#homeimprovement #homemaintenancetips
Water Heaters
Like most home appliances, most people ignore their water heaters until they no longer have hot water. Water heaters are essentially ‘dumb’ appliances under the hood, where they simply have burners heating water to a prescribed temperature and send it out via the main hot water line. Nowadays, there are multiple newer technologies available to homeowners, with the usual pros and cons. I just recently had to run through this exercise as my old 75-gallon tank shit the bed, so here’s my experience. I will be using natural gas as the heating source example for the remainder of the post.
Tankless or Tank?
Nowadays, there are two options to most homeowners for hot water: tank or tankless. Tanks are the OG, where a large quantity of water is stored in a huge cylinder and a gas burner in the bottom heats to the set temperature. Contrast this with relatively newer tankless options, where a series of internal tubes coil through a housing and gets heated. Here’s a rough pros vs. cons breakdown:
Tanked Pros:
Easy to install, likely what you already have so no new plumbing.
Low maintenance, outside of draining it of sediment once a year.
Tanked Cons:
Wasted hot water as it sits waiting to be used and must be maintained by the thermostat. This adds to your energy bill.
You can run out if you have multiple people using hot water at a time.
Tank failure can be catastrophic, as it can leak (ask me how I know).
Should ideally be drained once a year to flush sediment, most people don’t do this.
Tankless Pros
Less waste, as water only gets heated when its called for.
Never ending hot water: once it fires and heats water, it remains hot for the duration until the faucet is turned off.
Smaller footprint, typically sits on the wall and good for tight spots.
There might be energy savings incentive plans.
Tankless Cons
Must be descaled on a maintenance schedule. Even more so with households that have hard water.
Expensive up-front costs. New plumbing/natural gas/exhaust lines to account for the relocation. You need to do the calculations to determine whether it will save you money during the time you live in the home.
Higher efficiency tankless condensating units must be drained, so you need the floor drain or tub basin at your location.
I was quoted for a Bradford White 75-gallon tank and a Navien tankless unit. Both brands are reputable and typically installed by professional plumbers. When I crunched the numbers, I just ended up replacing like for like (Bradford White 75-gallon tank). I couldn’t justify the cost difference and I didn’t want to add another maintenance plan to my yearly homeowner costs. Most of the plumbers quoted for both options and really pushed tankless. Please do your own homework and what is right for you and your home. Also, take into consideration the WiFi options since apparently everything nowadays needs to have an IP address. I opted for a dumb tank, as I just set its temperature and forget it. I don’t need any other features or an app on my phone.
Finally, some pro tips:
Install a drain pan under the new tank unit so that a leak will force the water into the pan and not your finished basement.
Add a water sensor to the new drain pan for an alert when it does leak. I use Moen Flow sensors along with some by my sump pump and washing machine.
Drain your new tanked water heater once a year to remove inevitable sediment build-up. DO NOT drain your tank if you have not been draining it since it was installed. The tank will collect sediment every year, and if you try to drain a 10 year old tank, you will end up clogging it and causing even bigger headaches.
Replacing tank anode rods (the interior rods which attract metals in the water, saving your tank from corrosion) is a waste of time and money. Every plumber I have spoken to has said that it doesn’t really buy you much more life and by the time it fails it’s time for a new tank anyways.
Get a permit. You might be surprised, but most municipalities require one, even for a replacement. Yeah, most plumbers will install without one. I like the peace of mind by having a second set of eyes check the installation as I am not a pro.
This varies from municipality to municipality, but expansion tanks might be considered. These tanks are installed on the cold water side and assist in mitigating ‘water hammer’ effects due to the expansion of hot water during the heating process. You’ll know if you need an expansion tank if you hear loud banging whenever the tank fills. This expansion tank is especially needed if you have a check valve on your main water line into the home.
Be sure to appropriately size your new tank. Bigger is not always better, so take into consideration hot water consumption, number of members in household, and any fixtures which might consume a ton of hot water (i.e. soaker tubs). Plumbers can help with this question.
I can’t really give you an exact lifespan for a tank, but I’ve been told the bigger the tank, the longer the lifespan (take this with a grain of salt). My old 75-gallon Bradford White lasted approximately 10 years which was on the shorter side. That said, I have harder water so likely contributed to accelerated degradation. Again, the quality of your water plays a large role in its lifespan in addition to whether you do proactive tank drainings (see my other post for hard water treatment). If you are approaching ten years, start paying more attention to signs of leakage or slow heating times. Throw a water sensor at the base of the tank but do not rely on it exclusively to find leaks. Paying attention to your appliances and what they are trying to tell you has saved me thousands in emergency costs.
Find a reputable plumber and stick with them. This is probably the hardest part of homeownership, but once you find one, hang onto them like grim death. I’ve had more luck with smaller shops, as opposed to the larger corporations you might see advertised on TV. My plumber answers all my dumbass homeowner questions and throws in the occasional incentive or freebie (like doing a free toilet tank repair while he’s there doing something else like a sump pump replacement). Also, make sure they do 24/7 emergency calls. Finding out your guy doesn’t pick up the phone at 11pm when your tank is leaking isn’t a great feeling.
