Can I Replace My Own Water Heater?

You appear in person at the building department, sign the owner-builder disclosure statement acknowledging you are acting as your own contractor, and pay the permit fee. You cannot use an owner-builder permit on a rental or a property you intend to sell within one year in Florida.

A like-for-like swap almost always triggers a few upgrades to current code:

• • Drain pan piped to an approved discharge location for interior or attic installs
• • Temperature and pressure relief discharge piped full-size to within 6 inches of the floor or outside
• • Thermal expansion tank where a backflow preventer exists
• • Seismic or hurricane strapping where required
• • Dielectric unions or approved connectors between dissimilar metals

Hire out the job if it involves a gas line change, a fuel conversion, moving the unit, or an electric to tankless upgrade requiring new circuits. Those touch permits and trades where a mistake is dangerous rather than merely expensive.