Fast Water Heater Company

These people are high pressure scammers. And they try to bribe you with a phony $ 25 coupon to give them a good review on Unilocal,as soon as the installer gets to your home he tries to sell you on extras that you don’t need, and they are not cheap. I agreed to pay around $ 900 after all the smoke cleared it was around $ 1300. This was around six months ago, so I should also warn you that they will promise you a $ 100 gas card that you will never get … And I mean never !! Too bad we still have to put up with liars and businesses that just care about money and how much they can rip you off for.

Fast Water Heater Company arrived on time and within 2 – 3 hours I had a new water heater installed. Everything was brought up to code. Friendly service man. I would highly recommend this company!

I had a new water heater installed today when my 15 yr old one broke. The tech from FAST showed up and told me exactly what I needed to know to make a decision on which water heater to buy. They are totally dedicated to customer satisfaction and it shows. I never thought it would be a pleasure to have to replace a water heater, but it really was!

The Fast water people are good but, the 100 gas card is difficult to get taken me 3 months still don’t have gas card.

Charlie just came out explained the whole situation, then professionally installed my new water heater. Quick, clean affordable

Replacing the water heater is not something anyone cares to do, however Fast water heater company was very professional, friendly, and knowledgable. We got quotes other places, and none of the independant plumbers knew about the city permits or even told us we need to put in a drip pan. We are VERY happy with their service. They were fast, friendly, and professional.

I had a Sears 12 year 40 gallon natural gas water heater fail after almost 9 years of use. Sears replaced the physical water heater under warranty for free, but installation isn’t covered. They contracted with Fast Water Heater Company to do the install for $ 429 (my cost including city permit, not Sears’ cost) but warned my cost could be higher if the external water heater plumbing /​infrastructure had to be brought up to the city of San Diego’s current plumbing code for the installation.
Fast Water Heater Company was prompt and the physical installation was professionally done (5 stars for that part). However, the hard sell tactics they use to try and get you to agree to having extra upgrades done to the external plumbing /​infrastructure under the name of bringing the water heater up to current code seemed rather dishonest to me at best. If you don’t have a skeptical mindset when they come to do the install, they are going to easily get you to agree to some very expensive add-​ons /​upgrades. Making the installation extremely extremely expensive.
Here’s what they tried to get me to agree to in order to bring my water heater up to code (insinuating that if these are not done installation will not pass code inspection by the city of San Diego) :
1) Purchase and install metal drip pan underneath water heater, my plastic one was not up to code.
2) Upgrade to threaded connector pipes to allow for for easier installation of future water heater when this fails. This is needed for code? I didn’t believe him.
3) Purchase and install natural gas line particle trap. Never heard of that requirement, nor have I seen it on any of my neighbors hot water heaters.
4) Purchase and install upgraded ground wire and brackets (over $ 100!). What was wrong with the existing ground wire and brackets?
5) Purchase and install an external thermal expansion tank. Never heard of that requirement, nor have I seen it on any of my neighbors hot water heaters. The installer could not explain to my satisfaction why the thermal expansion release valve on the water heater was not sufficient.
6) Maybe one or two other items I don’t recall.
I said no to any of the extra cost items, and the installer stated that was fine, but that if the code inspection from the city found code violations, Fast Water Heater Company would come back and fix the violations but them coming out a second time would incur extra costs on top of the prices quoted for the recommended extra installs listed above.
About a week later I had the city of San Diego code inspector come out and have a look. He didn’t look at the water heater for more than 45 seconds and essentially said «OK, looks good! No problems!» and signed off on the water heater installation /​setup being compliant with the city of San Diego’s plumbing code.
Had I agreed to all of the above extra installation items, my $ 429 install would have increased to over $ 1200.
So while the installation was prompt and done well, I didn’t get a good feeling from the high pressure selling of upgrades that were portrayed as being necessary in order to meet code requirements. I didn’t pay anything extra, but I bet this high pressure sell works on most people. Beware.
On top of this, included in the paperwork I reviewed after the installation was a coupon for a $ 25 rebate if I went onto Unilocal or angie’s list, gave them an outstanding rating and recommendation, and sent them an e-​mail pointing to the review. I find that a highly unethical form of bribery. Guess I won’t be getting my $ 25 rebate. :-)
One more minor comment. About a month after my installation my neighbor’s water heater failed, but it was out of warranty. They bought the water heater on their own, and had Fast Water Heater Company do the installation. Their base install cost was more expensive than mine — my guess is Sears is able to negotiate a better base install price for warranty installations compared to Joe Consumer. But they try to make up for it in the extras costs — my extras price list was 20 — 25% more expensive than my neighbor’s price list. If you are doing a warranty replacement installation and do want to purchase some of the extras, try to negotiate the price down. Beware.

They were so awesome! Woke up to a very cold shower and a flooded garage. The water heater had to be replaced, and Fast Water came out the same day. Chad from the El Cajon office replaced the heater, made sure I met all the new state and city codes and cleaned up afterwards. He was really patient and explained everything before proceeding and answered my many questions.

I’m definitely very picky when it comes to Customer Service, I expect to receive the best and Fast Water Heater Company is excellent! I had a lot of questions and was answered in a professional manner. The service was great and the technician who installed our water heater was super helpful to me and my family.

The pilot light went out on our water heater. We debated calling either a plumber or a company that works exclusively on water heaters. We were scammed by the last plumber we called to look at our water heater so we went with the latter.
Fast customer service was friendly and easy to talk to and understand. They lived up to their company name by coming within an hour.
The problem with our water heater needed a simple fix. Our technician Ben also gave us some useful information about how to maintain and extend the life of our water heater that I don’t believe many other technicians would know. He was a walking encyclopedia about water heaters. Everything was explained to us in layman terms.
All plumbing companies work on water heaters, but using a company that works exclusively on water heaters is the way to go.
I am putting Fast Water Heater Company in my phone directory.

Really think that their service is great. It’s pretty rare this day.
They were there when they said they would, and quickly took the old one out and installed the new one.
Chad was the tech and he was very professional.
I like having hot water again!

Great service and they called before getting to the worksite. Technician was friendly and efficient, and cleaned up after he finished. Thanks!

Fast Water heater came to our house on time and within budget, They were honest and upfront with the charges, permits, and information needed to do the installation correctly.

Professional service. Helped a great deal during our hard decision on who to go with, but they provided very good service. Excellent installation of our water heater. Thanks so much!