Water Heater Installation in Aurora, CO
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Aurora asks a lot of a water heater
Winter nights here average 16°F from December through February, and homes need heat eight months a year, October through May. A tank has to keep recovering through a long, cold stretch, not just on the coldest night.
Power is part of the picture too. Across Colorado, 13% of households lost power for 24 hours or more in 2024, and this area has logged 78 winter storms and 97 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps making hot water through an outage. One with electronic ignition will not light until the power is back. Whatever you install, the federal minimum efficiency it has to meet is set by the tank's size and how the household draws hot water, so the right minimum for your home is not the same as the one next door.
- 16°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 8 months
- October through May, the months homes here need heat
- 13%
- of Colorado 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
A heat pump water heater would save about $370 a year to run in Colorado compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical Colorado home, from EIA household energy data and Colorado fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Look at the age first. Most tanks have a working life, and once yours is old enough that it needs a repair, that repair often just delays a replacement that's already due. Rust-colored water, a tank that's damp or rusted at the base, or water that never gets as hot as it used to are all signs the tank itself is failing rather than just a part inside it. A leak at the tank seams means replace it now, not later, since that tank can fail fully without warning.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not just whether it's possible. A tankless unit heats water on demand, so you don't run out partway through a long shower or back-to-back loads of laundry, and it doesn't sit there keeping a tank of water hot when nobody's using it. But it needs a gas line and venting sized for it, and if your home wasn't built with one, that's real work before the unit itself goes in. A contractor can look at your gas supply and existing venting and tell you what's involved for your house.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The biggest change is that hot water comes from a unit, not a tank, so there's no standing reserve to draw down and nothing sitting around keeping water hot when the taps are off. That usually means a larger gas line to the unit, since it draws more gas in the moment than a tank heater does, and venting made for a tankless unit rather than the flue a tank used. Where it goes in changes too. Tankless units mount on a wall and take up a fraction of the floor space a tank does, which matters if you're trying to free up a closet or a utility corner.