Indiana Plumbing and Drain

Presenting our wares at the Indianapolis Home Show a few months ago, I was surprised at how few people still knew nothing about tankless water heaters.  It seems that the word is out that they exist, but many people seem to still be under the impression that they are nothing but underpowered, gimmicky wastes of money, or simply don’t understand how they work.  Let me address some areas of confusion.

Tankless Water Heaters Vs. Point-of-Use Water Heaters

These two are not necessarily the same.  Point-of-use Water Heaters are designed to provide hot water for one application or zone, and are typically small enough to fit under a sink in a cabinet.  They can only heat a small amount of water at once.

Tankless water heaters are designed to replace your existing standard water heater and provide hot water for the entire residence.  With Takagi’s (our tankless brand of choice) range of models and easy-link capability, we can install a system that can heat anywhere from 0.5 to 50 gallons per minute of water, depending on your specific needs.

Instantaneous Vs. Continuous

One common misconception is that tankless water heaters provide instantaneous hot water.  The truth is, if you currently have to wait for hot water at far-reaching fixtures, a tankless water heater may actually add a few seconds to that wait while it fires and gets up to temperature.  The issue of having to wait for hot water is a problem of piping and the overall layout of the house.  It can be solved or improved by a a repiping job or the installation of a recirculating system.  Additionally, with the installation of a tankless water heater, its small size enables more flexibility in installation locations, and it may be possible to locate in a more advantageous location.

Although a tankless water heater does not heat instantly, it does heat continuously.  A tankless water heater heats water continuously as is passes through the heat exchanger, and since it does not rely on the storage of any hot water, it can produce hot water for as long as you need, so that whether you are filling up a large garden tub or have a full house and have 15 people that need to take showers one after another, your tankless water heater will produce exactly as much (or as little) hot water as you need.

Tags: tankless, Water Heaters

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 10:54 am and is filed under Water Heaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.