Water Heater Maintenance Season

Nick's Plumbing & Air Conditioning Live Video Transcription:

Or heaters? No, no, no, no, no. Water heater maintenance season. Oh, I guess I was thinking about ducks.

I’m John Eccles. Richard Saad. So we’re talking about water heater maintenance season and season on water heaters. And what does that mean? So what we’re talking about, what we’re talking about that is, is uh, when is it okay? Or when is it time to have your maintenance done to your water heater now, now is the time. Not Tomorrow. Now. We’re probably a few weeks late according to what we like to see. We like to see people do this in the fall before the winter because the winter is the time when the water heater is going to go through. It’s most strenuous time and it’s most work. Right. And if we’re going to explain that why, why would that be? Richard? Why is the winter the hardest time for the water heater? You’re having to cook water a lot more. And let me define that a little bit. In Texas, we’re one of the only states that allow water heaters in the attic.

Most of our water heaters are in the attic. So being in the attic, it’s going to get 30 something degrees in the attic. Granted the water heater does have insulation on it, but in the summertime, think about this in the summertime, it’s not having to work hardly at all, but it’s not cycling on and off all the time. They’re in the winter when you get thirties and forties up in that attic, it’s having to cook that water a lot more and it’s not nearly as efficient as it when it was 150 degrees in your attic, right? That’s right. So you want to make sure that the performance of that water heater, is that the optimal that it can be, that takes maintenance to be able to do that. It also breeze. So it’s been in the attic all year and it’s done a good job for ya.

Um, it’s sucking in air out of that attic and it gets particles in it. That’s right. Right. So when you’re demanding that hot water during the winter, it’s happened to work that much harder. It needs to be breathing correctly. It needs to be burning the fuel correctly and keeping the water is hot as it can for as long as it can be. So it quit cooking it all the time, let’s call it. Right. So it’s efficient. Bottom line is efficiency. Yeah. Yeah. Now what about tankless water heaters? I know they’re a little different, right? A little bit different. So tankless is you’re not holding any water for it to sit there and cook all day and all night, right? That’s right. So it’s a pass through system. So when you demand your hot water in your kitchen sink, shower tub, wherever you’re demanding that hot water, it’s passing through like a radiator.

So you need to do maintenance on those. Of course you need a d scale. Those, uh, once a year is a great time, but there’s no preference whether it’s winter or summer. You just need to do it once a year. It’s not having to sit there and cook and work all day. That’s one of the benefits of having a tankless actually writes, correct, is that whole element now both of them need the maintenance. Right. And I would think on a yearly basis is what we recommend both double need once a year maintenance tank, we absolutely recommend in the fall going into winter because of the whole cooking up and down the tankless, still recommend once a year. Uh, there’s not really a preference, you know, that we do know that people tend for whatever reason, to cook and use their water more at home during the winter because people are inside not outside.

So the interior water gets used a little bit more. So that’s why we recommend that. But again with the tankless, without the cooking up and down, it doesn’t really matter when you get it done, but it does need to be done. Yeah, absolutely. And Houston, our water is, is hard and, and other areas it’s a lot harder than we are, but it’s still hard and that scale will build up in both water heater on the tank side and water heater on the tankless side. So you do need to maintenance these once a year. Now the maintenance maintenance of a tank versus a tankless is going to be different. Yes. So the equipment that we have to use will be different. You need to do it once a year though, and that tankless will last you a beyond 20 years. Now a tank in Houston will last you between seven and 10 if you do the right thing.

Absolutely. And that means maintenance of that unit once a year, which I would say 99 percent of the people in Houston don’t do. But I can tell you this, if you have a car and you don’t change the oil, how long has the car going to last? Not Very Long. That’s the problem. So you could probably go beyond 10 years of your tank unit if you would give it some maintenance and it’s not that expensive. What would you say that our average tickets are on tank and it tankless. Oh, I’ll put a range on it. Normally it’s probably between 150 to $300 somewhere around there for either unit. I’m just saying you know, of course tank is probably gonna be on the cheaper side because of the equipment that we have to use for the tankless is a little bit more. But it’s somewhere in that range right now, let’s say as a homeowner, if I wanted to do maintenance twice a year on it, is that a problem?

No, absolutely not. You know, that it’s absolutely not a problem at all. Matter of fact, if you can do it more than once a year, that’s just recommended twice a year would probably be great. Especially I just know me, if I had a tankless unit that had a little bit more, um, electrical circuits and stuff like that. And with the hard water, I’d probably want that one service twice a year now. Now you guys. So I just so you know, I’ve had a tankless in my house for 12 years. Uh, we’ve talked about this on previous shows. There are ways to avoid maintenance and do a minimal amount of maintenance and that is by putting in some type of a softening system. Right? So I’ve never had to clean my tank less because I got a softening system on the house and not a traditional softening system. I’ve gotten electronic softening system and I have never had to maintenance my tankless water heater except cleaning out the filter and clearing and cleaning up the air and tank.

Right. So there are some things that you can do that will, uh, provide maintenance on a daily basis without us being there providing that maintenance. Right? Absolutely. You guys need to ask those questions to your provider, right? Whoever put in that tank, water heater or whoever put in a tankless water heater, the question would be is how do I stay away from yearly maintenance? Yeah. If you don’t want to do that and you’re not about the maintenance side. Yeah, I wanted it to be as maintenance free and you want it easier. Yes. There are some things like that now where people really go wrong in the attic, on their tank units, it briefs from the bottom and it picks up all that insulation, the fiberglass, the dust that’s whirling around that attic and it just sucks it right in. Now it doesn’t. Sometimes it will create a complete failure, right? The pilot goes off and it just wrecks the system, but a lot of times it doesn’t. It just doesn’t get enough air to breathe and if you guys remember back in elementary school, I think is when we learned this, it takes oxygen to make fire. Absolutely. So it needs the oxygen to burn efficiently and effectively. Yeah, so by cleaning out and maintenancing your water heater, you are giving it the best chance of survival that you can and getting the years that you’re paying for out of it. Absolutely. That’s the bottom line.

As usual, we’re always here for you. Always just a phone call, John Richard, we’re in the office. Any questions, whether we did it, put it in. You want to know more? You want to know, okay, I’m not a big maintenance person. How do I stay away from it? We’ll be happy to talk to you around it. Give us a call anytime. Thank you for watching. Thank y’all so much.

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