Tankless water heaters do three things that tank-style heaters can’t. First, they’re small. They take up little space because they sit on the wall, not the floor. Second, they deliver unlimited hot water (as long as they’re sized correctly). A tankless heater never runs cold, as long as it’s large enough to handle the sustained load. And third, tankless heaters eliminate the standby heat loss that inevitably comes from tank-style heaters as they sit full of hot water, cooling off slowly.
All this said, tankless is not better than a tank-style heater in every way. They’re much more technically complicated, so you probably won’t be able to fix one yourself (unlike a tank-style heater which is simple to fix, and parts are also simple and easy to find). They’re also expensive to buy, so the savings in energy cost are not as great as first meets the eye. The best units are also fired with natural gas or propane, so you’ll need to rig up a supply if you don’t already have one.
More and more people are interested in the benefits of tankless water heaters, and that’s why I made a video about them a few years ago. Click above to see how they work and why they make sense for some situations.
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Steve Maxwell
