Next to “Price”, this is the second most asked question. Energy savings is one of those difficult things to calculate. Each home will see a different level of cost to operate a tankless water heater. Family size, habits, age of family members, and other factors will dictate the amount of savings, or in some cases additional costs associated with operating a tankless system. ADDITIONAL COST? You won’t read about that in a tankless brochure. We at Washington Water Heaters feel that providing truthful information, regardless of if it is what a customer wants to hear, is the best approach. That is why you will hear us tell customers that a tankless system could actually INCREASE your operating costs. The simple reason for this is that with tankless, now you have an UNLIMITED supply of hot water, so you could very likely USE MORE HOT WATER. However, if your habits don’t change, the average home that uses a natural gas tank style water heater should see a 30% reduction in their hot water costs. Figure on a 50% savings for those using propane gas tank style water heater, and 60% for those using an electric tank style water heater. Our most common retrofit will be for those who use a natural gas tank. Those customers should expect an annual savings of $125-150.00. That doesn’t sound like much, but if you calculate the savings over the life expectancy of the tankless water heater, that’s more than $3000.00 in energy savings. And that’s in today’s dollars. We’re pretty sure energy prices will be going UP in the future, which will compound the savings in an upward fashion. If you are using a propane or electric tank style water heater, you’ll save even more.
