Water Heater Installation in Follansbee, WV
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What a Follansbee winter asks of a water heater
Water heaters here work eight months of the year, October through May, with winter nights averaging 24°F. Cold ground water takes more energy to heat, so the tank runs longer and more often through those months than it would somewhere warmer.
Power is part of the picture too. Across West Virginia, more than a third of households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps working when the power does not, which matters if you are choosing between gas and electric.
The federal efficiency minimum for a new storage water heater is not one number. It is set by a formula tied to the tank's size, and that formula is applied differently across draw patterns, so a smaller tank and a larger one are held to different minimums even when they are the same type. Whoever installs your unit will size it against your household's hot water use and match it to that standard.
- 24°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 8 months
- October through May, the months homes here need heat
- 35%
- of West Virginia 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 $330 a year to run in West Virginia compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical West Virginia home, from EIA household energy data and West Virginia fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Water pooling at the base of the tank means it's time, since that's the tank itself failing and it won't hold water anymore. Rusty water from the hot side only, not the cold, points to corrosion inside the tank. A popping or rumbling sound during heating is sediment built up on the bottom, and once a tank is old enough for that to happen, it's usually easier to replace than to keep flushing it. If your tank is old and something is already going wrong, replacing it beats waiting for it to fail outright, especially with winters here cold enough that you don't want to be without hot water while you wait on a repair.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on whether one is better than the other in general. A tankless unit heats water only as you draw it, so you won't run out partway through back to back showers the way you can with a tank. It also takes up much less space than a storage tank. What it won't do is deliver hot water faster to the tap, since that has more to do with the length of pipe between the heater and the fixture. A contractor can look at your gas line, venting, and water usage and tell you whether the switch makes sense for your house.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The biggest change is that a tankless unit needs a gas line sized for its higher demand, since it fires at a much higher rate than a tank to heat water instantly rather than store it hot. It also needs its own venting, different from what a tank uses. You gain a unit that never runs out of hot water and frees up floor space, but you lose the buffer a tank gives you. Neither one keeps working through a power outage, and in this state, 35% of households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024, so that's worth asking a contractor about directly before you decide.