It’s always important to try to save energy. And there are all sorts of things you can do to reduce energy costs, from cutting down your energy usage to buying more energy-efficient appliances. But one of the biggest producers of energy is your water heater. Replacing your conventional storage-tank water heater with a tankless water heater can help reduce that energy consumption. But are tankless water heaters really right for your home?

Storage-tank water heaters keep water heated in large amounts, waiting for you to use it. Once the hot water is gone, you have to make do with cold water until it can heat up the cooler water left in the tank. They storage tank type of water heaters tend to waste a lot of energy just reheating water that nobody’s going to use. Tankless water heaters (also called instantaneous or demand water heaters) heat water directly at the pipe, and only as it’s needed. This allows you to save energy and, theoretically, means you’ll never run out of hot water, though this depends on proper sizing for your household.

There are drawbacks, however, to tankless water heaters. Though they do save you energy, they’re considerably more expensive than traditional storage water heaters. In addition, the instantaneous availability of hot water, as mentioned before, depends on having a system – utilizing one or more tankless water heaters – sized to meet your home’s expected usage.

So is a tankless water heater a good investment for you? If you have a relatively small household and don’t use huge amounts of water, it might be. But the more people you have in your household, the more water you use (several showers per day, plus dishwashing, laundry, etc.), and the less standby energy is wasted with a storage tank water heater. So if your household uses a lot of water, you may be better off sticking with the storage heater, and finding other places where you can save energy.

For more energy-saving tips, contact our experts at Overland Park Heating & Cooling, Inc. We’ve been providing quality air conditioning service to the greater Kansas City area for nearly 30 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Overland Park, Kansas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

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