Water Heater Installation in Sioux Falls, SD
Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Minnehaha County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Cold winters, and a sizing rule that isn't one number
Winter nights here average 10°F from December through February, and the incoming water a heater has to warm starts out cold to match. That draw runs September through May, nine months a year, so a new tank spends most of the year working against it, not just a few weeks.
The federal minimum efficiency it has to meet is not one number either. It is a formula based on the tank's rated volume, applied separately across four draw patterns, so two tanks of the same type in different sizes face different minimums.
- 10°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 9 months
- September through May, the months homes here need heat
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A heat pump water heater would save about $300 a year to run in South Dakota compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical South Dakota home, from EIA household energy data and South Dakota fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- The clearest sign is age combined with trouble. Once a tank water heater gets old, watch for water that takes longer to heat, rust colored water from the hot side only, or moisture pooling around the base of the tank. That last one usually means the tank itself is failing from the inside, and once that starts it won't stop. If your heater is older and you're seeing any of these, get it looked at before it leaks. A winter here with no hot water is a real problem, not just an inconvenience, so it's worth dealing with before the tank fails on its own schedule.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on your current heater being bad. A tankless unit heats water on demand instead of storing it, so you don't run out partway through a shower, and it keeps running as long as you need it. It also takes up much less space than a tank. What it won't do is deliver hot water instantly at the tap, there's still a short wait for water to travel through the pipe. A contractor can look at your home's gas line and venting to tell you whether a switch makes sense for your setup.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The biggest change is what the unit needs to run. Tankless heaters draw a lot more gas at once than a tank does, so the gas line often needs to be upsized to keep up. Venting changes too, tankless units typically vent through a different type of pipe than a tank, run to an outside wall rather than up through the roof. Because there's no tank, you also get back the floor space it used to sit on, which matters in a smaller mechanical room or basement. A contractor can check your existing gas line and venting to see what's needed for your home.