tankless unit's real output well below its rated flow, so it has to be sized bigger than the label suggests. In a small or seasonal camp, a tank is usually the better value.
Usually yes. Most plumbing installations and major replacements in New Hampshire require a permit from the local building department or the state, and your licensed plumber pulls it. It matters more than people think — an unpermitted install can complicate an insurance claim and a future sale.
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Describe what’s happening and where the property is. We’ll come back with a straight answer on what it likely is, what it should cost, and when we can be there. If it’s an emergency, say so in the first line.
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