Even with the consistent integration of new technology and innovation in manufacturing products meant to provide a comfortable living space, there is no denying that there will be defective and problematic varieties that come out from time to time. The heating and cooling systems in residential settings usually work flawlessly and efficiently as their respective manufacturers make sure about making the consumers’ money worthy of buying them. However, there are times when those equipment suffer from minor or significant defects that pose health and safety risks. Say for instance, renowned American brand Bradford White Corporation announced back in 2002 that it was recalling a gas water heater to fix some issues in them.
Description: Serial Number Date Code Reference (#100) Using the chart below, a serial number of WC9876553 would have been built in the year 2000 and in the month of March. A serial number beginning with KA would have been built in January of 1993. The “year of” is the first two digits followed by the two digit week of the year. For example, the serial number 0602****** indicates that the water heater was manufactured the second week of 2006. A complete list of brands manufactured by American is contained in the decoder chart linked to this article.
The Ampler, PA based company recalled 1,220 gas water heaters, all of which are classified as 75-gallon power vented varieties. The models concerned included MIITW75T6EN12; MIITW75T6CX12; TW375S76E3N; and TW375S763X with serial number “YD” (all) through YE 1395234. Those who might have bought any of those models had to see the serial number of their water heater that’s found on the heater rating plate or the shipping carton label, provided they did not throw it away. The date of sale of these Bradford White Corporation water heaters was from April 2002 up to May of the same year. All the water heaters included in the 2002 recall were built in the U.S. So what was the issue with the water heaters that prompted Bradford White Corporation to announce a recall?
According to the company, the water heaters were fitted with defective and incorrectly designed flue gas baffles. As a result, there is a tendency for the baffles to adversely affect fuel combustion, which in turn could lead to excessive emissions of the poisonous gas, carbon monoxide. If you don’t know it, carbon monoxide inhalation can result to serious injuries, even death. This is especially true if your home is not fitted with carbon monoxide detector. Fortunately, there have been no injuries, death, or any incident connected to the defective water heater before the announcement of the recall was made.
Bradford White Serial Number Date Code
Those who were unlucky to have purchased any of the water heaters with the defect were told to contact the installation contractor or the technical support team of Bradford White right away. Some opted to go to the official website of the company, where they can verify if their water heater is indeed part of the recall. Upon verification that the Bradford White water heater was indeed part of the recall, the company made it a point to arrange for the actual inspection. In most cases, a replacement of the flue baffle was the only solution, but it was given to the owner of the equipment without any charge.
Although modern heating and cooling equipment, including hot water heaters are built using advanced and sophisticated technology, it is no secret that there will be minor glitches. However, certain government regulations ensure that any defects are considered a responsibility of the manufacturer or brand to correct or risk getting penalized heavily with sanctions, fines, or even worse, imprisonment for those responsible.
Find the date in serial numbers
As a home inspector, you are constantly on display for your clients while you are performing a home inspection. So while your clients are looking to you as their expert, there is no more embarrassing feeling than being unable to tell them the accurate age of the hot water heater. You need to be able to interpret the date in the serial number as part of your service.
Most water heater manufacturers code the date of manufacture of their appliance in the serial number. You should be familiar with how to extract the date from the serial number.
Some manufacturers such as Rheem use the first 4 numerical digits of the serial number to code the date. So if the water heater has a serial number that starts with 1209, the water heater would have been manufactured in December of 2009. This is often logical and easy to understand – click here to see a PDF for dating Rheem water heaters.
Bradford White Old Model Numbers
Bradford White’s dating system
Once you get your hands around this trick, here comes Bradford White to throw you a curve ball. Bradford White employs their own letter code system in the serial number where the first letter is the year and the 2nd letter is the month. An example of a Bradford White serial number of BH6511396 would be: B=2005 & H=August
The crazy thing is: this letter system repeats every 20 years! I find this so confounding that I have to keep a little cheat sheet on my computer so I can look up the age on-site.
Bradford White Serial Number Date Code Reference
Keep these PDF’s ready on your field computer so next time you are confronted with a hot water heater you can be sure to give your client an accurate date of manufacture.
Dylan Chalk is the author of The Confident House Hunter – a book to teach home buyers how to look at and understand houses: Cedar Fort Press www.dylanchalk.com. He is also the founder of ScribeWare inspection report software offering innovative and simple Report-writing solutions – www.getscribeware.com and he is the owner of Seattle-based Orca Inspection Services LLC, www.orcainspect.com.