Choices abound for water heater

Q: Our next-door neighbor just bought a new water heater last week when his old one started leaking. That makes three neighbors who have replaced their original water tanks in the past couple of months.

I’ve got the feeling we’ll be needing one soon, too. Got any recommendations?

A: The bottom line is that you have a lot of choices. If your home still has the original system from when it was built, then it probably has a gas or electric water heating system that the builder selected. It’s probably worked fine over the years but there are some choices you ought to think about.

•Your cheapest up-front option is to get another basic electric or gas system. I say “cheapest up-front” because you’ll be paying the fuel bill to operate the system every single day for the next 10 or 15 years or so.

•Today’s other choices include demand water heaters (also called tankless or instantaneous), heat pump water heaters, tankless coil or indirect heaters, and solar systems. You can find good descriptions of each of these at www.eere.energy.gov/consumer. You’ll note that there are some advantages and disadvantages to each, and making the best decision calls for you to consider the type of fuel used, how big a system you need, how concerned you are about energy efficiency, and all the costs involved in the purchase, maintenance and operation of the systems over their lifetimes.

Harness Solar Power

Since I get questions about water heating often, I’ll be discussing some of these systems in more detail in the future. But you asked me for my recommendation, and I’m going to tell you that you ought to seriously consider having a solar water heater installed.

•I don’t care where you live — you can get a system sized for your climate. I don’t care if you live alone or have 5 teenagers in the family, a solar system can be designed to meet the needs of any family size.

•And I don’t want to hear that these systems cost more than any of the others. When you figure that somewhere around 20 or 25 percent of your monthly utility bill goes for water heating, the savings from a solar system will pay back that full purchase price in around 6 to 10 years for the average family, and then continue to give you free hot water for even more years after that.

•Once that solar system is installed, you’re not going to have to worry about increasing fuel costs in the future since there won’t be any (unless you buy a small system that won’t meet all of your hot water needs. Then there will be some energy use when the breaker turns on to supplement the solar, but it won’t be anywhere near what it would be if it was powering the full load).