Water Heater Challenges During The Winter Season

Your home furnace or boiler works hard during a New England winter to keep your family safe and warm. But it’s not the only home comfort system that puts in extra work during the shortest, coldest days of the year: your water heater works harder in winter than at any other time of the year, too.

What Hinders Water Heater Efficiency?

Your water heater has to work overtime during winter to make sure you have a consistent supply of hot water available at your showers, appliances, and faucets, overcoming challenges caused by:

• Colder air in your basement – If you own a water heater that has a storage tank, it’s probably sitting in a cold basement where that hot water is constantly cooling as it sits waiting to be used (we call this standing heat loss). To make sure the water is hot when you turn on your tap or appliance, your water heater must sometimes reheat the water, which burns more fuel and causes your equipment to work harder to do its job.
• Colder inlet temperatures – Another challenge your water heater has to overcome in winter is that water entering your home from the well or municipal supply Is colder – which means it takes more energy to heat the water than it does at other times of the year.
• Greater demand for hot water – Most people take longer, hotter showers in the winter than they do at other times of year, and your water heater needs to work harder to make that happen.

Of course, you can reduce some of the impact of these issues (especially standing heat loss) by switching to a tankless propane water heater, which instantly heats the water you need rather than storing it in a tank for later use.

But even if you can’t upgrade your water heater, you can still make sure it’s running at its best and most reliable by getting regular professional maintenance from the pros at W.H. Riley & Son.

Keep the hot water coming and your energy bills as low as possible with high-efficiency water heater maintenance and expert water heater installations from the pros at W.H. Riley. Contact us today to learn more, or to get a FREE, no-obligation estimate on a new propane water heater for your southeastern MA or northern RI home.