Water Heater Buying Guide: How to Choose the Right Water Heater

How do you choose the right water heater? Which type of water heater is best for you? Should you get a tankless water heater? I faced all of these questions a couple of months ago when our water heater broke. I should have known something wasn't quite right because I noticed a small leak coming from the outside compartment/closet where the water heater is housed. Unfortunately, I didn't heed the warning sign and all the water completely gushed out one day when I got home from work. Luckily it was a Friday afternoon, which meant I had the weekend to get it fixed before having to start another workweek.

There is a Lowes home improvement store just down the street from where I live, so I headed off thinking I could perhaps get the broken water heater replaced before I had to take a cold shower in the morning. When I got to Lowes, I realized I had no idea what I was looking for or doing. Sure, they were pretty helpful but without knowing what I wanted, I couldn't really move ahead with getting it replaced. I decided I should go do a little bit of research before making my purchase and possibly getting stuck with a water heater that I didn't really want for the next several years. Here is some information I found that helped in choosing the right water heater.

One of the first things I considered was whether I should get a tankless water heater or not. I'd been hearing a lot of radio commercials about tankless water heaters recently and it sounded pretty good. But as I read up on this more, I started thinking otherwise. There are some good reasons for getting a tankless water heater. For instance, I found out that they are usually more energy efficient than the usually tank water heaters. But for me, the bottom line was that I wanted to make sure I had hot water when I wanted it and for as much as I wanted it. Even though we don't have a large family, sometimes we can be using hot water at two or more different points at the same time. Apparently, this can be an issue for tankless water heaters. Although tankless water heaters can provide an unlimited amount of hot water, the volume per minute can be limited. For instance, if you and someone else are taking a shower at the same time and the dishwasher is running as well, this might be too much for the tankless water heater to handle.

Once I decided to purchase a traditional tank water heater, then the next thing to decide on was the size of the tank. This was an easy decision for me since our old water heater was providing enough hot water for my family, so I just simply purchased the same size. In our case, it was a 40 gallon tank. But if we had been running up against the issue of having not enough hot water, I would have taken this opportunity to upgrade to a larger one. So how do you know which size would be appropriate for your family? Here's is a quick rule of thumb. Start with 30 gallons for a household of two. Then for every extra family member, add 10 gallons. Obviously, this depends on the ages and usage pattern of your family members.

Check the recovery rate. For traditional tank water heaters, the recovery rate is the number of gallons for water the heater can heat per hour. This is important if you think there'll be times when hot water will be needed at several points at once. Again, you need to think about your family and how/when the hot water is used.

Make sure you measure the area in which your water heater is going to reside. This seems like common sense but even if you purchase the same size tank gallon-wise, the new water heater might not fit in the same space. For instance, not all 40 gallon water heaters are the same shape. Therefore, you need to know the dimensions of your water heater space before purchasing your new water heater.