I am sorry to say you are probably on the hook for labor.
I am guessing (without seeing a copy) that the unit was covered under a manufacturers warranty. I would suggest reading it carefully, and see if it provides for labor (I suspect it does not). If by chance it does say it covers labor and this is the plumber that installed it he will either have to bill the manufacturer OR the manufacturer will have to reimburse you the labor.
If the warranty does not cover labor, you cannot honestly expect the plumber to eat the cost, Unless it somehow was a problem with the workmanship.

WHERE, exactly, did the WH start leaking FROM? 8 months is a VERY SHORT life... are you on well water?

Most states--YMMV--in a house that new, the WH and such WOULD be covered by your builder/GC, INCLUDING the labor.

I call BS... you should contact your state's Attorney General; they usually have a whole dept. dedicated to homeowner/construction issues.

PS: $112 is a decent rate for that job, especially if it's a gas-fired WH. Did that include hauling the old one away, or did you have to put it out for bulk pickup?

We had a similar situation a couple of years ago with a 1 year old A.O. Smith hotwater heater, the tank cracked and started leaking. We got a new heater but had to pay for the installation. Our house is old however, not a new one; I don't know if that makes any difference.

This is a brand new home. The OP bought it from a builder who is the party who entered into a contract with the plumber who installed the HWH. Most homes come with at least a one year warranty on everything. If the offer of purchase and sale has a clause in it that exonerates the builder from such responsibility, then I find that totally weird. From a legal standpoint, the plumber has zero obligation to the OP because there is no contractual relationship between them.

The question here is whether the OP should have to pay labour to replace a faulty water heater. In my opinion, the answer is no. Any tradesperson worth his salt stands behind the products he installs. I always did. The OP had no say in the brand or model choice nor did she buy it and then pay to have it installed. All of this was handled by the plumber who subcontracted to the builder.

As such, if I was the OP, I would be going back on the builder.

Thanks for the feedback. To answer some of the questions:

- No we are not on well water, it leaked from somewhere inside and in my opinion the water heater was probably on borrowed time from the beginning. It quit working for some reason the very first day we moved in (was then fixed by the plumber).

- We have a weird builder situation. We didn't actually buy the house from the builder, we hired him to build it and got construction financing to pay for costs as we incurred them. He is the general contractor but had all his chosen sub contractors bill us directly. We live in a little town and all the builders operate like this. I would never do it again, but we were novices to this and it also appeared we didn't have a choice with the local builders. He didn't charge us the contractors markup on the subs bill, though you never know what costs were buried in his fees. Anyway, it is rotten in retrospect because it appears to be harder to make anyone responsible.

- it's an electric water heater and we also paid $15 to have them get rid of the old one.

But, even with my atypical situation, I feel confident enough now to go back to our plumber and or the builder and argue our case. I appreciate everyone taking the time to answer.

Thanks so much!!
Mary

OK, that clears up a few things. Legally speaking, he isn't a builder, he's a hired contractor and he's off the hook on this one.

The plumber was working directly for you because you paid his bill directly. His invoice should be made out to you and you should have a cancelled cheque for the invoiced amount. As such, it makes it very easy to make someone responsible. It is reasonable for a plumber to have to stand behind every aspect of the work he did, including the hot water heater.

The manufacturer did his part by providing a replacement heater at no cost. The plumber should have eaten the labour to make this right for you and charging you an extra fifteen bucks to get rid of the old heater is pathetic. If it was me, I take this dick to small claims court on principle. This wasn't a repair. This was a new home plumbing job. There must be some sort of body that governs new home warranties in your area. Find out who they are and contact them.

No one "should" have to pay labor to replace something under factory warranty, but labor is unfortunatley specifically excluded by the factory. I buy a product in good faith and don't know why it should cost me money to replace the factory's quality problems, but it does. Why did you deal with the plumber directly when there was GC? You may have had some leverage with him if the product was installed through him, and would have been within his new home warranty period.

Here's the point that you are missing. The OP isn't the one who bought the water heater from the factory, the plumber did. Therefore, the OP is dealing with him and he is dealing with the factory.

The plumber knew or was obligated to know, what the terms affecting warranty were from the manufacturer. He accepted those terms when he selected the water heater for this job and he is therefore bound by them.

Since the water heater is warranteed, then so is the labour to change it out as part of the warrantee that the plumber accepted upon selecting and buying the unit. The plumber was paid in full for the work he performed. The OP is entitled to have the plumber stand 100% behind his work.

Let's say that a rupture occurred in a length of copper water pipe that the plumber installed and it was entirely due to a defect in the manufacture of the pipe. Would the OP be expected to pay for that? I think not. Pipe, fittings, toilets, taps, water heaters etc. are all part of the installation the OP paid for.... in good faith.

The OP did the right thing to deal with the plumber and other trades directly. The general contractor would just be a hindrance to the matter should she choose to take this jerk to small claims court.

Most water heater mfgs have a program that pays the plumbing contractor a set amount. ( I think like $100.00) The contractor just needs to see the wholesaler & give them the info to process. The amount given certainly dosent cover the contractors true costs.

The amount given certainly dosent cover the contractors true costs.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
**********************************************************

While I don't dispute anything you posted above; to me, it simply reinforces my previous argument. The manufacturer knows that a dead water heater must be changed out. Therefore, he softens the blow by giving the contractor some compensation. However, the compensation and the replacement heater are strictly between the plumber and the manufacturer and the end user does not come into the mix.

Why? Because it was the plumber who bought the heater, not the end user.

Have the customer buy the water heater themselves. I'm speaking mostly of the situation regarding older homes and not new construction.

That way the bill of sale ties the owner of the product directly to the warranty. If that was a Kenmore/Sears water heater....that would of been replaced free of charge all inclusive on the first year with the option AT TIME OF PURCHASE and 30 days thereafter to buy additional 5 years of that same coverage where all labor and materials are covered.

8 months is truly a defective heater from the go and the mfg. should of ate the labor on that, no doubt. Charging $110 was sort of a useless charge for that task at hand; most installs head towards $300 if you are a legit company and work like you are going to stay in business years down the road.

All my customers *have* to purchase their water heater before I'll install/replace the old one. They actually prefer it so I don't make a marginal profit on it and I prefer it when something goes wrong with them. I didn't make the water heater, I just installed it. If I installed it wrong, I'm on the hook. Otherwise they have to follow the chain of command and get the local authorized reps to come out and diagnose the problem, fix it to maintain that warranty. Otherwise when you take those matters into your own hands to help out John Q......it backfires because you just voided the warranty. Doesn't matter if you are a licensed plumber or not; A.O. Smith is notorious for pulling the plug on a customer that has screwed with their tank and then expects a service tech to fix the mess they started. That's part of the implied warranty deal; only trained hands in kahootz with the mfg. are allowed to repair under warranty confines.

After the warranty is expired.....it's anyones game to contend to.