Overview
If you are looking into how to find the Navien water heater age. The below content will help you in finding its age by understanding the serial number format. In year 2023 when joseph went for a regular maintenance of Navien heater the house owner asked about how to identify the manufacture date or year of the heater, joseph showed some signs to identify it. Lets look into the conversation and know what are the signs to look to find its age.
Conversation with Expert
Homeowner: Hi joseph! I’m trying to figure out how old this water heater is but I lost the invoice of this product. Can you help me with that?
Joseph: Of course! Knowing the age of this water heater is really important for you to perform maintenance or even to know whether it is performing good according to its age. There are a few easy signs to identify the age of your Navien water heater.
Homeowner: Great! What’s the easiest sign?
Joseph: The easiest sign is to look for the serial number on the heater body. A unique serial number is printed on a silver or white sticker pasted on the side of the water heater body. Sometimes, it’s also found inside the heater. The exact location may change depending on the model.
Homeowner: Okay, Yes! I found the sticker with barcode and serial number, but there is no date of manufacture or production, how to know the age from the serial number itself?
Joseph: Once you found the serial number, understanding it is quite simple. The serial number will contains information about the year, month, and sometimes even the date of manufacture. Navien updated their serial number structure over the period of time, as this is Navien NPE 240A2 (NG) you can see the serial code as 1234D1931156789. From this the first 4 digits and an alphabet refers to the model code, right after the alphabet next 2 digits represents the year, after that you can find the month and date of manufacture. Remaining numbers represents the heater number manufactured on this date.
As joseph said the serial number format changed over the years, and if your serial number doesn’t look like the above given one, continue reading the below article to understand other serial number formats.
Decoding Navien Serial Number formats to find age
Format 1: As we seen on NPE 240A2
This format is used in recent times, look into the below image to easily understand it.
The above image shows the serial number label of Navien heater . In the serial number 2087D2231171845, the DOM is right after the alphabet D. The first 5 letters refers to the heater model code, next 5 numbers which we highlighted with red box are the year, month(10,11,12 months are represented with X,Y and Z respectively) and date of manufacture. Last 5 numbers refers to the heater number produced on that day or month.
From the above another example you can see the number 14 right after the first 5 letters indicates the year which means 2014, right after it X indicates the month of 10(October) and 17 indicates the date.
Serial Number Format 2:
From the above example of Navien NR180 serial number sticker, you can see the serial number 8881-20100520-3026 is divided into 3 parts with hyphens. The middle part between the serial number with 8 digits are the Year, Month and Date of manufacture respectively. In some models the year is separated from month and day with hyphen, you can see this example from the below image with serial number 9010-2008-114-1014.
Homeowner: Besides checking the serial number, are there other ways to find out how old my Navien water heater is?
Joseph: Yes, definitely. Another method is to check the warranty paperwork. If you have the paperwork it has the installation date or the unit’s service date written or printed on it.
Homeowner: What if I can’t find the warranty paperwork?
Joseph: No problem. You can contact Navien customer service and ask for a copy of the warranty paperwork. They can provide it by asking some of your basic information.
Homeowner: Nice, That’s good to know. Are there any other ways to figure out the age?
Joseph: Yes, you can also look for visual clues. If your water heater has a lot of rust or corrosion, it indicates the heater is an old one. Another sign is to check if it has old and outdated technology or features that you don’t see in newer models definitely gives you the idea of its age.
Homeowner: That makes sense. Thanks for the signs and tips!
Joseph: You’re welcome! If you have any more questions or need further help, just let me know.
