A Plumber Talks About the Cons of Electric Versus Gas Tankless Water Heaters

Hi, and welcome to another episode of "What's New in Plumbing," I'm Boruch Fishman, and today we will be talking with Byron Graham, the Co-Director of A-1 Plumbing of Baltimore. How you doing Byran?

Byran: Great, How is Everything By You?

Boruch: Good, thanks. Byran and I were conversing a little bit before the broadcast and we are going to be talking right now about the modern tankless water heaters. And specifically, I want to ask Byran what he thinks concerning the electric water heaters. Byran, what's your view about them?

Byran: I have mounted several tankless electric water heaters. They do work, but they do not sustain and perform as well as the gas tankless water heaters do.

Boruch: Can you be specific about what you mean by "not performing as well?

Byron: The electric powered water heaters have to have two or three, 40 or 60 amp breakers pulled over to the heater, so when it is turned on on, it will create enough power, to raise the water temperature sufficiently. And lots of times, our customers don't have enough power or space remaining in their panel box, to give them the three or four 40 or 60 amp breakers to supply the electrical energy for the tankless units. And they have to upgrade their service, to put one in, to a 400 amp service, not a 200 amp service.

Boruch: Okay, so a lot of people can't put them into their houses, because they don't have enough electricity.

Byran: Exactly, they don't have adequate electricity. The other issue we've come across with them is that most of these heaters are for a single person living in a house, or maybe a couple. As long as one person's using the hot water and no one else cuts it on you're fine. But we've found that as soon as someone cuts on a second hot water point of usage, this takes away the hot water that's going to the first person. So its really only efficient for a single hot water fixture in use at a given time. So if you're in the shower and your wife goes into the kitchen and she cuts on the kitchen sink your hot water's going to drop in the shower, because you're trying to heat it with electricity.

Boruch: All right, so you're talking from experience, and not just theoretically that this can be a problem.

Byran: Yes from experience.

Boruch: That's important. Now let me ask you another question. There are people saying that in the future gas prices are going to go up significantly, and for that reason they're recommending the electric heaters. And of course they do have a life span of about 20 years, which means there will plenty of opportunity for prices to rise.

Byran: In my personal opinion, and based on what I have seen at A-1 Plumbing and from my past experiences, the gas water heaters work a lot better, they are a lot more proficient. I'm aware that if gas prices go up in the future, that will make the electric untis more economical .Still, I think yu have to weigh any possible savings in cost against the service you are going to get from the unit. If you have a gas tankless heater, you do have to run 110 volts to it, but you will have continual hot water and you can run multiple points of usage. The thing we are starting to see now is that a lot of people are going to investigate the solar water heaters. There are pros and cons about the solar water heaters, as well. We have pros and cons with everything but we're noticing now a trend for people to go solar because they get a big tax break when they do.

Boruch: Well folks, you've heard it straight from the plumber's mouth. . He's still going with the gas heaters, and he says if you're looking for something new, look into the solar heaters, and get that nice tax rebate from the government.

Well, that's it for another episode of "What's New in Plumbing," Have a Great Day!"

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A-1 Plumbing of Baltimore is a Baltimore plumbing company which specializes in bathroom plumbing and boiler repair The company provides and Baltimore plumbers

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