Why Tankless Water Heater Maintenance plans are needed

Tankless water heaters are designed to provide an endless amount of hot water for you and your family while also being more energy efficient than your traditional tank style water heaters. However, water quality concerns and other environmental factors can affect the performance of your tankless water heater.  Here's what you need to know:

Hard Water

Hard water is present in the majority of water systems in the U.S. In fact, 85% of water systems in the U.S. have hardness issues. Why does this matter? Well, the minerals tend to bond together and solidify when exposed to drastic temperature changes. In your traditional tank style water heater, these minerals tend to solidify and fall to the bottom of the tank, which does affect the unit's efficiency, but since the traditional tank is just a vessel that holds the water, it's more a detriment to the tank itself than something that can cause operational failure. With a tankless water heater, however, the minerals can affect the flow sensors, thermistors and other components within the sequence of operation leaving you with problems that can become chronic and costly. 

Some of these issues are:

- Clogged Water Inlet Filters - A clogged water inlet filter can reduce the flow into the unit. This can lead to pressure (volume) issues and affect your satisfaction pf the unit's performance.

- Blocked Flow Sensor - If left unchecked, the minerals can interfere with the operations of moving parts. The flow sensor of your tankless water heater essentially controls all operations of your unit. The unit needs to know how much water is traveling through it in order to activate other parts of the tank in order to deliver the hot water at the desired temperature and flow rate. These problems can be frustrating, as there will typically not be an error code associated with the failure or in milder cases, there could be temperature or pressure fluctuations.

- Thermistors - Thermistors in a tankless water heater, along with the flow sensor mentioned above, are part of the "brains" of your tankless water heater. In fact, the temperature of the water is read many times by your system as the water is passing through the heat exchanger. These readings need to be accurate. When minerals cling to these thermistors, which are essentially temperature probes in the side of the waterways, the unit cannot read the temperature properly. This can not only cause issues with performance such as temperature fluctuations; it can also overheat and damage your heat exchanger.

Annual heat exchanger flush is recommended by all manufacturers of tankless water heaters to maintain the performance of your unit. With your Maintenance Membership Plan, we ensure that your tankless water heater is operating to its maximum potential. Let us help you keep your tankless water heater system running at peak performance. Contact us today to sign up for our maintenance plan!