Water Heater Installation in Burlington, IA
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Cold winters and long outages both matter for your new water heater
Winter nights here average 19°F from December through February, and homes need heat from October through May, eight months a year. A water heater installed here has to hold up through a long cold season, not just a few sharp weeks.
Power is worth thinking about too. Statewide, 15% of Iowa households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024, and the county has logged 17 winter storms and 88 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps working through an outage. One with electric ignition will not light until power is back. Whatever you install, it also has to meet the federal minimum efficiency for storage water heaters, which is not one number but a formula based on the tank's rated volume, applied separately across four draw patterns. Two tanks of the same type but different sizes can face different minimums.
- 19°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 8 months
- October through May, the months homes here need heat
- 15%
- of Iowa households lost power for a day or more in 2024, and a heater with an electric element or electric ignition stops without it
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A heat pump water heater would save about $280 a year to run in Iowa compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical Iowa home, from EIA household energy data and Iowa fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Look at the age first. Most tank water heaters last around eight to ten years, and once yours is in that range, repairs stop making sense. Rust colored water from the hot tap, a tank that's damp or wet around the base, or water that never gets as hot as it used to are all signs the tank itself is failing rather than one part in it. A leak at the tank means replacement, not repair, since the tank can't be patched. If it's still fairly young and the problem is something like a heating element or thermostat, a contractor can tell you whether that's worth fixing instead.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on your current tank failing. A tankless unit heats water as it's used instead of storing it, so you don't run out partway through a shower when someone else is doing laundry. Homes here need heat for eight months of the year, and colder incoming water during that stretch means a tankless unit has more work to do to reach the same output temperature than it would with warmer water. Switching from tank to tankless also usually means changes to the gas line, venting, or electrical setup, which a contractor needs to look at in your specific house before pricing it out.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The biggest change is that hot water is made on demand instead of stored ahead of time, so there's no tank to run out and no standby heat loss while water sits unused. Venting is different too. Tankless units often need different vent piping than a tank did, sized and routed to match that unit. Gas fired tankless units usually need a larger gas line than a tank model of similar output, since they draw more gas at the moment they're heating water. If the house doesn't already have the gas capacity or venting a tankless unit needs, that's added work a contractor will need to plan for, along with the permit and inspection required for the swap.