Water Heater Installation in Ruston, LA
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What a Ruston water heater has to handle
Winter nights here average 37°F from December through February, and homes need heat from November through March. That is five months when a water heater is drawing in cold ground water instead of warm, which asks more of the heating element or burner to bring it up to temperature.
Storms are the other thing a new tank has to survive. Lincoln Parish has seen 51 damaging wind events and 5 winter storms over the past ten years, and in 2024 nearly half of Louisiana households lost power for at least 24 hours. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps making hot water straight through an outage. One with electronic ignition, and any electric tank, needs the power back before it will fire again, though most start back up on their own once it does.
Whatever type goes in has to meet the federal minimum efficiency for its size. That minimum is not one number. It is set by a formula tied to the tank's rated volume, applied differently across four draw patterns, so two tanks built the same way can carry different minimums depending on how much hot water each is rated to deliver.
- 37°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 5 months
- November through March, the months homes here need heat
- 49%
- of Louisiana 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 $250 a year to run in Louisiana compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical Louisiana home, from EIA household energy data and Louisiana fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Watch for water that never gets fully hot, rust colored water, water pooling around the base of the tank, or the tank making rumbling or popping sounds. Once a tank starts leaking from the tank itself rather than a fitting, it needs to be replaced, not repaired. A tank showing rust at the inlet or outlet fittings or along a seam is also worth having looked at before it fails outright. A contractor can tell you whether an aging unit that's starting to act up is worth repairing or better off replaced.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want from your hot water and what your home can support, not on one being better than the other in every case. A tankless unit heats water as you use it instead of storing a tankful, so you don't run out of hot water partway through a shower, but the unit has to be sized to handle your household's hot water demand at once. Switching from a tank to tankless usually means changes to the gas line, venting, or electrical supply, since tankless units draw more than a storage tank did. A contractor can look at your home's setup and tell you what switching would actually involve.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The unit itself is smaller and mounts on a wall instead of taking up floor space, but what changes around it depends on what your old water heater needed. Gas fired tankless units often need a larger gas line than a storage tank used, since they draw more fuel to heat water on demand. