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Home » Blog » Your Water Heater Works Harder in Winter, Too

Temperature adjusted to high

Your furnace or boiler is tasked with keeping your LI home warm throughout the long, cold winter, so it makes sense that these workhorses are under more pressure to do their job during this time of year than any other.

But your home heating equipment isn’t alone in working harder during the winter months: your water heater does, too.

3 Ways Your Water Heater Works Harder in the Winter

It may be tempting to think that your water heater works the same way all year long, but that’s not true: your water heater actually labors considerably harder in the winter than it does in other seasons for three key reasons:

  • It has to overcome greater standing heat loss – If you’re like many homeowners in Long Island’s East End or North Fork, you probably own a conventional water heater (one with a storage tank) that sits in a cold basement. As water in the storage tank waits to be used, it loses heat – a phenomenon known as standing heat loss. The more standing heat loss you have, the harder your water heater will have to work to keep your water hot and ready for your appliances and taps.
  • It has to warm colder water – The fresh water entering your home during the winter is colder (that is, it has a lower inlet temperature) – which means it takes more energy to heat the water than it does at other times of the year.
  • You use more hot water – Most people take longer, hotter showers to warm up during the winter – which means more work for your water heater.

With the increased work load on your water heater, you may not be able to avoid at least some rise in your energy bills during the winter months (since anywhere from 15-20 percent of your energy bill comes from heating water), but you can at least make sure that your water heater is running as efficiently as possible.

How do you do that? By having your water heater professionally maintained – and by making sensible, high efficiency water heater upgrades for your older equipment. The good news is that the experts at Burt’s Reliable can help you with both.

Keep the hot water coming and your energy bills as low as possible with high efficiency water heater maintenance and installations from the pros at Burt’s Reliable. Contact us today to learn more.