This is the decision that comes before everything else. Get it right and the brand barely matters. Get it wrong and the best unit on the market is still the wrong purchase, because the constraint was never the badge, it was your gas line, your panel or the cupboard the thing has to live in.
Shown together on purpose. Quoting either figure on its own is how this category misleads people, because the cheapest thing to install is the most expensive thing to own.
| Technology | Typical installed | Fuel, a year |
|---|---|---|
| Gas storage tank | $2,000 to $3,800 | $458 |
| Gas tankless | $4,200 to $9,000 | $296 |
| Heat pump | $4,000 to $8,000 | $112 to $159 |
| Electric storage tank | $1,700 to $3,200 | $421 to $595 |
Each page carries how it works, who it suits, what the sales pitch leaves out, and what to ask an installer.
The unglamorous option that most homes should probably still buy. It has the lowest upfront cost, the shortest install, and the largest pool of people who can fix it at short notice. Almost every article you will read is trying to talk you out of it, which is worth noticing.
What the upgrade pitch gets right
Endless hot water, a much smaller footprint, and the lowest running cost of the gas options. It is also the technology most often sold to people it does not suit, because the install is where the money goes and the headline flow figure describes a condition your house never sees.
The headline flow figure is not what you will get
By a wide margin the cheapest of the four to run, and the only one where a utility will currently pay you a meaningful amount to install it. It is also the fussiest. It needs space, air, electrical capacity and somewhere for condensate to go, and the electrical panel is usually what decides whether it is a good idea or a long payback.
The panel decides this, not the technology
Simple, cheap to install, and the most expensive thing on this page to run. In most Central Valley homes it is the right answer only when a heat pump will not physically fit, and being honest about that is more useful than pretending the choice is close.
Switching from gas to this will cost you money
In practice the choice is made by elimination rather than by preference, and it usually comes down to three physical questions about your house.
A sealed interior cupboard rules out a heat pump unless you are prepared to duct it, because the unit needs a real volume of air to draw heat from. A garage or utility room opens everything back up, and in the Central Valley a garage is close to the ideal spot.
This is the question that decides most heat pump conversions, and almost nobody asks it early enough. A panel with capacity to spare makes the conversion straightforward. A full panel adds thousands and turns a good decision into a marginal one.
Not how much in a day, how much at the same moment. A tank serves several fixtures at once from its stored reserve without any calculation. Tankless is limited by flow instead, and that limit is far lower in winter than the headline figure suggests.
If your current unit has already failed and you need hot water today, that answers it for you. An emergency is not the moment to run a conversion, and the emergency page covers what to do instead.
Narrow it to one
Where the unit lives, what your electrical panel has left, and how much hot water you need at the same moment. The quiz asks those and rules out what your house cannot take, before it asks anything about you.