An independent, source-linked water heater reference.
We decode a water heater's age, serial number, warranty, and recall status from each manufacturer's own date-code rules — and link every rule to its source. Independent of, and not endorsed by, any manufacturer.
What we are
We turn the build date hidden in a water heater's serial number into a plain answer — when it was made, how old it is, whether it is still under warranty, and whether it falls in a recall. Each brand is built on that manufacturer's own date-code rule rather than one guessed formula.
Our editorial standard
Every date-code rule and spec must be (1) drawn from the manufacturer's own documentation, (2) verifiable on an official manufacturer lookup, or (3) corroborated across authoritative inspector references with no contradiction. When a serial only narrows the date, or a brand does not publish its code, we label the result an estimate instead of faking certainty. Each rule stores the source link and a "last verified" date. A hedged page is better than a confidently wrong one.
How a page is built
Pages are built research-first: sources are gathered and the rule is verified against the manufacturer, the live decoder is tested against worked examples, and an independent multi-model fact-check pass runs before anything publishes.
Who runs it
Independence
Spotted an error?
We treat corrections as part of the workflow. If you see a misread date code, a stale warranty term, or a broken source link, tell us through the contact form and pick the 'Correction' topic — a real person reads every submission.