Bradford White water heater age decoder.

Bradford White prints the date of manufacture into the first two characters of the serial number on the rating plate. The first character is a letter for the year and the second is a letter for the month. Enter the serial and this page reads both letters against the table Bradford White publishes, then tells you how old the tank is. It cannot look up your unit, check a warranty or identify the model.

How the code works

Bradford White says the first two characters of the serial number represent the year and month of manufacture. The year letters skip I, O, Q, R, U and V, which leaves twenty letters, so each letter stands for two years twenty years apart. A means 2004 or 2024, B means 2005 or 2025, and so on through Z, which is 2023 or 2043. The month letters run A to M and skip I, so A is January, B February, C March, D April, E May, F June, G July, H August, J September, K October, L November and M December. The skipped letters are listed on the Bradford White page; this page rejects them as not part of the scheme.

Worked examples

A serial starting TL. T is 2019 (or 2039, which has not happened yet) and L is November. The tank was made in November 2019. In early November 2026 that is about seven years.

A serial starting CA. C is 2006 or 2026 and A is January. Both are possible on paper. A tank that has been in the house a long time is January 2006, about 21 years old; one installed this year is January 2026. The rating plate, the installation paperwork or the tank's condition settles it.

A serial starting with a number. If the serial begins with digits, it does not follow this scheme. Do not force it: check that you are reading the serial number and not the model number, and see the brand guide linked below for other makers.

Limits

• Manufacture is not installation. A tank can sit in a warehouse or on a retailer's shelf for months, so the install date and the start of any warranty can be later than the date the code gives.
• The twenty-year repeat. The published table gives two years per letter, and this page only discards a year that is still in the future. For a tank that could be either, you need another clue.
• Only the table on the Bradford White page. Serial numbers made before the table starts, or products from other brands, are not decoded here.
• Warranty is separate. Bradford White offers a warranty check on the same page; the date code does not tell you what coverage applies.

Next steps once you know the age: if the tank is past ten years, or is leaking at the base, that is the time to price a replacement and size it with the tank water heater size calculator. One manufacturer, Reliance, says the average life of a water heater is about 8 to 12 years, varying with location, design, installation, maintenance and water quality. Other brands: see the serial number guide by brand and the Rheem decoder.

Sources

Each page was opened and read on 2026-11-01. Manufacturers can change these pages without notice.

• Bradford White: My water heater (Determine the age of my water heater): the year-letter and month-letter tables, the skipped letters, and the rating plate location. Read 2026-11-01.