I recently had my hot water heater stop working. Went into the shower and there was no hot water. At least it’s still pretty warm outside so the water wasn’t too cold, but the problem needs to be fixed. Being the DIYer that I am I had to do a little research to figure out if I should repair my conventional tank water heater or if I should just get a new one. And if I was getting a new one would it be the same conventional tank one that I have now or a tankless? I did some research and ended up going with the repair on the conventional tank heater I have now. I’ll try to explain why I chose to do that.
The research on tankless water heaters was mixed
At first, I was surely thinking that I would just replace the water heater as I had read that they only last 7-10 years, and mine was older than that. So because I thought I was going to replace it I did some research on options. What I found was that basically have 2 main options, the old school and proven conventional tank water heaters, and the newer tankless models. For my home I had to choose electric models, but they do both come in gas also.
What I found with my research is that tankless water heater models can be a you love it or your hate it type deal. They haven’t been around as long as the tank models, so there isn’t as much long term evidence of their performance. However, I did get some info.
Cost of Tankless vs Tank water heater
The first thing is the cost of the new tank. If you go with a conventional type water heater then you can expect to pay between $800-$1200 for your new one installed. For a Tankless model it will cost 3 times that amount, between $2500-$5,000 depending on what your home needs. If you’re going to go with an electric model then you may need to get some electrical work done so that your new tankless model can run properly since it needs more power than your conventional model to heat water on demand. That would raise your price a bit more, but tankless models are more expensive to purchase and to install to begin with.
Installing a new tankless water heater isn’t an easy DIY job, so if you’re thinking about that I encourage you to research it thoroughly before giving it a go. Installing a new old school tank water heater is much easier to do.
However, a lot of you don’t want to install it yourself anyways. That’s fine, it’s still going to cost 3 times as much to install, but that’s not all. It will also require more maintenance than a conventional model because it simply has more parts to it. It’s not as simple as a conventional tank model. Even if you can figure out how to maintain it yourself you can expect to pay more on average per year on maintenance vs a tank model.
All these costs add up. My research found that it would take many years for you to make up the up front cost of a tankless water heater. That’s assuming nothing major happens where you’ll have to fork over some money for repairs. By the time you get to even on saving it could be time for you to get a new one.
My research also found that if you have a small family living in the house, 2-3 people or less, then a tankless water heater makes even less sense because the savings are even less when comparing the two models. If you’re always running out of hot water because you have a large family and they keep using up the hot water in the tank quickly then you may be a good candidate for a tankless water heater. That’s assuming you don’t live in a very cold part of the country, since in those parts a tankless would almost be useless in saving because of how hard it is to heat colder water.
Why I decided to fix my tank water heater instead of buying a new tankless
In the end, I found a few places that encouraged me to fix my current water heater. A site called Water Heater Rescue explains that they try “to teach people how to maintain hot water heaters to last for decades.” Of course, I also had to call the engineer father in law for some advice. He came by took a look and said we can get it fixed in a couple hours with less than $100 of parts.
So we went to Lowe’s, got an element and thermostat repair kit, got a new pressure relief valve, an element wrench and a pipe wrench and got to work. A couple hours later we had hot water. The engineer says it should last for years, but only time will tell. In any case, if I stop getting hot water again in the future I know how to fix it pretty easily.
For now, I’m going to stick to what I have working. Fixing the conventional tank water heater I already had saved me a ton of money, and it could be the only option for some families on a tight budget. At the least, it should give you some time to make a decision later on a replacement if that’s what you end up doing.