You Will Always Have Hot Water!
The best part about a tankless water heater is that it works “on-demand.” This means that the instance a plumbing appliance comes on that requires hot water–like your dishwasher or clothes washing machine–or you turn on a hot water tap, the heat exchangers within the tankless unit will activate. The water from your main water line will flow over them, and you’ll be provided with hot water.
This is in contrast to a tank water heater. Tank water heaters store a reservoir of water in, well, a tank. You risk not using all of the hot water in that tank before it cools off, and so you’ll suffer from “standby heat loss” which is very inefficient. Alternatively, you may use up all the hot water in the tank too quickly, and then you have family members left taking cold showers.
Now, a tankless system can be overwhelmed. For instance, if two family members are taking a shower in separate bathrooms and you’re also trying to run the dishwasher, your tankless system may struggle to heat all the water as effectively as it otherwise could. This can be resolved by having a second tankless water heater installed, or even having a small tank water heater installed that’s dedicated to a plumbing appliance or two.
You’ll Have More Space!
Tank water heaters are pretty big and bulky, there’s no denying this right? Typically kept in the garage or even in a closet within the house, they take up valuable storage space. You don’t have to worry about this with a tankless system. The units that house the heat exchangers for a tankless system are relatively small, and can be mounted up on a wall either inside your home or on the outside, up and out of the way.
They’re Very Efficient
We mentioned standby heat loss above. This is what many tank water heater users suffer from. The thing is, it leaves you paying more for your energy usage than you should have to. Tankless systems are more costly to install upfront than tank systems, but their month-to-month cost will be much lower!
