Tankless Water Heaters – Why and How

I told you about tankless water heaters a few weeks back. Yes, they can prove to be a little bit more expensive than normal water heaters, which might thwart the general masses from consideration, but these water heaters have a lot of other advantages that you should be looking at, before considering them the right choice for your household.

Reasons to Get a Tankless Water  Heater 

Improved Efficiency

Tankless water heaters are known for heating up water only when required. Therefore, they are way more efficient than tanks with a storage facility. So, instead of heating up large quantities of water uselessly, you heat up only the required amount of water with tankless water heaters.

Cost Effective

A major benefit is seen in terms of money, when you get a tankless water heater. Tankless heaters consume very little energy, and hence, can save your household a considerable amount of money every month. Since they do not run consistently and only use up power when it is absolutely necessary, they end up being lighter on your electricity bill than storage water heaters. Moreover, in tankless heaters, the need for a standing pilot light is absolutely eliminated.

Compact in Nature

Traditional water heaters have a huge downfall; their overbearing size. They usually tend to be big, bulky and really heavy. However, with tankless water heaters, that is not the case. Tankless water heaters come in a combined package, since there are very less internal components. If your concern is to not hit your back, or to get something a bit more compact, tankless water heaters are the thing for you.

Cold Showers Can Be Avoided

The main issue with storage water heaters is that once the hot water from the storage is gone, it takes time for the water to get refilled and heated up. As a result, many people end up taking cold showers at times. However, with tankless heaters in place, there is no scope for cold showers at all. They provide you with hot water at your absolute beck-and-call.

Improves Value

Being a homeowner calls for the responsibility of keeping your home valued, that too to the best of your ability. But most of the time, people seem to forget that home appliances add value to the household too. And tankless water heaters are an excellent example of appliances that increase the value of your home, along with improving your home’s Energy Rating System Index Score.

Tankless water heaters are more often than not, characterized by the maximum possible rise in temperature at a given flow rate. This is why, when buying a water heater, you should ask yourself the first and foremost question: In order to determine that, you need to find out the flow rate, along with your desired temperature rise that you would ideally want in your house (or just your washroom, for that matter).

But the next big question that comes to your mind is: how to do that? Here are few simple steps that you can follow to determine the right size of your future tankless water heater.

Step 1

Make a list of all the devices that you want to run with the water heater and check their flow rate. Once you come around to doing that, add up all their flow rates (the unit would be gallons per minute). The added result is the flow rate you need for your water heater.

To give an example, let us just say that you need to run a faucet and a shower head at the same time, with their flow rates being 0.75 and 2.6 gallons per minute. Therefore, according to your usage, your water heater should have a flow rate of at least 3.26 gallons per minute. 

In case you want to reduce flow rates, make it a point to install low-flow fixtures wherever required.

Step 2

Once you have figured out the flow rate that you would require in your water heater, it is now time to determine the temperature rise that you would need for the same.

In order to find out the temperature rise, you need to subtract the incoming water temperature from your coveted output temperature.

To explain it better, assume that your incoming water temperature is at 50 degrees. For most of your consumption, you would ideally need your water to be heated at about 105-115 degrees. Therefore, you can say that you would need a water heater that gives a temperature rise of 55 degrees.

While calculating the desired temperature rise for your water heater, you should always go for a low temperature assumption. This way, you can be sure of not under-sizing your desired tankless unit. Moreover, if you live in warmer climes, your input water temperature would likely be much higher than otherwise.

Once you are done measuring these two crucial requirements, you are fully equipped to answer your own question of “what size tankless water heater do i need.”

It’s time to go and get your desired tankless water heater from the market. Happy installing!