Walker Plumbing Tips and Tricks

Does your family fight for hot water in the shower every morning? Your hot water heater can only hold a limited amount of hot water before it needs to refill and heat up again, a process that can take an hour or more. With virtually endless hot water from a tankless hot water heater, this problem is solved. They also solve some other problems. Since there’s no tank, it frees up floor space. Since they don’t have to continually heat water to keep stored in a large tank, they use less energy. And since there’s no indoor tank that’ll rust or burst, no more disastrous garage or basement floods. A tankless hot water heater heats ground temperature water with a gas burner or an electric element as it passes through the water heater. Most are lit electronically, so there’s no pilot light to contend with. It only heats water when needed, and doesn’t require a storage tank. This saves a tremendous amount of energy while providing an incredible convenience. It’s the best of both worlds. Gas tankless water heaters are able to produce a higher temperature rise per minute than electric models, so they’re much more efficient. They do require adequate ventilation, and are always safely mounted to the outside of a home or building.

When choosing a particular model for your home or business, you’ll need to do some minor calculations. Don’t worry – Walker Plumbing can help with our special worksheets. Basically, you’ll need to determine the maximum number of hot water units – including kitchen and bathroom faucets, showers, bathtubs, washing machines, and dishwashers – that you’d like to run simultaneously, and calculate their total flow rates in gallons per minute. Always opt for the worst case scenario – picture a house filled with people over a holiday season, and everyone is running hot water at once. Then, add up all of their flow rates. This is the desired flow rate you’ll want for your tankless hot water heater. It’s always better to overestimate your needs rather than overwork a heater.

Next, you’ll need to figure out the temperature rise your tankless hot water heater needs to provide. In Florida, it’s usually fairly warm, so it won’t take as much energy to get your water heated up to 105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit as it would in a more northern climate.

Since this is a potentially dangerous gas and electric unit, it’s mandatory to have a professional, properly trained and licensed plumber install your tankless hot water heater. Walker Plumbing has installed many of these units over the years, and we’re qualified to install yours. Please call us for more information and details and let us help get you into… well, a lot of hot water!