Water Heater Installation in Silverthorne, CO
Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Summit County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Silverthorne runs its water heater year round
Winter nights here average 8°F from December through February, and homes in Summit County need heat for hot water twelve months a year. There is no season where the tank gets a break. It draws cold water and has to bring it up from close to freezing, every day, all year.
Power is part of the picture too. Colorado saw 13% of households lose power for at least 24 hours in 2024, and this county has logged 46 winter storms and 42 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps working through an outage. One that relies on electric ignition will not light until power is back.
- 8°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 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?
- Most tanks last around eight to twelve years, so age is the first thing to check. Rust colored water, a tank that's noisy or leaking, or water that never gets fully hot are signs the tank itself is failing rather than just needing a repair. A puddle at the base usually means the tank has a crack or a corroded fitting, and that's not something to patch. At 8°F on a winter night here, a water heater that's struggling is worth replacing before it fails outright, since running without hot water isn't just an inconvenience in that kind of cold.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on any rule that says tankless beats tank. A tankless unit heats water only as you use it, so you don't run out during a long shower or back to back loads of laundry. It also takes up far less space than a tank. Against that, a tankless unit needs a gas line and venting sized for it, so switching from a tank is more than a swap. A contractor can look at your gas supply and venting and tell you what changing over would involve in your home.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The gas line and venting are the two things that usually change. A tankless unit fires at a higher rate than a tank, so it often needs a larger gas line to keep up, and it vents differently, usually through a dedicated vent rather than the flue a tank used. Because there's no tank storing hot water, the unit heats it on demand each time a faucet or shower calls for it. Space changes too. A tankless unit mounts on a wall and takes up a fraction of the floor space a tank does.