Water Heater for Your Home: New Options
Tankless on demand water heaters
If you or your contractor go out to buy a water heater today, you’ll have options you didn’t use to have. Traditionally, a tank to hold the water was used. Gas or electric was the heat source. Now you can have a tankless water heater which heats the water as it is needed. This is known as “on demand”. These heaters are especially relevant to today’s need to save energy. It may seem that a heat source is not able to heat water fast enough
Plenty of economical hot water is so great in the kitchen!
to do it on demand, or as needed. However, this is not the case. There is actually an energy savings when you heat the water as needed. Storing heated water is not energy efficient. Also, costs are greater when you store heated water. Heating the water as needed can be done effectively with today’s technology available for water heaters.
The investment price is higher, but over a reasonable period of time you are spending less than if you heated the water and stored it in a tank, which is the traditional method.
Heat pump water heater
Another option available is the heat pump water heater. This unit doesn’t hook to your house heat pump and has its own heat pump unit. As preferred, this unit increases efficiency as well. Recently we are introducing this technology and are being met with astonished looks . So what is it, and how does it work? Think of it as a very small air conditioner that uses the air around the hot water heater to heat the water itself. An added bonus with this technology at work is the ongoing removal of some moisture from your basement.
Traditional water heater
You can still purchase the traditional type water heater which has a gas or electric heating element and a tank. The advantage of this type heater is the lower initial cost. A change to a different type of water heater may require some plumbing work, so be sure to include that cost in your calculations. Yet, the tankless heater may be the way to go to save energy and provide the comfort you need.