January 2008

Gray Water Heater Also Green

Want to save a lot of green with your water heater? Then you need a super efficient Marathon.

Saving the Environment

The average life of a steel tank water heater is nine or 10 years, depending on whether the unit is electric or gas, according to the Department of Energy. Contrast that to the Marathon’s 36-year life.

When steel tanks rust and fail, they usually end up one of two places–illegally dumped or in a landfill.

Some recycling centers accept these water heaters. But many do not because of sediment and rust issues.

So how much landfill space does the long life Marathon water heater save?

A study shows that landfill space avoided for each Marathon water heater installed is 28.8 cubic feet. For every 1,000 Marathons, that’s 50 full dump truck loads–a whole lot of space.

Saving Your Money

There’s been a lot of hype lately about tankless water heaters.

Those pushing tankless claim the big advantage is the elimination of standby heating loss. Simply put, standby loss is the heat a tanked water heater loses while it sits.

But the Marathon dashes that argument since it has virtually no standby loss. It’s super thick insulation keeps the heat inside.

If you compare a tankless water heater with a .99 efficiency factor to the Marathon’s .94 efficiency factor, the savings amounts to about $20 a year.

But take a look at the installation costs.

A low average cost to install a tankless water heater in Georgia is $2,250. That doesn’t include a wiring upgrade you might need due to the huge electrical load that instantaneous water heating requires.

Installing a Marathon, on average, costs about $1,300 less. That means it takes 68 years to payback the difference in energy savings if you install a tankless unit.

On top of that, service costs for tankless water heaters are much higher. Then, you’ll probably have to replace the tankless unit once or twice during the lifespan of a Marathon.

When you do the math, tankless doesn’t make sense.

<back>