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We hardly think about it when we turn on the faucet. Washing hands and face, doing a couple of dishes by hand, a load of clothes, even waiting for it to get hot enough are just a few of the ways we see water being used. All are clues to what model heater to get and where to put it. If you use two hours of hot water a day, that could be about 6000 gallons a month One of the biggest factors in judging the right tankless water heater is gauging simultaneous hot water you use. It doesn’t matter how much capacity a heater has if it doesn’t have enough when you need it. And to be accurate this has to be something that takes into account water temperature at the coldest time of the year. Ground water temperature can vary 20-30 F degrees with the seasons. Which means heating water from near freezing to a shower temperature of 110-115 F degrees in the winter. This 70-degree difference can drop to 40-degree difference in the summer, but make a big difference in the size (gallons per minute) water heater is needed. This is why sizing a tankless water is important: the colder the water, the fewer gallons per minute of hot water can be generated. Unfortunately this can mean a flow rate reduction of as much as 70 percent. The best way is to find what’s best for you is to get a digital thermometer, a watch and a bucket and make your own gallons per minute calculations. Once you have these numbers you can look for residential models that will provide adequate supply of hot water. Manufacture’s and some seller’s sites have this information as part of the data that goes with each model. With a couple of clicks these sites will reveal a lot of good information about power, warranties and installation requirements. It’s also good to think about the best place to put it. The shortest distance between two points means less wait for hot water. Sometimes this can be a compromise, since the optimum place for a heater is where it will be cheapest to install. But there are solutions to this, see models for ideas. /models.php.
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