Water Heater Installation in Dover, NH
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Dover asks a lot from a water heater over an 8-month heating season
Winter nights here average 16°F from December through February, and homes in the county need heat from October through May. A new water heater is working through most of the year, not just the coldest week of it.
Power is worth planning around too. Nearly a quarter of New Hampshire households went at least 24 hours without power last year, and the county has seen 44 winter storms and 43 damaging wind events over the past decade. How a tank or tankless unit, gas or electric, handles an outage is worth asking about before you choose. On the efficiency side, the federal minimum for storage water heaters isn't one number. It's a formula based on the tank's size, so two tanks of different sizes can face different minimums even though they're the same type of heater.
- 16°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 8 months
- October through May, the months homes here need heat
- 22%
- of New Hampshire 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
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Water pooling at the base of the tank means it's done, since that's the tank itself failing, not a fitting you can tighten. Rust-colored water from the hot tap, especially if it doesn't clear after running it a minute, points the same way. An older tank is worth replacing before it fails rather than after, since a leak from a failed tank can mean real water damage to whatever room it sits in. If it's still working fine but making noise or running out of hot water faster than it used to, a contractor can tell you whether that's the tank aging or something fixable.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on your old tank failing. A tankless unit heats water as it flows through rather than storing it, so it doesn't run out partway through back-to-back showers the way a tank can. It also takes up a lot less space, since there's no tank to house. Whether it's worth the switch for your house depends on your gas line, venting, and how your home is set up, and a contractor can walk you through what changes for your specific house.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The unit itself is smaller and usually goes on a wall instead of taking up floor space. Because it heats water on demand instead of storing it, it needs a gas line and venting sized for that higher, shorter burst of heat, which is often different from what your old tank used. Some homes need the gas line upsized or the venting rerouted to meet what the new unit requires. A contractor can check your existing setup and tell you exactly what needs to change to install one.