Tankless water heaters are the new rage, but are they the
way to go? At Bee Plumbing we think not!
We base this on the
number of service calls we receive, and after doing the math you do not save
any money on your fuel bills or water bills. Tank heaters are mostly 40,000
BTUs with storage and start pushing hot water right away. Tankless heaters are
199,000 BTUs with no storage and must run for a while to heat the water. They
are not ‘instant’ hot water, they are continuous hot water. To a flow you only
get so much hot water per minute - so don't run a lot of hot water at one time.
One of our favorite calls is what we call the "cold water dance
call". The technical term is known as sandwiching. This is when you get a
burst of hot water then cold water in between before the hot water flows
consistently. In the meantime, a lot of water goes down the drain while you
wait for hot water.
Most tankless units we find are not installed correctly and
the gas meter needs to be upgraded. You will never recover the cost to have a
tankless heater installed correctly. Above all, if your tankless water heater
breaks, good luck finding someone to repair it. Nobody wants to be married to your
headache. So my advice is simple, tanks can't be beat! Stay with what's tried
and true - stay with a tank and make life easy. After 41 years of doing service
and being an old school Bradford White guy, for me, it's not about the high
margin sale and huge profit margins. It's about your customer. We believe it is
cheaper to keep you than look for another.