Buy Hot Water Heater Home Depot

An electric water heater is a tank that heats water with high-voltage electric heating rods that run vertically through the tank. Water is heated starting at the center of the tank, radiating outward.

buy hot water heater home depot

A gas water heater is a tank that heats water from a gas-fired burner located at the bottom of the tank. Hot water starts at the bottom and rises upward, where it is drawn off the top by a discharge tube.

Gas water heaters require a gas line and an open flame (at the bottom of the heater) to heat the water. Occasionally, the user must relight the gas pilot light with a lighter or a piezoelectric built-in lighter.

While an electric water heater does heat water slower and more expensively than the gas models do, it heats the water more efficiently. The heating rods are submerged in the water in a sealed tank, so there is very little heat loss.

Though gas water heaters burn hotter, they are less efficient than electric water heaters because much of the energy output is wasted through the vent at top. The vent is necessary for discharging toxic gases.

Electric water heaters span the very best and the very worst types of electricity supplies. At the best, though still rare, is electricity supplied by solar or wind. At the worst is electricity supplied by dirty coal-fired or nuclear power plants.

Gas water heaters occupy the middle range for environmental impact. Gas is never as bad as electricity supplied by coal-powered plants, but never as good as wind or solar electricity. Gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel. While gas has long been thought of as a cleaner type of power than electricity, more recently some regions have enacted measures to ban the use of natural gas.

At a box store retailer, the employee who sells you the water heater is typically not educated on the nuances of water heaters to be able to answer your questions and help you select the right model for you. They simply point you to the box.

Old age always comes into play when it comes to water heater warning signs. If yours is around 10 years or older, you may want to consider investing in a new one before your current one starts to leak or cause other problems. To find out how old your water heater is, take a picture of the rating plate and send it to our water heater expert using the form at the bottom of this page.

Earn a rebate up to $400 off the purchase of a new connected heat pump water heater that meets ENERGY STAR performance requirements. Heat pump water heaters can be two to three times more energy efficient than conventional electric resistance water heaters*. 041b061a72