Ken's Plumbing | Blog

If you’re frustrated with running out of hot water or looking for a more energy-efficient solution for your home, a tankless water heater may be the ideal choice. Unlike traditional systems that continuously heat a tank of water, tankless water heaters supply hot water only when needed, providing hot water on demand.

Plumbing problems are never a fun thing to deal with, especially when they come as a surprise. Sometimes it can be difficult to predict problems with your plumbing system because so much of it is behind walls or underground. However, with the right tips and tools, many plumbing issues can be delayed or avoided completely. Let's take a look at 5 plumbing problems and how to avoid them.

Question: If water causes steel to rust, why doesn’t the inside of my water heater tank rust out?

Answer: It will eventually, unless you have a working anode rod installed.

What is a water heater anode rod?

It’s a fact of nature that water corrodes many kinds of metals—steel most noticeably. But here’s where a bit of cleverness comes in with the invention of the water heater. If you introduce a rod of more “tempting” (that is, more easily corroded) metal into the environment, the water will react with that and leave the steel unaffected.

Tired of the shower going cold before you finish, or trying to ration the hot water among multiple family members every morning? Perhaps you should consider a tankless water heater.

Rather than keeping a finite amount of heated water in storage, as a traditional water heater does, a tankless heater heats water on demand, by running cold water through a pipe heated with an electric or gas-powered unit.

To determine whether a tankless heater is for you, let’s look at some of the pros and cons for installing this appliance.

Are you frustrated with your water heater frequently experiencing leaks? Have you found yourself in a constant cycle of replacing water heaters without understanding the root cause of the issues? If this sounds familiar, it’s time to consider the installation of a water heater expansion tank.

Your home’s water heater has a maximum temperature setting that controls how hot the water in your faucets may be at any given time. While most of us don’t think about this setting being customizable, it is actually something you can control.

A new water heater is typically preset to a maximum temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Some say that’s the ideal temperature, while others argue that it’s better to reduce the maximum temperature to 120.

There are two distinct schools of thought on this topic. Let’s take a closer look at them:

Listen, we get it. We know you want a DIY solution to your hot water heater problem because it means you save a couple of bucks, but we can assure you this is a situation where the cons are downright dangerous and outweigh the pros of saving some money.

Your water heater is one of your more dangerous home appliances because of the dozens of gallons of extremely hot water, gas lines, pressure-controlled tanks, etc. Discover why you need to put away your toolbox and pick up your phone to schedule an appointment with your professional plumber when it comes to water heater replacement:

One of the best things about modern plumbing is that it just kind of works. You don't necessarily have to think about where your water goes when it drains or how a faucet can produce hot and cold water, but when you start thinking about those things, it can be hard to figure out how everything actually works.

Replacing a major home appliance is never fun or convenient, but the experience can go just a little smoother if you can start preparing for such a major purchase before things head totally south.

So if you're suspicious that your water heater may be on the road to failure, check out this list to see if your unit's symptoms match up with these 4 signs that your water heater might be giving up, and plan ahead for a replacement:

So far we've given you a list of things to consider when shopping for a new water heater, and we've compared traditional and tankless models, so this week we thought we'd help you learn the differences between gas water heaters and electric water heaters.