Water Heater Date Code

Am I reading this right? I looked at a Reliance water heater with a serial number of 0833A032628. Does that mean that it was manufactured in the 33rd week of 2008? State Industries used to put a letter code for the month followed by two (2) numbers to indicate the year on their older water heaters (Ex.: A01 would = Jan 2001) and the Reliance brand is manufactured by State, so I assumed the serial number coding would be the same but, there is no letter designation at the beginning of the Reliance serial number.

Thanks for the help!

P1014232 - Copy.JPG

January 2003

Jeffrey,

http://www.inspectapedia.com/plumbin…Age_Charts.pdf

This is useful information, but, unfortunately it does not apply to the newest Reliance / State water heaters. This chart still indicates that this brand has a letter code to start the serial number, but the unit I looked at does not have a letter code.

Thanks!

Rick

Either the 33rd week of 08, or the 8th month of 1933. I’ll go with 33rd week of 08.

You’ll occasionally find that when new models come out that have significant technology breakthroughs, they’ll start a new date coding system. Also, sometimes a unit is actually manufactured by another company for the company that has the nameplate.

I wish I was certain that you got the right answer. I’m in the same boat. Mine would appear to be from 2013 given the responses you received but it looks much older than two. That makes me think it’s really the two digits following the letter.

Found Here: http://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2542

State Industries](http://www.stateind.com/)

State Industries was acquired by A.O. Smith in 2008. Prior to becoming part of A.O. Smith, State manufactured 23 separate brands of water heater, including the Kenmore(Sears) brand, and used a letter-month/year serial number code similar to the A.O.Smith model with the letter signifying the month, followed by a number for the year. The difference is that with these the code is in the first three positions of the serial number, not the second, third and fourth as A.O. Smith does it, therefore a serial number C05******* indicates that the water heater was manufactured in March of 2005. After the 2008 acquisition, State began coding the date into the first four digits of the serial number - the two digit year followed by the two digit week; therefore 0912 is the 12th week of 2009.

Also chart here: http://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum/uploads/hausdok/2011916121457_WaterHeaterSerialNumberDecoder.pdf

http://www.buildingcenter.org

Fyi… this thread is 5.5 years old, so don’t expect a reply.