Having your water heater suddenly give out is generally considered an emergency simply because of how many different things you need hot water for every day. The good news when facing this situation is that you usually won’t have to be without hot water for that long. There’s a chance that you can even get a plumber out to replace your water heater the same day your old unit fails. Here, we’ll provide an overview of how long water heater installation usually takes. We will also cover what factors can affect the timeline and what to look for when choosing a new water heater.
Average Timeline for Water Heater Installation
Installing a new water heater usually isn’t all that difficult and is something that an experienced plumbing company can typically do in under half a day. In some cases, it can take as little as two hours to remove the old water heater and then install the new one in its place. That said, the time can also vary quite a bit depending on various factors like what type of water heater you currently have and what type the new unit is.
Installing a new tankless water heater typically goes a bit faster compared to replacing a tank water heater. That’s mainly because with a tank unit, the plumbers first need to drain the tank before they can disconnect and remove the unit. Just draining the unit can end up taking anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on how many gallons the tank holds. This is one area where you can potentially save some time and possibly a bit of money by draining the unit yourself before the plumbers arrive. However, if you choose to do this, you need to be careful since you could potentially damage the drain valve and create a major flood.
Factors That Can Affect the Installation Time
Installing a new water heater will always take less time when you’re just doing a like-for-like replacement, i.e. replacing an old tank water heater with a new one. If you’re switching from a tank water heater to a tankless unit or vice versa, it will be slower. This is because the plumbers need to retrofit or adapt the existing plumbing to work with the other type of unit. In some cases, switching from one type of water heater to another can take a full day or even longer depending on the amount of additional work that needs to be done.
One factor that can impact how much work needs to be done when switching from a tank to a tankless water heater is the location of the existing unit. That’s because a tankless unit has to be hung on a wall and the location of the old tank unit may not be suitable for the tankless unit. This can especially make a difference with gas units where the plumbers will need to move and at least partially rebuild the exhaust flue. Even if the new unit is going in basically the same location, it will still be necessary for the plumbers to move or otherwise adjust the existing cold and hot water lines. With gas units, they’ll also need to move or add on to the gas line so that it runs directly to the new unit.
Another factor that can make the installation take much longer is if you’re switching from one fuel source to another, i.e. from gas to electric or electric to gas. If you’re upgrading from an old electric unit to a new gas tank or tankless unit, the plumbers will have to contact your utility provider to have your gas shut off. That way they can safely tap into your existing natural gas service and run a new gas line to wherever the water heater is being installed.
Switching from gas to electric will often take even longer. Building codes generally require that an electric water heater is wired to a dedicated 240-volt circuit. Unless your house previously had an electric water heater in the same location, an electrician will need to install a new circuit. They will also have to install a double-pole circuit breaker and then run wiring from your electrical panel to the water heater.
The biggest concern in this situation is that there may not be enough room in your electrical panel to add another double breaker. Your electrical service may also not be sufficiently powerful to support the new water heater. In this case, you’d also need to have the electrician upgrade your electrical panel and then rewire all of your circuits into the new panel. As such, you’d typically be better off sticking with a gas water heater since having to upgrade your electrical panel will make the project take much longer and cost much more.
How to Know Which New Water Heater Is the Best Option
Choosing which type and model of water heater to install isn’t always straightforward since there are a variety of factors you’ll want to consider. Unless you’re on an unlimited budget, the cost of the unit and the installation is obviously something you’ll want to take into account. A tankless water heater is almost always going to cost you a bit more. Also, the installation cost will be higher if you’re upgrading from a tank to a tankless unit due to the additional work this requires. Nonetheless, a tankless unit is generally going to be the more cost-effective choice in the long term.
One reason for this is that a tankless water heater will normally help reduce your energy bills. The only time this may not be the case is if you have unusually high hot water needs and often use 80+ gallons in a day. The other reason a tankless unit can save you money over time is that it will usually last many years more compared to what you’d get out of even a top-of-the-line tank unit. In most cases, you can expect either a gas or electric tankless unit to last for a minimum of 20 years. You usually won’t get more than eight to 15 years of life out of a tank unit.
You need to decide whether you want to install a tank or a tankless water heater. After that, you then need to make sure that the unit is sufficiently large to fully meet your normal hot water demand. With a tank unit, the two things to focus on are how many gallons the tank holds and the unit’s first-hour rating. This rating tells you how many gallons of hot water a unit can supply within an hour when starting from a full hot water tank.
The better units on the market usually have a first-hour rating that’s at least 25% higher than how many gallons they hold. For instance, a good 50-gallon unit will usually have a first-hour rating of 75 gallons. That means you can use up to 75 gallons in one hour before you finally run out of hot water.
The main thing to focus on when determining what size of tankless water heater you need is flow rates. The flow rate tells you how many gallons of hot water a tankless unit can produce per minute. That means you need to consider how many different places where you may need to use hot water at any given time. For instance, do you have two bathrooms in your house and often have times when both showers are in use?
Similarly, are there times when someone needs to shower at the same time as your dishwasher or washing machine is running? If the water heater doesn’t have a sufficient flow rate to handle these types of situations, you’ll end up with the water not being sufficiently hot and/or its temperature frequently fluctuating.
Contact Us Today
If you’re looking to replace your water heater or need any other plumbing service in the Greater Knoxville area, the experts at Tennessee Standard Plumbing are always ready to help. We offer same-day services and can ensure you don’t have to wait too long from when your water heater gives out until you get a new unit installed. We can also help you decide which option will best meet your home’s hot water needs. To schedule a water heater replacement or any other service, contact us today.
