An oil town
Fifty-six percent of Auburn homes heat with oil. Only 16 percent heat with gas. In a house with no gas line, the water heater is usually electric or it runs off the oil system, either as a coil in the boiler or as a separate tank the boiler heats.
That changes what fails. A tank heated by the boiler has no burner of its own. Tell the plumber what you have when you call. No hot water and nothing is leaking.
Moderately hard well water
The Auburn Water District pumps from twelve wells. Its report gives a hardness of 115 to 122 parts per million, with an average of 117. That is at the top of what the U.S. Geological Survey calls moderately hard, a few points short of hard.
Flush the tank at least once a year here, and twice if it rumbles. How to do it.
The housing
About 78 percent of Auburn homes are single-family. The median home was built in 1963.
Rebates
National Grid supplies the electricity, so Mass Save's 2026 rebate of $750 on a heat pump water heater applies. It covers replacing an electric, oil, propane or gas water heater. Whether a heat pump model fits your basement.
Where there is gas service, Eversource is the company. For a gas smell, leave and call 911, then Eversource at 800-592-2000.