Water heaters Newark

What changes when a Newark heater goes from tank to tankless or heat pump

Newark lists a water heater replacement among the home jobs that need a permit but no drawings. That changes when the new unit is tankless: the city's handout asks for a gas piping diagram before the plumbing permit, because a tankless heater sized for even a small home burns roughly four times the gas of a standard tank. The whole city also sits in a mapped liquefaction zone, so the straps get a close look.

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  • Rules on this page checked against 19 public sources, October 2026
The Silliman Activity and Family Aquatic Center in Newark
The Silliman Activity and Family Aquatic Center in Newark. Photo: LPS.1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Plans for a tank swap
None required; still a permit and an inspection
Tankless swap
Gas piping diagram with make, model and BTUH comes first
Default electricity
Ava Community Energy Bright Choice, serving Newark since 2021
Desalinated water, 2025
Average hardness of 62 ppm, per ACWD's water quality report

Permits and local rules

City and Air District texts behind a Newark replacement

  1. Tankless (Instantaneous) Water Heaters for Residential Applications

    Written in 2009 and still posted among the Building Inspection Division's handouts, this brochure lists what the inspector checks on a tankless install: mounting, flue venting, the temperature and pressure relief valve and its piping, combustion air, gas piping, bonding between the hot water, cold water and gas lines, and the electrical supply. Its relief drain runs outside, ends 6 to 24 inches above grade and is copper or galvanized, with plastic pipe prohibited. A closet heater gets two 6-by-14-inch vents to outside air, one low and one high.

    Source: City of Newark Building Inspection Division (newarkca.gov)

  2. Chapter 15.40, Construction in Flood Hazard Areas

    Newark replaced its floodplain chapter by ordinance on April 11, 2024. When a building permit is sought for a structure in a flood hazard area, a replacement or repair included, the floodplain administrator weighs the cost of the work against the building's market value, decides whether it counts as a substantial improvement, and tells the applicant either way. A substantial improvement has to meet the code's flood-resistant construction rules, and a detached garage permitted below the base flood elevation must keep its mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems at or above it.

    Newark Municipal Code, Chapter 15.40 (opens in a new tab)

  3. Rule 9-6 as proposed in October 2026

    The Air District's proposed rule language would set January 1, 2028 as the manufacture date after which a gas storage heater of more than 30 gallons, rated at 75,000 BTU per hour or less, must emit zero NOx. It also adds paperwork that reaches the plumber: from the same date, a seller of a non-compliant heater must post a notice that it can be bought and installed only with an exemption certificate, and licensed contractors must keep five years of records on where and when each heater was bought and installed.

    Source: Bay Area Air District (baaqmd.gov)

State license for this work: C-36 Plumbing, C-20 Warm-Air Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning, C-10 Electrical. Look up a contractor's license on the CSLB website (cslb.ca.gov).

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Free to request, and you agree the scope and price with the person you hire before work starts. In California, a job over $1,000 in labor and materials, or one that needs a building permit, must be done by a contractor licensed by the CSLB in the right class. Ask for the license number and check it at cslb.ca.gov.

Two wall-mounted tankless water heaters plumbed with copper supply lines
Two wall-mounted tankless water heaters plumbed with copper supply lines. Photo: Behrat, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The houses here

Tract houses on sandy loam, mapped for liquefaction and floods

Newark incorporated in 1955 and filled in quickly, and its Housing Element dates more than half of today's homes to the twenty years from 1960, so whole blocks reached their first and second replacement heaters at about the same time. The ground under those tracts shapes the job more than the floor plan does. Citing California Geological Survey data, the same document puts the entire city inside a liquefaction hazard zone a couple of miles from the Hayward Fault, and it shows much of the southern half inside the 100-year flood zone. A tank strapped tight to the wall, and a heater standing clear of water on a garage slab, matter here. Even the water varies: ACWD sends desalinated groundwater, blended back with well water, to homes in and around Newark, while parts of the city receive a harder mix of San Francisco and well water.

The work

Four Newark swaps, and the paperwork each one sets off

  1. A gas tank for a gas tank

    The plain swap is Newark's simplest case. The Building Inspection Division lists water heater replacements among the residential applications that go in without plans, though the work is still permitted and inspected. If the owner applies instead of a contractor, the city's owner-builder notice has to be completed and signed on all three pages before the permit is issued, and it spells out that hiring anyone who is neither family nor a licensed contractor can make the owner an employer with workers' compensation duties.

