How To Size a Tankless Water Heater?
The typical tank water heater can provide your home with hot water for between eight to 12 years. While you could replace your aging or broken water heater with another standard tank model, a tankless model could be a better fit for your home and needs.
This type of water heater could last for up to 20 years or more and offers other benefits. These include energy, cost, and space savings. Before installing a new system, however, it’s important to choose the correct size for your home.
How a Tankless Water Heater Works
Before delving into how to select the right system for your home, it’s helpful to understand how this type of equipment provides heated water. A typical tank system heats water in the tank and stores it at a specified temperature until you need it. The alternative tankless system heats water as it passes over the heating coils.
Because it doesn’t store warm water and only heats on demand, energy consumption is less. In addition, you seemingly have a never-ending supply of warm water at your disposal. However, there’s a caveat to this that should be considered when choosing a new water heater model for your home.
The Importance of Choosing the Right Size
While water can continuously flow over the heating coils in a tankless model, the water flow rate is a limiting factor. After all, only so much water can pass through the pipe and over the coils at one time.
Because of this, you might never run out of hot water, but you might not have enough hot water at times. This might occur if multiple people are showering at the same time or if you’re washing laundry and running the dishwasher at the same time. A larger system can prevent this from happening.
However, getting a larger system than necessary can be disadvantageous. In addition to costing more upfront, it takes up more space and might even use more electricity. As a result, you might not save as much money or energy as you otherwise would if the system is too large for your needs.
Key Factors to Consider
There are three primary factors to consider when choosing a new system for your home. Perhaps the most significant of these is the flow rate. This must be considered in conjunction with the peak demand for hot water in your home.
For example, how much heated water is needed if you take a shower, run the dishwasher, and use the washing machine at the same time? To determine the demand in your home, you’ll need to know the gallons per minute, or GPM, for the water-consuming features that you might use at the same time. Keep in mind that a typical tankless hot water system can provide you with between five and 10 or more gallons of hot water per minute.
The second factor to consider is temperature rise. The water entering your home is partially determined by the ground temperature. That water needs to be heated to a certain temperature as it flows over the coils.
Your new system needs to have a temperature rise sufficient to meet this need. When living in a warmer climate like southern Florida, the temperature rise is less of a concern than it might be in a northern state.
The number of people in your home also needs to be considered. After all, you might not always shower at the same time you run a load of laundry, but two or more people in different areas of the home might be bathing or washing their hands at the same time.
What’s Right for Your Home?
As you can see, deciding what size of system you need requires careful research and planning. The last thing that you want is to determine that you’ve installed the wrong size after your plumber leaves, and you’re standing in a cold shower. With an initial consultation, a plumber can utilize a sizing chart and learn more about your home’s needs before making a well-informed recommendation.
Learn More About Your Home’s Needs Today
At Miami Benjamin Franklin, we know how important it is to have a steady, reliable flow of hot water available on demand. If you’re struggling with a broken or old water heater, our team of skilled plumbers is ready to help. Remember, if there’s any delay, it’s YOU we pay. Call us today for a consultation and water heater service.
