Standard Water Heater or On-Demand Type Heaters: What Should You Choose?
Are Tankless Water Heaters More Cost-Effective to Own?
We called the Pittsburgh plumbers at Kwiatowski Plumbing by dialing 412-681-9525 to get the answer to this question, and according to them, the primary benefit of tankless water heaters is that they hold out the prospect of an endless stream of hot water.
This is because it’s heated as it is sent out, so unlike a standard water heater, it will never run out. So if you have anyone in your home who is prone to taking long showers with the tankless water heater, the showers can go on indefinitely.
So the benefit of savings on your power bill can be eliminated if this is the case. It’s the downside of an unlimited supply of hot water in a shower. On the flip-side, though, you don’t get stuck heating a large tank of water 24 hours a day.
Standard or on-demand type water heaters, which is easier to install & maintain?
Once again, the answer turns out to be maybe. The reason here is that if it’s new construction, a tankless water heater is for sure easier to install because it doesn’t require a water closet to be built.
On-demand water heaters can be installed in an attic where they can be bolted to a roof framing member. Also, because they are light and compact, they easily fit through an attic access door, so the work can often be done by one person.
They can also be bolted to an exterior wall on a home or commercial building. Then as far as maintenance is concerned, on-demand water heaters need to be flushed to remove calcium deposits about once a year, depending on how hard the water is in your area. Standard water heaters require less attention.
Gas and electric tankless water heaters compared
Once the decision has been made to go tankless, the next step is to decide between gas or electric. The answer here, it turns out, is a little complicated, and the decision may have already been made for you.
This is because gas tankless water heaters require a high volume of gas to heat the water that they do on-demand. So the existing gas line that’s connected to a standard water heater in a home or business may not have the higher capacity required the do this.
So the solution in many instances is to take the easy way out, and that is to run a dedicated electrical line from the switch box for an electric model. This versus the substantially more costly prospect of running a higher volume gas line from a home or business’s main gas line.
What is the best water heater choice for a commercial application?
It’s worth noting here the tankless water heaters are actually slower at initially delivering hot water from the unit to the faucet once it’s opened. Unlike a standard water heater, they don’t have hot water on reserve and ready to go.
In some commercial settings, this may not be an issue, while in others, it can be. On the other hand, in, say, a hotel where the prospect of not having a shower run out of hot water when a guest is using a tankless water heater may be the right choice.
So for sure, in a commercial application where never running out of hot water is a plus, tankless water heaters bring solutions. Then again, you have to consider that even though it won’t run out, tankless water heaters can’t keep up with a standard tank unit in terms of the volume delivered at the faucet.
Is indoor or outdoor installation your best option
It turns out that there are sensible reasons for each option, and it’s your particular needs that factor into deciding which one you go with. To start with, while outdoor tankless water heaters come at a higher price, they do free up more floor space in a home or business.
An outdoor installation can also make it much easier to solve power and water supply problems by bringing the unit to the source instead of the other way around.
Outdoor tankless water heaters also don’t have the same venting requirements that an indoor unit will have. However, there are a few downsides to consider.
The first is that freezing weather can damage your outside unit. Also, there is a minor issue regarding security, in that tankless water heaters mounted on the outside of a building are more vulnerable to theft and vandalism.
Tankless water heaters in older homes
This here was a topic that popped up during our conversations with the Pittsburgh plumbers at Kwiatowski Plumbing. They told us that in older homes, the older steel water supply lines have often been rusted on the inside over the decades, causing the volume of water that they can carry to become limited.
The pipes can look perfectly fine on the outside, but inside, the rust has built up to the point where these older steel pipes just can’t carry the volume of water it’s needed to operate tankless water heaters.
So here again, if your home is older, a new dedicated supply line may have to be plumbed in to solve the problem.
Going tankless at your kitchen sink
If it turns out that switching to a tankless water heater to supply your entire home may be too problematic, there’s still the option of a much easier to install this type of small, one faucet unit under your kitchen sink. The benefits here are several and are as follows.
They can deliver instant boiling hot water at a much higher temperature than would be safe to use in the rest of the house. This is great for a quick cup of tea, instant soup, or whatever without waiting.
They’re also electric, and unless you live in an older home, there is already an electrical outlet in the cabinet under your kitchen sink. They’re also surprisingly affordable and quick to install, with the water supply line already in place.