Tankless water heaters are becoming more and more common in households. Many people are replacing their old style conventional gas or electric water heater with an instantaneous or demand water heater. We recently decided to represent a new product line of tankless water heater by EcoSmart.
What is a Tankless Water Heater
Traditional tank heaters are working all of the time to heat water and keep hot water hot. Whether you are at home or not, or whether it is summer or winter, that heater is consuming energy to keep that water hot and available when needed. This energy obviously costs you money and is at most times unnecessary. Tankless water heaters provide hot water only when it is needed. While the energy required to heat the water at that moment is higher than with conventional tank heaters, the net savings of energy is often much greater with a tankless heater.
Over the 50+ years that we’ve been in Doraville, Duluth and Oakwood, we’ve seen many Dekalb, Gwinnett and Hall county residents come to us with horror stories of water damage caused by a rusted or ruptured tank. For many years it was one of those things that you really didn’t have control over. Over time the tanks were better constructed, but we still talked with many people who were worried that it was only a matter of time before their tank failed.
The prices of tankless water heaters have been dropping and the installation has become easier. Even Do It Yourself-ers can tackle this project. Most folks still opt to use a licensed plumber and electrician (which allows them to benefit from warranty eligability anyway) but the fact is that installation has become easier. Professional installers can set these up much quicker too.
Why EcoSmart?
Ecosmart is only one among many brands of tankless water heaters. When you look at the main difference that sets EcoSmart apart from its competitors, you’ll discover that its ability to modulate energy consumption based upon specific demand is impressive. While most other tankless heaters work via a flow switch, it requires a flow rate of 3/4 to 1 gallons per minute in order to activate. All EcoSmart heaters activate at 1/4 gallon per minute. This means that you can have less water flow to activate the heating.
Ecosmart has a simple and easy to use temperature control knob that makes it easy to set the temperature desired and forget about it. Other models in the niche have knobs but no display, meaning that you have to take a little more time getting it adjusted just right for everyone in your house. Another feature that is available in all EcoSmart heaters is the ability to install a remote control. You could put this directly in your master bathroom! This means you can literally set the temperature to your liking. That’s cool.
All EcoSmart heaters have standard Emerson Electric heating elements. These can be easily replaced if and when they go bad. Other tankless heaters use proprietary elements meaning you must go back to them for replacement parts. EcoSmart heaters have standard, reliable, easily serviceable elements and heat exchangers that provide 99.8% energy efficiency.
But here’s the best part: they have lifetime warranty on all parts (electronics, exchangers and elements) when installed by a licensed plumber/electrician for its residential heaters. This means that it literally is the last water heater you could purchase.
We at Howard Brothers are carrying three models of heaters now: