Should I Convert my Hot Water Supply to a Tankless Water Heater?
OPINION: Most of us are familiar with the traditional-style water heater – that big thirty- to sixty-gallon tank taking up space in the basement near the furnace or boiler. These water heaters have served us well with few improvements for decades, but a different breed of water heater has been in use for many decades in Europe and Latin America, and has seen less widespread but growing popularity in the U.S. – the tankless water heater. The energy-conscious world in which we live has turned its attention to the water heaters of old and has identified two potential areas of improvement. The first is that traditional water heaters are not very efficient at converting the energy in fossil fuels into hot water. Over the last twenty years, furnace and boiler technology has improved the efficiency of home heating, but water heaters have not kept pace, even though the same technology can be applied. The second possible improvement that can be made to water heaters has to do with the storage o
