How to Quickly Age a Lochinvar Water Heater
Lochinvar uses a 20-letter rolling letter code to age their water heaters. The first letter in the serial number denotes the year the unit was manufactured, and the second letter is the month it was made. The rest of the serial numbers are internal tracking and production numbers from Lochinvar itself, and they shouldn’t matter much to you as a homeowner.
Below is a Lochinvar water heater aging table to show what letter each means. Lochinvar recycles these letters every 20 years. For example: If your water heater serial number begins with A, then we know it can be either a 2004 or 1984 unit.
Now, most folks with experience can simply look at a water heater and tell if it is 20 or 40 years old, but you as a homeowner may not be able to do that.
Most water heaters typically need to be replaced every 10 years or so; some don’t even last that long. I do find some really old heaters from time to time during my home inspections in Louisville, KY.
I’ve even seen a unit or two from the late 1970’s still in place and running just fine. While 40+ years is not the norm for a water heater life expectancy of any brand, it’s not impossible. It’s just very, very rare.
Lochinvar Water Heater Age Chart
Locate the serial number on your Lochinvar water heater and check the first letter. Match the letter to the chart below and you will decode your water heater’s age by the year of manufacturing.
| A = 1984, 2004 | B = 1985, 2005 | C = 1986, 2006 |
| D = 1987, 2007 | E = 1988, 2008 | F = 1989, 2009 |
| G = 1990, 2010 | H = 1991, 2011 | J = 1992, 2012 |
| K = 1993, 2013 | L = 1994, 2014 | M = 1995, 2015 |
| N = 1976, 1996 | P = 1977, 1997 | S = 1978, 1998 |
| T = 1979, 1999 | W = 1980, 2000 | X = 1981, 2001 |
| Y = 1982, 2002 | Z = 2003, 1983 |
Let’s check out a real Lochinvar Water Heater label below.
The data plate shows the first letter of the serial number is ‘F‘.
Since ‘F’ can be either 1989 or 2009 you may need to check the ANSI date to get you closer to the correct year of manufacture.
EXAMPLE: This label has an ANZI date of 2006, which tells us it could not be 1989. Typically the ANZI date on ANY data plate will be a few years younger than the manufacturer date. In a pinch, it can be used to get a guestimate on the year a Lochinvar water heater was manufactured.
More How To Age Articles
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How to age Daikin HVAC
My serial number starts with Z so what does that mean?!
Z = Should be 1983 or 2003. A 2003 unit will likely still look fairly new, but a 1983 will look old.