Storage Tank Water Heater History
The Water heater is one of neglected appliances in homes, usually tucked away in some corner of the garage. We don’t pay much attention to it until it breaks. It has been around in its current form for a long time. It was invented in the 1889 by Edwin Ruud and it hasn’t changed much since then. It consists of a 40 or more gallon cylindrical container with a gas burner or sometimes an electric element. It heats the water slowly and keeps it hot all the time. Its burner has a pilot light that is burning gas all the time and the main burner comes periodically into action to heat the water again because the water in the container has cooled off. Well, that goes on day in day out even if the water is never used. That is because the water loses its heat to the surrounding. It is like having a kettle full of water on the cook top all the time. The newer tank water heaters are better insulated than before to reduce the standby heat loss but never the less they lose heat and the water must be constantly reheated. In today’s times where energy has become expensive and will become even more that is a total waste of energy and money. It burdens the environment even unnecessarily and contributes to earth warming and climate change.
The tank water heater is also very inefficient, not only loses its heat, standby heat loss, but it also doesn’t do a good job heating the water through its inherent design. When new, tank water heaters have an efficiency of about 55%. Depending on the hardness of the water it can rapidly fall to 30 or so percent because of water sediments buildup at the bottom of the tank, just like the kettle in which water sediments build up when water in it is heated over and over. The tank water heater has health issues as well. Bacteria and germs love the standing warm water and grow easily and rapidly in that environment. The water is usually not hot enough to kill them. Over time there can also be rust build up in the water tank that reduces the heating efficiency of the water heater in addition of it being delivered to the bathroom faucets and kitchen sink. Sometimes you can see the rust in the tile grout discoloration. Not all of that is unhealthy but a lot of times just undesirable. The tank water heater does push out some of these sediments and some of it remains in the tank and keeps building up. It is not just in the bathrooms we use hot water although the most of it is being used for bathing. We use hot water also to wash dishes sometimes and prepare food. Now if you could see all those microscopic foreign elements, bacteria and sediments you would think again of using it for food or even bathing the kids in tub with that water.
It has happened to all of us that we ran out of hot water taking a shower or a bath. And there is no quick heat up of the water. The water heater is just not designed for that and it takes a lot of energy and time again to heat 40 or more gallons of water. A lot of families have to schedule their showers because in a household with multiple persons you quickly run out of hot water. To make that hot water last a bit longer you can run the water heater at a higher temperature; say 180 degree Fahrenheit so that you mix more cold water with the hot water. Running the water heater at higher temperature wastes even more energy and with it of course money. Typically people take showers in the morning before leaving home for work. The water heater is not intelligent to know that after the shower you all leave the house and won’t be needing hot water until later in the afternoon when everybody gets home again. So it heats up the water again and keeps it hot all day long by heating and heating it again and again. And of course it doesn’t know that you won’t be needing hot water after taking shower and going to sleep, so it heats up the water again and keeps it hot during the night.
Storage tank water heater leaks can be expensive
Well, the other issue with tank water heaters is that they tend to leak water over time. Sometimes this happens for a long time without being noticed. Since most water heaters are placed in the garage they are usually out of sight and nobody pays attention to them. So water damage because of a water leak can go on for a very long time unnoticed and cause considerable damage to the home and surrounding in addition to wasting water and energy. Water damage to subfloors or other structures of homes is not uncommon and the repair of it tends to be costly because it wasn’t detected early.
Earthquake considerations
In earth quake prone areas water heaters pose a different problem as well. If not properly anchored they can tip over and cause water damage, physical damage and of course fire. Water heaters have fallen on cars parked close to them in the garage and considering the weight of a 40 or so gallon water heater full of water is approx. 330 pounds plus approx. 120 pounds for the heater itself, so a total of 450 pounds falling let’s say on a car’s hood. Now that will do significant damage not just to the hood of the car but also to what is underneath it.
And in this case it will also disconnect the gas line and we will have a gas leak as well that can lead to fire and more damage. So it is very important to make sure that the tank water heater is properly anchored to something that can hold the weight just in case. Bolts and steel straps should be strong enough and anchored to main wood studs or masonry walls.
Pressure relief valve on Tank Water Heaters
One other thing to pay attention to is the pressure relief valve. As its name implies it releases the water pressure to the outside by releasing excess water from the tank to avoid an explosion of the tank water heater. You may be surprised to know how often that happens that a small pressure valve fails and the water heater literally explodes. The excess water from the pressure valve of course should be routed to the outside or a drain that won’t cause water damage.
In some older homes the water heater is located inside the house in a place that looks like a pantry from the outside. That of course poses even a greater danger of something catastrophic happening in case of a failure. The idea of a constantly burning fire in an appliance is very unsettling to most people once they are made aware of it. The water heater burner or its pilot is always burning, not just when you use it.
For all the above reasons and more the time of the traditional tank water heater has passed long ago. In other parts of the world mainly Asia and Europe tank water heaters are hard to be found for many decades. There hot water is prepared by something called tankless water heater sometimes referred to as on-demand or instant water heater or point of use water heater.
Tankless Water Heater
The first tankless water heater was invented by an Englishman named Maughan in the 1870s. The idea of tankless water heater is to heat the water only when you need it and almost instantaneously, so no storage of hot water. Like many inventions tankless water heaters went through many designs over the decades. Most of the tankless water heaters were designed to be used at point of use. That is that wherever you needed hot water you would install an electric or gas powered unit and have hot water at the point you needed. This reduced also the plumbing of a house since you didn’t need to run another water pipe for the hot water. Typically you had a small unit in the kitchen; the unit incorporated the kitchen faucet and maybe a very small tank of one gallon or so. Whenever you turned the hot water faucet open you would get hot water automatically after a few seconds. In the bathrooms you had larger units, mostly gas operated that would do the same. No tank and no constantly heating water and with excellent efficiency that would remain largely the same. Efficiencies of 80 plus percents were common plus since there isn’t a tank of water with its associated standby heat loss the overall efficiency would be very much higher. Compared to tank water heater where you heat the water and keep it hot the tankless water heater heats the water only once for immediate use with higher efficiency.
Later years as the technology advanced came along the whole house tankless water heater or on-demand water heater as it is called alternatively. Here the idea is to supply the entire house with hot water on a needed basis only. Large amount of water would be heated as it is needed, be it for a shower or in the kitchen or for the washing machine all at the same time. And the worries or cold running showers were a thing of the past. Now you could fill up the bath tub and not worry to have enough hot water afterward.
That is because tankless water heater provides endless hot water as long as there is water and gas or electricity to heat the water on the go. No storage tank and therefore no ending hot water, and of course with incredible efficiency of 80 plus percent. The newest Noritz 842 tankless water heater has an unbelievable efficiency of almost 94%. Its exhaust venting is made of PVC, almost no energy is wasted and therefore no need to exhaust it. Now that is a contrast to the regular water heater. Since tankless water heater has no storage tank it comes in a small package, roughly 5 times smaller than the tank water heater. It can be mounted on a wall outside of the house and free up valuable space in the garage or in some cases turn that look alike pantry where the tank water heater was into a real pantry inside the house.
The tankless water heater doesn’t use energy when there is no need for hot water and has no standby heat loss. The showers can now be truly endless and no worry for