Whole House Tankless Water Heater Reviews | Whole House Tankless Water Heater

Whole House Tankless Water Heater

If you’re new to tankless water heater technology,I recommend you head on over to our tankless water heater guide first to understand the basics.

On demand water heater brands tend to define “whole house”differently,and obviously the meaning of  ”whole house” would also be different for each  household.   For example,one home may need to use one shower and one dishwasher simultaneously and another home would like to be able to use 2 showers,and a laundry machine simultaneously.   The best way to determine if you need a whole house instant water heater, is to accurately calculate your water usage and flow rates.  Understanding your total hot water needs in Gallons Per Minute (GPM) will allow you to be free of  confusing labels from tankless water heater manufacturers because you’ll be basing your purchasing on accurate requirements.  Each instantaneous water heater model has a specified output in GPM so no matter what your whole house needs are,picking the right tankless water heater model will be easier and will not be dependent on a brand’s labels and marketing strategies.  Please check our instant hot water heating guide to find out  how to calculate your total water consumption needs first.

Regardless of what labels tankless water heater companies put on specific models,we’re defining whole house instant water heaters as  models  that can handle the most amount of total GPM (gallons per minute) or at least 3 or more appliances at the same time.  This is also called peak demand.  For example,your household wants to have 2 people shower and turn on the dishwasher at the same time any time of the day.  You also have to factor in the varying ground water temperatures during winter and summer,because instant water heaters produce different amounts of hot water for different incoming ground water temperature.

So  a whole house tankless water heater should at least be able to churn out 8 GPM (this should allow in an average household 2 simultaneous showers and 1 appliance ) or more during warm and hot summer temperatures,and 6 GPM (this should allow in an average household 2 simultaneous showers and 1 low flow rate water fixture maybe a laundry room sink or kitchen faucet )  or more during winter  temperatures.  You certainly could buy two or more tankless water heaters to meet your whole house water consumption requirements,but we wanted to keep our list to single units which should keep installation costs to a minimum.

Safe Water Temperature Setting

We can not stress enough that you consider carefully what temperature to set for your tankless heater or any kind of water heating device,especially if you have children ages 5 or under.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends a 120 F setting or lower.  Most dish washers are capable of heating incoming water to their required operating temperature (Usually this temperature is around 120 F) before performing a specific cycle and so even a tempearture lower than 120 F might be ideal for your tankless water heater.   Read more about safe tankless water heater temperature.

We’ve chosen the water heater setting to be 120 F for our criteria because it is widely considered to be the safest hot water heating temperature.

 

Criteria:

Our definition of whole house tankless water heaters and requirements (manufacturers may vary their numbers below,but we’ve tried to stick to these as they represent an average of temperatures nationwide):

  • Set Temperature = 120 F
  • Winter Flow Rate = 6 GPM or higher
  • Summer Flow Rate = 8 GPM or higher
  • Winter Temp Rise = 120 F – 40 F  (Avg. Water Supply Temp) = 80 F (Temp Rise)
  • Summer Temp Rise = 120 F –70 F (Avg. Water Supply Temp) = 50 F (Temp Rise)

 

Whole House Tankless Water Heater List: