You find yourself in the market for a new home water heater. You’ve heard a lot about the “new” tankless water heater. Should you opt for this type of heater?
Read below for some of the pros and cons of tankless water heaters.
First, the pros:
- You’ll more than likely save money on your heating bill. A home’s water heater can make up to one quarter (25 percent) of your total energy expenditure. While a tankless heater will cost more to purchase, the cost savings over the lifetime of the heater (a tankless gas heater should last 20 years) can be considerable.
- A tankless gas heater provides heated water “on demand.” It’s very energy efficient in that it doesn’t try to keep the water heated all the time, so it doesn’t use energy 24/7.
- Tankless heaters are smaller than conventional heaters, so they take up less room.
Now, the cons:
- When we talk about tankless heaters (above), we’re referring to gas heaters, not tankless heaters that run on electricity. An electric tankless heater probably will cost you as much to run each month as a conventional water heater.
- In addition, unless your appliances already use gas, you’ll have to run a gas line into your home in order to run a tankless gas heater.
A tankless gas water heater can conserve space as well as money.
Let’s run some numbers (from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the ACEEE).
- A conventional gas heater will cost about $380. It will use $179 in fuel a year. It should last 13 years. Therefore its full life-cycle cost is $2,707.
- A standard electric heater’s price tag is two times as much to buy and run a year. Its full life-cycle cost is therefore about $5,500.
- Tankless gas heaters will cost about $90 a year to operate, and will last 20 years. At a life-cycle cost of $2,370, that’s a savings of $300. But remember that the tankless gas heater will last seven years longer than a standard heater, so you won’t have the hassle factor of replacing the heater as often).
- An electric tankless heater has a life-cycle cost over 20 years of $5,982 (according to the ACEEE).
If you’re considering purchasing and installing a tankless water heater, talk to the Dallas plumbing experts at Plumbing Dynamics. Contact us at 214-929-3431 or send us a message via our contact form.
Make sure you ask us about our special Internet deal on cost savings for both standard and tankless water heaters.
Photo by Pavel Ševela [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
