Healthy Homes & Home Performance - Water Heaters

Do you heat your home’s water with gas or electric heat? Chances are you have a 50 or 65 gallon tank water heater installed in your home. Let’s say that tank is 70% efficient. So for every dollar you put into water heating, 30 cents is wasted! New water heaters waste much less and are something to consider if your water heater is 10 or more years old. If you have a gas water heater, you could replace it with a 97% efficient gas tankless water heater. Then only 3 cents to every dollar is wasted. If you have an electric water heater, you could replace it with a heat pump water heater aka HPWH which is over 300% efficient! But how can that be? Well they use the heat pump technology like your fridge except instead of expelling warm air to keep your beer cold, they take in surrounding warm air to heat the water and expel cold air. Pretty cool right? Most of them have multiple modes for heating including heat pump, hybrid and vacation. Hybrid is a great option during times of higher water heating demand because it combines the heat pump action with the traditional electric resistance elements in the tank. They are also starting to include smart technology so you can monitor and control them remotely from your device!