Buying Whole House Tankless Water Heaters

As the name suggests, the whole house tankless water heater is designed to serve the hot water requirement of a whole house providing unlimited hot water at different number of fixtures at a time. For example, a single unit can give hot water at two showers or kitchen sink or lavatory or dishwater at the same time. This is a great attraction for large families. The other alternative is the single –point of use units, mostly used by small families.

The main advantage house owners see in a whole house tankless water heater obviously is the low energy cost to run them. One way it saves energy is by saving the standby cost necessary for heating the storage tanks in traditional water heaters. In the case of tankless water heaters, be it whole-house unit or single –point of use unit, there is no storage tank and therefore no standby cost.

Similarly, both the types function by the same principle. That is, the units heat the cold water, as it enters by a heating element or the heat exchanger. When water enters, the flow of water activates the heat exchanger and when the flow stops the heat exchanger gets deactivated. So, the tankless water heater operates of its own, heating water as and when needed only. This is unlike a traditional water heater where heating water is a continuous process and therefore more expensive.

The heating exchanger in a tankless water heater can be electric resistance heating coils or gas fired burners. Usually in whole house tankless water heaters, heating exchangers are gas fired burners as they have more heating capacity and therefore more cost efficient than electric resistance heating coils .

Although the whole house tankless water heater is a big advantage to large families, it has certain weaknesses as well. As the number of fixtures is more in the case of whole house tankless water heaters, there is a great impact on the overall flow rate. Because, the volume of water required to heat is large in whole house units.

The flow rate is also influenced by the temperature of the cold water entering the unit and exiting the unit. All this necessitates the use of more than one whole house unit in very large families. As whole house tankless water heaters are costlier than single-point of use tankless water heaters, this force large families opting for whole house tankless water heaters to shell out large amounts for their water heating needs.