Tank VS Tankless – Misconceptions

Tankless Toronto

There are a lot of misconceptions regarding tank type water heaters and tankless systems.  As a homeowner, if you’re thinking of adding a tankless to your home take what you read on the internet with a grain of salt.  Everyone seems to be some sort of expert on water heaters and can tell you which system is better when in reality you yourself needs to make the decision.  A tankless has been installed tens of thousands of homes throughout the greater Toronto area with positive reviews.

In some situations as tankless is not the right choice, you need to trust your water heater installer to shoot you straight.  The hard part is finding reputable tankless installers that are willing to tell you the whole truth and not just force the sale through.  I can tell you without hesitation that we and all employees put the homeowners interest first.  Operating on this simple principle ensures that the homeowner remains a customer and we remain in business. Simple as that.

Now back to the tankless misconceptions published throughout the internet.  A recent article regarding the pros and cons was published on thesop.org by a writing that appears to have just taken some common thoughts regarding the system and published them as if completely true.

Below is our response to the author regarding his article.

Hello John,

I read your article on thesop.org and wanted to correct you on a few things regarding tank vs tankless water heaters.

You said – Tankless water heaters are about 10 to 20% more energy efficient than traditional tank water heaters.

Tankless range from 82% to 98% efficiency, an expensive conventional tank brand new is lucky to be 60% so 20-30 percent is more accurate.

You said – Tankless water heaters work best when only one water tap is using hot water.

That’s not accurate at all, a tankless can easily run 3 showers and a dishwasher simultaneously (or some similar combination).

You said – If water taps are far apart from each other, it is recommended to buy another tankless water heater.

How does that even make sense? A tankless is designed to produce enough hot water for your whole home and is usually installed very close to where the old tank was installed, thus the hot water has the exact same distance to travel.

You said – Water does not instantly heat up when using a tankless water heater, but does with a tank heater.

This is backwards, it does heat up instantly, tankless are sometimes referred to as insta-hot water heaters.

You said – Tankless water heaters require yearly maintenance in order to remain efficient.

This is correct but not a bad thing as you stated… any and all water heaters see a 2% reduction in efficiency every year due to scale and lime build up.  A tankless is designed to have the scale removed or flushed out of the system so that it maintains its very high efficiency rating.  A conventional tank has no flush or maintenance thus the scale builds up year after year.   Think of the efficiency these two water heating systems are operating at 10 years down the road.

You’re a university student,  I know you can do better than this.   Let me know if you’re interested in re-writing, correcting, or doing another article on the subject. I would be more than happy to answer any questions or provide any help needed to accurately portray the pros and cons of tankless systems.

Read the original article here

Purchasing A New Water Heater

When your conventional tank-type water heater fails, it’s usually not catastrophic.  The failure usually produces a small little leak that is caught in a drip pan or trickles across the floor into a drain. This slow leak usually gives you some time to think about the issue and plan a replacement strategy.  You have an opportunity to shop around, get quotes from water heater installers, and research new technologies. You may opt to simply replace your system with an equivalent water heater or you may look at upgrading to a new tankless water heater with a much higher efficiency.  Once thing you should do is examine your water heating rental fees, most people are shocked at how much they pay.  Really look at the cost to benefits of renting verse owning your system, remember most homeowners in cities throughout Canada and the US for that matter don’t rent their systems.tank size verses tankless

If your leak is causing damage to surrounding equipment, floors, ceiling or you’re going without hot water; it may be considered an emergency.  In my house a “no hot water situation” is frequent and often (because I continually test different manufactures systems) and usually just results in some harsh words from my wife.  In your home no hot water is probably a result of some type of mechanical failure, a circuit board, igniter, pressure sensor etc.  It’s a good idea to replace a troublesome system before it causes too much stress on your relationships.  So it may be time to do a bit of research.

A whole house tankless water heater won’t sit on your floor; it will mount to the wall. The tankless system will use either natural gas or propane as a fuel source.  The system will likely need you to upgrade your gas lines and change the venting from your old water heater.  If you’re considering a tankless and have any question, don’t hesitate to ask.

Tankless Air Flow And Your Home

Tankless Air Flow

There is a big difference between a tankless water heater and a conventional power vent tank type water heater.  Obviously they heat water fundamentally different, but what I’m eluding to is the makeup air.

A power vent tank type water heater sucks air from inside the house uses it for combustion and them forces it out the house as exhaust.  This fresh air the tank uses for combustion has to come from somewhere and thus it pulls it in though the numerous cracks and holes throughout your home.  The problem is that this air is usually unconditioned, so your furnace or A/C has to turn on to compensate for the influx of either cold or hot air costing you money.negative-home-air-pressure-conventional-tank

A tankless is a closed loop system.  This means that it draws combustion air from outside the home and vents the exhaust gases outside as well.  There are two pipes on a tankless system, one will vent the exhaust gases out and the other will draw fresh air in from outside thus preventing it from being drawn in from the cracks and holes throughout your home.  This balance of intake  and exhaust helps to maintain a balanced air pressure within your home.  This of course saves you money as your furnace and air conditioner don’t need to heat or cool this invasive air caused by a poor water heater design system.

If your interested in finding out more on how a tankless water heater can work to save you money and still provide all the conveniences and more that a conventional tank provides, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

Call Us With Any Questions 647-925-1930

Gas Code and Tankless Systems

The 2012 national gas codes in the United States have recently made a significant changed.  This change is substantial for tankless water heater systems as the old code required ¾ inch gas piping which many homes only had as an upgrade.

In the past if you had your hot water heater fail and you decided to upgrade to a tankless system you may have been delayed or forced to go back to a conventional tank type system due to your homes standard ½ inch gas lines.

Home builders are now able to install ½ inch gas lines without predetermining if the home owner is going to utilize a tankless or conventional tank.  The ½ inch pipe is now able to be configured to support either water heating option.

The newly lifted restriction makes it even easier to Go Tankless – now we just need this same update in our Canadian gas codes.