  2. Trading the tank for a tankless unit

    Newark's tankless handout explains why this stops being a simple swap. A gas tankless heater big enough for a small dwelling runs past 170,000 BTUH, so the piping that fed a storage tank is badly undersized, and a schematic showing every gas appliance, its rating and each pipe's size and length goes to the city for review first. The old tank's Type B flue cannot be reused, the unit needs a standard outlet within six feet, and new gas pipe holds 10 psi of air before the single inspection.

  3. A larger gas meter from PG&E

    Bigger piping can also mean a bigger meter. PG&E owns the gas service up to each house meter in Newark, and the city's utility services handout says PG&E will not set a new or upgraded meter, or turn the gas back on, until the owner has a city permit and the Building Inspection Division has passed the work. The division then notifies PG&E that service may be restored, and it is up to the owner to ask PG&E for it.

  4. A heat pump on an older electrical service

    A heat pump water heater shifts the load from the gas line to the panel. Newark's worksheet for an existing feeder and service load calculation, under Article 220.83 of the electrical code, carries its own line for the water heater and ends by setting the required minimum service size against the existing one. The power itself has come from Ava Community Energy since 2021, with Newark accounts placed on its Bright Choice service unless the customer picks another, and Ava's water heater page sends buyers to its incentive finder first.

Before you hire

What to ask before a Newark plumber orders the new unit

  • For a tankless unit, will you send Newark the gas piping schematic with every appliance's rating and pipe lengths before the permit?
  • If PG&E has to upsize the gas meter, who requests it once the city inspection has passed?
  • For a heat pump, will you fill in the city's Article 220.83 load worksheet with the new water heater on its line?
  • If our garage is in a mapped flood zone, can the new heater stand higher than the old one?
  • Is your C-36 Plumbing license, or C-20 for a heat pump installer, current at cslb.ca.gov?

Free, no obligation. Next, add your details in the request form.

Questions

Newark water heater questions the city's handouts settle

Can I take out the water heater permit myself in Newark?

Yes, as owner-builder. State law lets only a licensed contractor or the property owner obtain the permit, and Newark will not issue it until all three pages of its owner-builder form are filled out and signed; a form sent by mail also needs a copy of the owner's driver's license or a notarization. Doing the work yourself or with immediate family keeps you clear of most employer duties. Hiring help that holds no license does not.

Does a new gas water heater in Newark mean adding carbon monoxide alarms?

It can. Newark's alarm handout names gas water heaters among the common sources of carbon monoxide and requires alarms outside each sleeping area and on every level once permitted alterations pass the code's construction-value threshold. It does not accept carbon monoxide detectors that plug into a wall receptacle. Separately, state law has required carbon monoxide detectors in existing single-family homes since July 1, 2011.

Is Newark going to require a heat pump when our gas tank fails?

Not under any rule it has adopted. Climate Action Newark, approved by the City Council on January 22, 2026, aims for 23 percent of existing homes to be fully electric by 2035 and 48 percent by 2045, and its first building action is to draft a retrofit plan with incentives and help with panel upgrades. Building energy made up about 40 percent of the city's 2022 emissions. Today the controlling rule is the Air District's, which decides which new heaters may be sold.

Does Newark's desalinated tap water change how fast a tank scales up?

It helps. ACWD's 2025 water quality report gives the desalinated supply, blended with local well water for customers in and around Newark, an average hardness of 62 parts per million, against 138 for the blend of San Francisco and well water that reaches parts of Newark, Union City and north Fremont. Softer water leaves less mineral scale in a tank, so which supply your street gets is worth knowing.

Would a 30-gallon gas tank still be sold in Newark after the Air District change?

Under the October 2026 proposal, yes. Tanks of 30 gallons or less would keep the older low-NOx limit because staff found no zero-NOx model that small on the U.S. market, and they may revisit that as the market changes. Larger residential tanks made after January 1, 2028 would need to be zero-NOx unless an exemption certificate applies. The Air District Board takes up the proposal on November 4, 2026.

Where these facts come from

Checked against these public sources in October 2026. Rules and programs change: confirm permit requirements with the city before work starts, and a contractor's license on the CSLB website.

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