The Biden administration is tightening efficiency rules for water heaters, stoves and other appliances, and conservative politicians are dialing up their criticisms.
As discussed in section II.B.3, DOE is finalizing standards for all consumer water heaters, with the exception of gas-fired instantaneous water heaters, in this Final Rule.
So there has been no change to the rules for tankless heaters.
We switched to an externally mounted tankless when our big ole water heater conked out. It’s way more energy efficient, but everyone has to run the water for a good minute until it kicks in and makes it through the pipes
I’ll look into a heat pump once this one dies, but running water during a drought is just wrong.
Hmm, I couldn’t find anything about tankless heaters. I absolutely love that I never run out of hot water, especially after my wife takes her shower.
Per the actual rule:
So there has been no change to the rules for tankless heaters.
Is that because they were already efficient or because they can’t reasonably be made more sense efficient?
I would assume both. They transfer basically all the heat generated into the water and only heat when water is being used.
We switched to an externally mounted tankless when our big ole water heater conked out. It’s way more energy efficient, but everyone has to run the water for a good minute until it kicks in and makes it through the pipes
I’ll look into a heat pump once this one dies, but running water during a drought is just wrong.
This Old House has episodes where they have a small recirculation pump to keep lines primed with warm water.
This kills the efficiency gain of not keeping a hot tank though.