Comment on Heat-pump water heaters are a winner for the climate — and your wallet
alvvayson@lemmy.world 11 months agoI have a tankless gas heater, too. Very common in Europe.
But let’s not pretend they are good for the environment.
They are not.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Agreed. I’m just saying that there lots of different tankless solutions, and something like peak electrical grid times do not impact all tankless systems in the same way.
IMHO, gas tankless systems are kind of the hybrid car of the water heater world, and electric tankless the pure EVs. They’re both better for the environment, but the gas tankless still produce carbon. You’re only cutting emissions but about 20%-30%.
Electric = zero emissions + doesn’t need to vent + free heating if you have solar + might require both a plumber and an electrician to do the install
Gas = often gets hotter faster and handles load better + can be cheaper if you have cheap natural gas + still produces carbon + needs a stupid vent
alvvayson@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, you are wrong on electric tankless heaters.
Their only redeeming quality is that they take less space.
You can’t power them directly with solar power. They need way too much power for that. They put a high strain on the grid during peak hours and therefore impede progress on decarbonizing the grid.
A water heater tank is a thermal energy store. Technology Connections made a video on that.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 11 months ago
TIL about power requirements. Interesting.
I ended up going gas tankless. Not by choice though. Our contractor went rogue and assumed that’s what we wanted.
Oh well, it solved a problem that we had. We couldn’t fix a tank inside the basement because we were turning it into a room. We needed something that could live outside.