Your old water heater is on the way out and you’ll soon need to have it replaced. It’s good to get ahead of a water heater failure and schedule a new installation. Taking the initiative also gives you more time to consider your replacement options. There are more choices now than ever before when it comes to water heaters, and there’s one in particular that stands gleaming on the top of a hill: the tankless water heater.
If you’ve read about tankless water heater systems, you’ll have run into a slew of superlative reasons praising the many benefits of making the switch. We won’t contradict most of the benefits of a tankless water heater. But we do have to contradict the notion that choosing tankless is automatically the best choice for a home. Water heater selection is more complicated.
A water heater that isn’t providing hot water isn’t good for much. That’s kind of its entire purpose for existing, after all. Of course, just because your water heater isn’t currently providing water, doesn’t mean that you need to get a new one. It’s possible that you just have a problem of some sort in the system that needs to be resolved for it to return to normal function. If your water heater isn’t providing enough hot water, read on to find out why that might be happening. 
Water heaters are built to last quite a long time, but they don’t last indefinitely. No matter how well you take care of your system, at some point you’re going to need a new one. If you know the signs that your water heater is on its last legs, you can replace it before it has the chance to fail completely. Have a look at the symptoms below to help determine whether or not your water heater is in need of replacement. 
Normally, we write about ways to protect your various home systems on this blog. We’re in a more whimsical mood today, though. Since it’s a Monday, and you’re reading a plumbing blog, we figured we’d spice things up a bit by telling you the two best ways to make sure that your water heater lives as short and ineffective a life as possible. In short: DON’T DO THESE THINGS! Let’s get started. 
Water heaters are built to last, even with the massive amount of demand that they have to deal with on a regular basis. Regular maintenance and prompt repairs can extend the life of a water heater by quite a few years, but sooner or later the system won’t be able to cope anymore. If your water heater is on its last legs, it’s a good idea to make sure that you know about it beforehand. Otherwise, you may just find yourself without hot water one morning. Nobody wants to experience that. It’s a good idea to know the signs that your water heater is about to fail, so that you can replace it before that happens. 
