Stiebel Eltron Tankless Water Heaters

Hi I’m Mike Dunn with Stiebel Eltron. Today I’m going to discuss the benefits of tankless electric hot water heaters. Often called On Demand instantaneous water heaters, they differ from tank water heaters. If you are considering buying one, it’s important to choose the right size and model. With a tank water heater, you can turn on one fixture, then another, and so on. Hot water flows from each fixture until the tank runs out. With a tankless water heater, turn on a fixture, and the hot water never runs out. But turn on too many fixtures, and it cannot keep up. Choosing the right tankless water heater means knowing how many fixtures must run at the same time, then hot water is truly endless. A tankless electric water heater has other advantages. It needs very little room, doesn’t need venting, and doesn’t need propane or gas lines coming into the house. With no tank full of hot water to cool off, there are no stand-by energy losses, resulting in savings of 10-30 percent. Tankless electric water heaters are also 99-100 percent efficient. There are various sizes of tankless electric water heaters to consider. The smallest models are designed to provide warm water for hand washing. Larger models can supply warm or hot water at a single sink, and the largest models can provide endless hot water to an entire house. The more fixtures you supply with hot water at the same time, and the colder the climate you live in, the more powerful the tankless hot water heater you will need. So why not just install the most powerful unit available? For one, expense. Why pay for more than you need? Plus, installing the most powerful units may require upgrading electrical service to the house. So how do you choose? All tankless electric manufacturers supply sizing charts. These charts are based on the flow rate, the number of fixtures that need hot water at the same time, and temperature rise: the difference between the cold water temperature and how hot the water must be. The flow rate is calculated on how many fixtures need hot water at the same time, not how many fixtures are in the house. This is usually the number of showers taken at the same time. Lastly, electrical requirements must be checked to make sure you have enough power in the house to run these units, especially when the largest of the whole house models are needed. Now that you know more about tankless electric water heaters, you can make the right selection for your home.