You may have heard about tankless water heaters as a source of endless hot water for showers, and might think of them as home comfort upgrades first and foremost. What you might not realize is going tankless can be a good investment: tankless systems are actually more efficient than tank water heaters.
A tank water heater stores hot water at the highest temperature your home will likely need – even when you’re not using water. This means that more energy is used than you need. When a faucet is turned on, hot water from a tank is mixed with an appropriate amount of unheated water in order to reach the desired temperature. As the water in the tank is depleted, more water is added to be heated, meaning that once the hot water is exhausted, you can’t get any more until the tank is brought up to its holding temperature again.
Because tank heaters are often centralized, they also have to send water through the home’s pipes, flushing out the water that’s already there. Often, that water will have had time to cool to ambient temperatures between uses. Not only does this waste the energy that went into heating the water and potentially radiate the heat back into your living areas – not great in the LA heat – but this leads to wait times for warm water.
A tankless system heats water on demand, meaning that it won’t run out of hot water after a long shower or several loads of laundry. And while you may opt for a central tankless heater and its attendant plumbing when you’re going tankless, you can also install point-of-use units which serve a specific appliance or outlet. This could mean hot water in your shower with minimal delays, or a dedicated unit for washing machines and dishwashers to reduce the demands on a central system.
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of going tankless, visit us at Around the Clock Heating & Air Conditioning. We’ve served the LA area since 1967.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Los Angeles, North Hollywood and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about tankless water heaters and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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