Tankless Hot Water Heaters Versus Hot Water Heaters
Advantages of Tankless Hot Water Heaters
Again, the main advantage of using tankless hot water heaters in your home is energy savings. On the average, these units can save between ten and forty percent on your hot water costs.
Besides saving energy, tankless hot water heaters take up less space than a heater that has a storage tank. Therefore, they can easily fit underneath a bathroom or kitchen sink, or wherever a source of hot water is needed. You may also choose a larger unit that provides hot water “on demand” for the entire home.
Another advantage of a tankless hot water heater is that, it doesn’t require the regular maintenance that a heater with a tank requires. There’s no need to drain the sediment out of the tank, for example, since there is none.
And, tankless hot water heaters are designed to last twenty years, which is about double the lifespan of their tank-type counterparts.
Disadvantages of Tankless Hot Water Heaters
When comparing a tankless hot water heater versus a hot water heater, it’s much easier to install the former if you’re building a new home. Changing the existing (tank) hot water heating system in your home over could prove to be very costly, and, difficult.
No matter whether a home is old or new, one disadvantage of these units is that their installation is more costly. For example, choose to install an electric tankless hot water heater, and you could run into wiring problems. Tankless hot water heaters don’t run as much as hot water heaters. But, when they do operate, they pull a lot of energy. Some of these units pull as much as 28,000 watts of electric versus the 4,500 watts that conventional hot water tanks use. If your home’s wiring can’t handle this drain, you could be forced to upgrade your wiring and your circuit breaker box to a 400 amp system.
Another disadvantage of a tankless hot water heater is that many of the units can only heat two or three gallons a minute. That’s enough water to wash your hands, for example, but it’s not enough hot water to shower, take a bath, or run your dishwasher.
Advantages of Hot Water Heaters
Since hot water heaters- at least the conventional type- have a holding tank, they have the capacity to hold anywhere between twenty and one hundred gallons of water. This means, when you want hot water it’s readily available. You don’t have to wait for it to be heated first. That’s just one of the pros when you compare tankless hot water heaters versus hot water heaters.
Another advantage is conventional hot water heaters are cheaper to buy and easier to install.
As it was already said, these heaters pull electric more often because they are repeatedly heating and reheating the water in the tanks to keep it hot. However, they don’t strain a home’s electrical system as much as their modern counterparts.
Disadvantages Of A Hot Water Heater
Conventional hot water heaters need regular maintenance. The sediment that builds up inside their tanks need to be drained from time to time. If they’re not drained, the heating of the water can be compromised. And, your tank won’t last as long.
Which leads us to- hot water heaters that have tanks need to be replaced every ten years on the average.
Steel hot water tanks eventually will rust and leak. This can cause an unexpected mess in your home. However, there are electric hot water heaters that have plastic tanks so you can avoid this con.
