If you are among the growing number of homeowners considering tankless water heaters over conventional storage water heaters, pay close attention to maintenance costs of each. Along with saving money with lower energy costs, tankless water heaters maintenance can save you money to make on-demand water heating your clear choice.

Water Heaters Maintenance

Water heater maintenance is essential to ensuring safe operation and clean, hot water for cooking, cleaning and bathing. The primary differences in tankless water heaters maintenance and conventional types are by design — a heat exchanger and filter vs. a large water storage tank with interior parts.

While tankless water heater maintenance will be specific to your manufacturer and model, it often consists of flushing the heat exchanger with white vinegar to remove mineral deposits and changing the filter every one to three months. The rate that minerals, such as calcium, lime and magnesium, build up in your tankless water heater depends on your home’s water supply.

Maintenance required of storage water heaters is more labor intensive since there are more components to check and replace, in addition to preventing the storage tank from corroding. For example, the anode rod needs to be replaced approximately every three to four years, and gaskets and the dip tube are known to fail.

Cost Considerations

If your objective is to save money over the service life of your new water heater, consider all the factors that affect lifetime costs.

• Installation: Tankless water heaters often require new venting and piping installation when replacing a storage water heater.
• Maintenance and repairs: With fewer parts that require maintenance and eventual replacement, tankless water heaters top storage types for lower operating costs.
• Energy savings: Water heating accounts for about 17 percent of the average home’s energy use. Tankless water heaters reduce energy consumption
• Service life: Tankless systems are designed to last 20 to 25 years. That’s up to three times longer than many storage water heaters.

To learn more about comparing conventional and tankless water heaters maintenance when deciding which system is right for your Newnan, Senoia, Sharpsburg or Peachtree City area home, please contact Powers Heating & Air today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Peachtree City, Georgia and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 770-487-2040.

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