How to determine the date of production/manufacture or age of American® Water Heater(s) from the serial number.

Brief History:

• American® Water Heaters was founded in 1996.
• From 2002-2006, GSW® (Canada) was the parent company of American®.
• A.O. Smith® acquired American® Water Heaters (GSW) in April of 2006.  American® now operates as a subsidiary of A.O. Smith.

American® Water heaters have been distributed under many brand names including:

Ace Hardware, Ace Water Heater, American Hardware, America's Best, Apex , Aqua Temp, Aqua Therm , Aquamatic, Best Water Heaters, Best Deluxe, Craftmaster, Champion, De-Limer Water Heaters, Deluxe Water Heaters, Dyna-Flow, Eagle Water Heaters, Earl's Water Heaters, Envirotemp, Envi-Ro-Temp, Flame-Guard, Four-Most Water Heaters, GSW, Hotmaster, Hotstream, John Wood water heaters, King Water Heaters, King Clean, King Line, Lowes, Master Plumber, Mor-Flo, Mor-Flo/American, Nationaline, Neptune, Penguin, Polaris, Premier, Prestige Water Heaters, PRO-Line Water Heaters, Proline Plus, Quaker Water, Quick-Flo, Raywall, Revere, Riviera, SABH, Sands, Sentinal, Servistar, Shamrock, Special-Deluxe, Standard, Super-Eagle, Super-Flo, Supreme, Sure-Fire, Thoro-Clean, True-Test, Tru-Value Hardware, U.S. Craftmaster, U.S. Supply, Whirlpool Brand Water Heaters, XCL Energy

TIP!- - Water heaters manufactured by American® Water Heater parent company will typically include the company address Johnson City, TN on the date plate/tag, even though many were manufactured in Canada.

Serial number styles/formats found are: