No hot water in your Detroit home?
If you smell gas, leave the house first. From a safe place call 911, then DTE’s gas leak hotline at 800‑947‑5000 (DTE). If there is no gas smell, the checks below are in order, and then call us.
A referral service for Detroit homeowners. An automated assistant answers; calls are recorded.
- Cost to call
- Nothing
- Answered by
- Automated assistant
- Hours
- Any hour
If you smell gas
DTE’s three steps, in DTE’s order
Leave the area immediately. DTE says to go to an outside location where you can no longer smell natural gas (DTE).
Call 911. DTE’s own wording is to call 911 before calling its hotline (DTE).
Then call 800‑947‑5000. That is DTE’s gas leak hotline, free to DTE customers and answered 24 hours a day (DTE).
Before you leave, DTE says do not use phones, doorbells, light switches, garage door openers or any other electrical device near the area; do not smoke, light a match or use a lighter; do not start or shut down machinery, vehicles or equipment; and do not try to find the leak. Do not go back in until DTE says it is safe (DTE).
Do not call this site for a gas leak, and do not use a number a contractor’s page prints for one. 911 and 800‑947‑5000 are the two numbers.
If the pilot flame has gone out
DTE’s instruction is two sentences: shut off the gas supply at the appliance’s own valve, then have a licensed professional relight it (DTE). Its home safety page says the same — contact a licensed professional if the pilot flame of an appliance goes out, and the professional should relight it for your safety (DTE).
A pilot that will not stay lit is a repair on a gas appliance, and that is a call to a contractor.
If there is no gas smell and no pilot problem
Three checks a homeowner can make before anyone comes out. None of them involves opening the heater.
- Is anything else in the house out? If the furnace and the range are out too, the problem is upstream of the heater. If the heater is electric, check its breaker.
- Is the water hot but running out fast? That is a different fault from no hot water at all. Rheem lists it among the signs a tank needs flushing (Rheem), and Detroit tap water runs 107 ppm hard on average and 142 at its hardest (the water department’s 2025 report, page 19): moderately hard on the federal water survey’s scale, hard at the peak (the survey).
- Is there a rumbling or popping noise from the tank? Rheem lists that first among the signs a tank needs flushing (Rheem).
Anything past these (the burner, the gas valve, the thermostat, the element) is work on a gas or electrical appliance. DTE’s own advice is to hire qualified contractors for the installation and repair of gas appliances (DTE).
Which pipe is yours
DTE inspects the service pipe from where it enters your building to the gas meter. Its own words for everything past that: the house pipe and the gas appliances are not included in that inspection, and customers are responsible for any repairs to house pipes leading from gas meters to gas appliances and to the gas appliances themselves (DTE, inside safety inspections).
The same page says that if a technician sees a potentially hazardous situation on the house pipe or an appliance, DTE will disconnect service at the meter until the repair is done. That is the reason a gas fault on a water heater is not something to leave. Who pulls which permit, and what the city charges.
What a repair costs
Published national ranges, none of them a quote: repair $228 – $1,017 (Angi, updated August 2026); a plumber’s hourly rate $50 – $150 (same page); replacing one part (an element, a thermostat, a thermocouple, an igniter, an anode rod, a dip tube) $100 – $350 (HomeGuide).
One Metro Detroit contractor posts $150 – $600 for a repair (a Metro Detroit contractor’s posted range, September 2026). Every range with its source · Repair or replace.