Residential Water Heater Sizing
With a legacy of over 80 years in pioneering water heating solutions, State Water Heaters stands as a premier manufacturer of residential water heaters. Offering an extensive range of sizes, features, and capacities, our water heaters are meticulously crafted to deliver the perfect solution tailored to your lifestyle or geographic requirements.
Understanding Your Hot Water Needs
Selecting the appropriate size of a water heater begins with understanding your hot water usage requirements.
To establish a baseline, assess the number of occupants in your household and their daily routines. Consider the duration of showers, the frequency of simultaneous showers, and the capacity of your bathtub. Additionally, take into account other appliances that utilize hot water, such as your dishwasher and washing machine, and their usage patterns. Determine whether these appliances are often used concurrently with showers.
These insights will offer valuable guidance in determining the optimal size of water heater for your household. For further assistance, explore the Residential Water Heater Selector.
Determining Your Priorities
Choosing the appropriate size of water heater hinges on your individual priorities.
Consider the trade-off between water heater storage capacity and the recovery rate. This entails balancing how much water your heater can store against how rapidly it can reheat the water in its tank. The optimal choice for you depends on your specific needs.
Tank water heaters excel in storage capacity, making them ideal for large-scale uses such as filling a sizable bathtub or running multiple showers concurrently. However, they may require time to reheat before providing a full tank of hot water again. On the other hand, tankless water heaters deliver hot water on demand, making them suitable for continuous hot water usage like consecutive showers. Nevertheless, they may have limitations on the number of fixtures that can be used simultaneously.
Understanding these priorities helps determine the size of the water heater and select the most suitable type for your requirements.
Your Space Requirements
Once you've assessed your hot water requirements and determined your priorities, consider the available space for your water heater. Traditional large storage tank water heaters demand ample installation space and may not be suitable for compact areas. They are typically placed in basements, closets, or secluded areas away from living spaces.
In contrast, tankless water heaters offer an excellent solution for those with limited space. Compact in size, they can be conveniently installed in small areas such as closets. When making your purchase decision, it's crucial to evaluate the installation location and available room to ensure compatibility with your chosen water heater.
On Demand ("Instant") Hot Water
Regardless of the brand or type, a water heater alone cannot instantly deliver hot water to a shower, faucet, or appliance. Several factors must be considered to enable immediate hot water delivery, including features, capabilities, location, and technology.
- Capabilities: Certain product features, such as a built-in recirculation pump paired with a recirculating piping system, facilitate instant hot water delivery by returning unused hot water back to the heater for reheating instead of being wasted down the drain.
- Proximity: The distance between the water heater and the fixture affects how quickly hot water reaches the fixture. Hot water is delivered faster when the heater is closer to the fixture, as there is less piping length between them.
- Temperature: The temperature of the piping between the water heater and the fixture also impacts hot water delivery. Climate, weather, seasonal changes, and the pipe path can influence this. For instance, during a northern U.S. winter, 40 feet of piping in a crawl space without recirculation assistance will take longer to deliver hot water than the same length of piping in an attic during a southern U.S. summer.
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