Ep.4 Hot Water Tanks Comparisons: Pros and Cons

Show Notes

[00:00:00] Sherman Hu: Welcome to today’s podcast powered by Kingdom Plumbing and Heating. I have Clay Bristow here. Hey, Clay! How goes it this afternoon?

[00:00:07] Clay Bristow: Hey, doing good.

[00:00:08] Sherman Hu: That’s awesome.

What are the popular hot water tanks that customers are asking for?

[00:00:08] Sherman Hu: Hey, I’ve been hearing about these different hot water tanks, like on-demand and tankless. Can you tell me more about what’s popular? What are people asking for? What are your thoughts on it?

[00:00:18] Clay Bristow: Yeah, so a standard tank, most people know it’s just a hot water tank, right? You can have different types, electric or… There’s different variations within that, but there has been in the last few years, maybe 10 years. So, here in North America and Canada, we’ve been having seen more and more what we call tankless systems.

[00:00:36] This is hot water on demand. If you hear about endless hot water, this is what we’re talking about. And that’s what these units provide.

What are the pros & cons, advantages & disadvantages of each hot water tank system?

[00:00:44] Sherman Hu: Okay. And your perspective is? Pro / con? Advantages / disadvantages?

— Tankless Systems: Costs, Gas Consumption, Venting.

[00:00:50] Clay Bristow: There’s definitely pros and cons. So the tankless system is first of all, it’s quite expensive to put into your home.

[00:00:56] So if you have a standard hot water tank at the moment, even if [00:01:00] you already have a gas, it’s probable that we’ll have to change out the gas line and upgrade it. Because the standard gas hot water tank is about 40,000 BTU. That’s how much gas input is to a standard tank.

[00:01:13] These tankless systems, especially if you have a lot of bathrooms, we want to put in one, that’s going to do enough hot water at a time. So you’re looking at maybe, 199,000 BTU, it’s almost four times the amount of gas. So the chances that we’re going to have to upgrade your gas line that you may even need to upgrade your meter are definitely there.

[00:01:29] And the other thing too is, these tankless system, how they’re vented is different. They use a different type of venting than the old hot water tanks, so that needs to be run.

[00:01:38] I typically tell my clients, without even looking at the job, you’re minimum looking at about $5,000 for the whole install.

[00:01:45] What I tell my clients typically is, if you’re looking at having a tankless system, it really would only benefit you if you’re the type of person that likes to take an hour long shower. If you like to be in the shower for an hour at a time, and you never want to run [00:02:00] out of hot water, then for sure. Yeah.

[00:02:02] If you’re in a home where you have maybe six plus people, and you often run out of hot water, then the system could be for you. But yeah, you’re definitely looking at the startup costs can be quite a bit.

(tankless water system) minimum looking at about $5,000 for the whole install…it really would only benefit you if you’re the type of person that likes to take an hour long shower…and you never want to run out of hot water…If you’re in a home where you have maybe six plus people, and you often run out of hot water, then the system could be for you.

CLAY BRISTOW

[00:02:12] Sherman Hu: Okay.

What are very important questions to ask when considering a new hot water tank or system?

[00:02:13] Sherman Hu: What are maybe one or two very important questions that customers don’t typically think to ask, but they should be asking themselves?

[00:02:22] Clay Bristow: About the tankless system?

[00:02:24] Sherman Hu: Yeah. Tankless, tank, maybe the top two, three options out there. What’s the most critical questions they should be asking themselves they may not have thought to ask?

[00:02:34] Clay Bristow: Yeah, the most important thing if you’re talking about hot water is best bang for buck.

[00:02:39] So what makes the most sense for you?

[00:02:41] If it’s just you and your spouse, let’s say, and you’re empty nesters, you don’t have any kids in the house. Unless one of you likes to sit in the shower or maybe you both like to sit in the shower for two hours at a time and you want to run your dishwasher and your laundry at the same time, then maybe, the tankless is for you.

[00:02:57] But a lot of the time, the best bang for buck is going [00:03:00] to be sticking with a hot water tank.

— Electric Water Tank: Sizes, Costs.

[00:03:01] Clay Bristow: Even within the hot water tanks, you have electric, right? Now electric, there’s not really much variation, electric tanks and electric tank. You can get different sizes.

[00:03:10] Let’s say, you have a standard 50 US gallon electric and you find you’re running out of hot water, we could even upgrade you to a 60 US gallon tank or a 75 US gallon tank, instead of, paying the $5,000 to go to an on-demand.

[00:03:24] If you have an electric tank and you’re thinking about on-demand now we have to run a whole gas line, right? Not even upgrading a gas one, we have to run a completely new gas line. So that’s something to consider for sure.

— Gas Hot Water Tank: Efficiency, Value for Money.

[00:03:35] Clay Bristow: I’m a big fan of just the old school gas hot water tanks. I think they’re efficient. They recover really fast. And the best bang for buck, I think they’re the way to go. Unless you, like I said, you have lots of people in the house.

[00:03:49] Even in those circumstances, for one customer, I actually one time, I put in two electric hot water tanks. So she’s got a hundred us gallons of hot water in her fingertips.

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] And what I did with her system is I actually made them, so that you could isolate one or the other. She said she often has a big family stay with her, but in the meantime, it’s just a few people.

[00:04:11] So I said, you can run this tank. And then as soon as let’s say you have some family coming into town, we can turn up…

[00:04:16] Yeah. Flip the switch. I wrote down the procedure on the wall for her and made it very easy for her to just easily flip the switch and have another 50 US gallons of hot water.

[00:04:26] Sherman Hu: That’s great. That’s awesome, Clay.

[00:04:28] I’m glad that you covered the options, but I’m glad that you’re also giving customers options that fit different budgets and sensitivities. And that you weren’t just pushing tankless for the sake of pushing tankless.

[00:04:41] Clay Bristow: No…

[00:04:41] Sherman Hu: I appreciate that.

[00:04:43] Clay Bristow: Yeah. I never want to upsell. We’re not about trying to, just upsell people, it has to make sense for what you’re for what, yeah, for your life and for your daily activities, you want to have enough hot water. You don’t want that hot water to break the bank.

[00:04:56] Sherman Hu: Correct. Correct. That’s great.

[00:04:58] Clay, thank you so much for [00:05:00] that. And that wraps up our episode for today. Stay tuned for next week as we have more from Clay and Kingdom Plumbing and Heating.

[00:05:06] Cheers.

[00:05:07] Clay Bristow: Thanks.