What You Need To Learn Before Installing A Water Heater

With the help of a water heater service technician, you can install a new system in your home that'll satisfy your family's needs. It's important, however, to do some research about units to prepare for a water heater installation project. Folks looking to put in new setups can benefit from learning about these aspects of the systems for sale.

Understanding Options

If you haven't recently purchased a water heater, you might be surprised to see the range of systems that are on the market today. There have been significant improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness, meaning that you should be able to identify a system that'll be an upgrade over your previous one.

There are three types of water heaters commonly used. These are the traditional storage tank model, the tankless water heater, and the heat pump hybrid. Storage tank models, as the name suggests, hold a specific amount of water that is heated and available for use. Tankless systems use electric or natural gas to immediately heat water with coils in an on-demand fashion. A heat pump hybrid is a storage tank variant, but it pulls heat from the surrounding air and transfers it to the water.

Assessing Your Needs

When thinking about your household's needs, the main question you want to ask is what will be the peak consumption in terms of gallons per minute. Your family might use 100 gallons of water a day, but you'll hardly need a 100-gallon tank. When you go shopping for a system, you will see each unit's throughput listed in GPM.

For some reference, more efficient modern shower heads operate at around one to 1.5 GPM, and some bathtubs run as high as four GPM. When running the water in the sink, you may need as much as 1.5 GPM.

Should you wish to obtain a more precise measurement of throughout, grab a gallon jug and time how long it takes to fill it. If it took, for example, 30 seconds to fill the jug, then you know your throughput for that outlet is about two GPM. Check each faucet in turn.

Providing Heat

Three main heat sources are used in most American homes. Natural gas is widely considered the most appealing, as it provides rapid heating. In areas without natural gas, electric water heaters are the most widely used. You may also want to look into a solar water heater.


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