A good water heater offers you the ability to take warm baths or showers, wash your clothes or dishes and do anything else that involves the use of hot water. Since this appliance is so essential to daily comfort in Charles Town, WV, you need to know about the criteria for a good one. Here are four tips about how to choose the right water heater.
1. Tanked or Tankless?
The first major decision that you must make when selecting a water heater is whether to get a tanked or tankless unit. Tanked water heaters use storage tanks that come in a variety of sizes, whereas tankless units heat water on demand.
The chief advantage of tanked heaters is that they provide you with hot water on standby that is immediately at hand. Tankless water heaters will require some time to heat up each quantity of water for you. But you won’t need to set aside any room for a massive water tank, and the device will only consume energy when necessary.
2. Size
The next important consideration is size. This is of paramount concern if you decide that you’d like to have a tanked water heater, but it isn’t an issue if you get a tankless one.
Tanked water heaters’ reservoirs can be anywhere from 23 to 60 gallons in size. The appropriate capacity will depend on how much water you typically use and how many people live in your home. You may need a 60-gallon tank if you have six or more people living in your home. However, 36 gallons or fewer will probably be sufficient for homes with only two occupants.
Tankless heaters are typically about 2 feet tall and a foot wide, can mount on a wall and can fit into a confined space. Instead of physical size, you’ll need to pay attention to the volume of water that tankless water heaters can heat to a given temperature during a given period. Once again, you’ll need to tailor your decision to the size of your home and the number of its occupants.
3. Fuel Type and Efficiency
Water heaters may run on any of three different fuels: electricity, natural gas or heating oil. Oil-powered heaters heat water faster than the other types, but they tend to be quite bulky and heavy because of their massive heating chambers. They also exist in only a few areas, while electric and gas-powered heaters are much more common.
Overall, electrically powered heaters tend to be the most efficient of all. Nevertheless, it’s still possible to find efficient, high-performance gas-powered water heaters or ones that run on a combination of gas and oil.
A final point to make is that heat pump water heaters also run on electricity. In fact, such water heaters are integral parts of geothermal heat pumps, so if you have one of the latter at home, then you also already have one of the former.
4. Total Costs
In addition to the costs that go with efficiency, there are up-front installation costs and the costs of repairs and maintenance to consider. Tankless water heaters generally carry higher up-front costs than tanked ones do.
However, tanked water heaters have an average lifespan of about 10 years, while the lifespan of tankless heaters is approximately twice as long. So, over the long run, the respective costs may even out.
No matter what kind of heater you have, you’ll need to have a professional technician flush it out and perform maintenance on it at least once every year. The purpose of flushing is to remove sediment or other debris in the heater that might curtail water flow and decrease system efficiency.
With the basic knowledge we’ve provided here, you should be ready to begin the journey to install a new water heater in your home in Charles Town, WV. Call our team at Griffith Energy Services today to request heating services.
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