Ask a Plumber Blog: Guidance from a Master Plumber

Do I Need More Than 1 Tankless Water Heater?

How many tankless water heaters do I need?

Jennifer in Marietta, GA contacted us about Tankless Water Heaters. She’s got a rather large home (with 6 bathrooms) and was asking us if she could only get 1 tankless water heater or if she was going to need multiples.

To answer that question, it really comes down to several factors:

4 factors to determine how many tankless water heaters your home needs:

Type of fixtures
Number of fixtures
How many people are in the house
What the demands are (volume of usage)

We have calculations that we do for each home when we put a tankless water heater in.

Tankless for Average Size Home

Typically speaking, for your average home with 4 or less bathrooms and 5 or less people, you can get away with installing just 1 centralized tankless water heater.

Multiple Tankless for Larger Homes

On a larger home, we might put 2. We might put one closer to function just the primary bathroom. If it’s got body sprays, other heavy volume water fixtures, or free standing tub. We would do 1 tankless to feed just that bathroom and then we might catch the rest of the house with another tankless unit. OR we might put multiple tankless water heaters in tandem to feed an entire house, depending on the circumstances.

It Depends…

But to answer your question, it really depends on each individual house.

Options other than tankless

Sometimes tankless isn’t the option for your home. In some houses, it costs more than it’s worth. If tankless is not an option there are other solutions – we can install a power venting tank type water heater or a high recovery water heater. These will get you the results you’re looking for at a fraction of the cost.