It’s the morning, and you’re the last one in your family to get up. Everyone else has beaten you to the shower, and halfway through yours the hot water runs out. It’s a pain for sure, and there is a way to fix it: with a gas tankless water heater. A tankless gas water heater won’t have the problems you’re used to with the unit you currently have. Your conventional water heater has a large tank that heats a limited amount of water at once. When it runs out, it takes a long time to get more. It also has to use energy to keep that tank warm all day whether you need hot water at the time or not, wasting electricity.
A natural gas tankless water heater works basically just how it sounds. It doesn’t have the giant holding tank, so you don’t waste energy keeping water hot when you don’t need it. It also uses natural gas to heat water as you require it. Because of their on demand nature, gas tankless water heaters never run out of hot water. As long as your water and gas lines are working, your supply won’t end. There are two kinds of gas tankless water heaters.
The first kind is a point of use tankless water heater. As the name implies, it is a tankless unit that gets installed right next to where it will be used. These kinds of heaters often have a limited capacity, generally a gallon and a half per minute or less, but they are inexpensive. If you have a location that needs hot water that is not connected to a main area of your house, one of these may be the way to go. The downside to only going with point of use water heaters is that to fill out an entire house, you will need a lot of units, and their cost adds up quickly.
For a normal house though, the best way to go is with a whole house tankless water heater. Just as it sounds, a whole house tankless heater will supply all the hot water needs for an entire house. The price for whole house units varies depending on the capacity you need, the same as with any other kind of hot water heating system. Obviously the more hot water you need, the larger the unit will need to be. The major brands are ones you’ve heard of: Bosch and Rheem. Whole house gas tankless water heaters range in price anywhere from around $550 all the way up to a bit north of $1000.
When considering the total cost of ownership of your tankless water heater though, you have to look at more than just the purchase price. You will be saving money on electricity, as gas water heaters are more efficient than electric ones, and you’ll be saving on water usage costs too thanks to the absence of a large holding tank. If you’re tired of running out of hot water, a gas tankless water heater is your solution. All you have to do is figure out what size of heater that fits your house, and get it professionally installed. After that, your days of endless hot water will have arrived.
