St. Louis’s Premier Water Heater Repair & Installation Service

The Indoor Comfort Team has been servicing, repairing and installing water heaters in the St. Charles, St. Louis and Metro East area for decades. We install State water heaters, as we know that they are well built, and reliable water heaters. Our trained technicians have serviced and installed thousands of tankless, gas, and electric water heaters of all major brands.

Signs You May Need a New Water Heater Installed

1. Age of your water heater

Since conventional water heaters are the most prevalent, we’ll concentrate on those. If your unit is 10 years old or older, it’s time to strongly consider replacing it. But if you did not install your current water heater, how can you know its age?

2. Rusty Water

This is a sign that something is wrong. If you discover that rust is only coming out of the hot water side of your home’s water supply, you may have a rusty tank issue, which could lead to a leak developing at any time.

But, you don’t want to unnecessarily replace a perfectly good hot water tank, right? You can test it by draining water from the tank into a five-gallon bucket three to five times and look for rusty water. By the third bucket, the water should be running clear, without rust, meaning you may not have a rust issue. But, you guessed it, if after three buckets or more rust is still apparent in the water, it is time to replace your hot water tank.

3. Rumbling and Noise

If you hear rumbling or noise coming from your hot water heater, it may be on its last leg and could develop a leak at any time. Why would it start making noise? As a hot water heater gets older, sediment can build up on the inside bottom of the tank and can harden. As the water heater tank heats up, it can start making noises because of the hardened sediment.

Also, the hardened sediment can lead to less efficiency because the unit now needs to use more gas or electricity to heat the water. And with the water heater taking a long time to heat up, this means it is running more than it should and working harder, which will cause more wear on the tank and shorten its life.

4. Water Around the Base of the Tank

As the water heats up in your hot water tank, it causes the tank’s metal to heat up and expand. This can lead to the metal developing small fractures or cracks. These will eventually lead to water leaking out of the tank and collecting around its base. This means it’s time for a new tank unless the water is coming from the tank’s pipes or connections. Check to see if this is the case. If so, you may be able to salvage the tank but you will still need a licensed professional to fix the leaking pipe issue.

Types of Water Heaters

Conventional Water Heaters

Conventional water heaters, gas or electric, continuously heat the water in your tank so that it’s ready to use at any time. The extra energy necessary to heat the water can be considered less than efficient and even wasteful by some standards though. The advantage is that your home has hot water available at any time, and plenty of it, so your family won’t run out of hot water. Installation for a conventional water heater is also less compared to a tankless system.

Tankless Water Heater

Tankless water heaters have a smaller footprint than conventional units and can be mounted on an interior or exterior wall. They are also more energy-efficient than conventional water heaters and last longer, up to 50 percent. When the time comes to choose between a conventional and tankless water, carefully weigh these benefits against the initial higher cost for both the system and installation. Also, consider that tankless water heaters do not produce as much hot water at any given time compared to conventional units. Tankless units heat water on demand, unlike conventional hot water heaters, which hold 20 to 80 gallons of heated water on reserve at all times.