Electric Heating Systems

When you have to make a choice about a new water heater, it can often mean that you just discovered the great fun of taking cold showers in the middle of the winter, compliments of the newly broken water heater. Its not a time that encourages you to do a great deal of research, but my suggestion is bite the bullet and spend a little time, it can avoid a newer set of cold showers shortly down the line.

While its not going to improve your attitude, you will need to contact your homeowners insurance and your home warranty company. Both may be required to help you cover the cost of the replacement water heater and they may have some control of what you have to purchase for replacement.

Now comes the choice, an electric water heater, a gas/propane water heater, electric tankless water heater or a gas/propane tankless water heater. Once you make that choice there are several choices of features that are relatively new in water heaters. Your climate can affect your water heater so there are considerations for the purchase.

Your first choice, the electric water heater or gas/propane water heater, and the considerations are a few. The first consideration is does your have a gas/propane service already installed. If not, the costs and time for installation may cost more than and electric water heater, over time. In light of the increased costs of propane, there may be no savings over and electric water heater, though most sources still include that as a selling point.

All appliances have to provide information on their capacities. Check to see how big your water heater is currently, and if you need more gallon capacity, often the home warranty and homeowners insurance wants to replace with the same size, but they will allow you to get a bigger gallon capacity and pay the difference.

Other features that have become available since your water heater was last replaced, are stirrers, electronic ignition, sealed air intake systems, pipe insulation, additional tank insulation, insulation jackets and new drainage valve configurations. All which are safer for you and increase the life of your water heater.

New Choices in Electric Water Heater and Gas/Propane Water Heather

Finally, you need to decide if you want a tankless water heater. The tankless models come as electric tankless water heater and a gas/propage tankless water heater. The decision here is more than electric water heater and gas/propane water heater, as above the choices are much the same; however, with the tankless system you have to have one for each water outlet. Thus if you have two showers you need to tankless systems. You need one for your kitchen, and anything else which draws from the water heater currently. There are big advantages to a tankless system, and as the name suggests, there is not tank. There is no loss of water while waiting for the water to “warm up”. That really means to have the hot water travel through the pipes to the water outlet. They don’t maintain a full water of water a full temperature all day and night. The costs savings can be extensive and should be addressed.

If you are interested in buying a tankless water heater, besides reading a tankless water heater review there are a few other aspects that you are going to need to take into consideration as well.

What Type?

One of the biggest decisions that you are going to have to make is what type of water heater you are going to need. You can choose to have either an electric or propane tankless water heater. There are both pros and cons to each, but the propane tankless water heater tends to come out on top in most cases.

Benefits

There are quite a few benefits offered by the propane tankless water heater. For one, a propane tankless water heater will be able to recover hot water twice as quickly as their electric counterparts.

That means that in the long term, by opting for a propane water heater you will end up saving yourself a great deal of money. Since propane is extracted from crude oil and processed from natural gas, the price of propane follows the price of these energy commodities, and this refers in particular to the cost of crude oil.

This can be both a good and bad thing but overall the prices for crude oil and the cost of natural gas have been steadily rising which means that you may end up paying more than you expect.

Keep in mind that while propane is produced year-round, the demand for propane is highly seasonal and causes inventories to increase when demand is low which is usually in the summer, and decrease when the demand is higher which is usually in the winter.

Tips

If you decide to go with a propane tankless water heater, here are a few tips that you should keep in mind. For one, when using a water heater you should turn it down from the standard 140 degrees to 130 degrees, and as a result you could end up saving as much as 10% and even more on your water heating bill.

Another helpful tip is to make sure that your attic and basement are properly insulated. This can end up saving you a great deal of money on your water heating bill.

Protect against drafts in your home by caulking and weather-stripping around the windows, doors and other openings in the house.

These tips will all be very helpful and ensure that you pay as little as possible on your water heating bill every month.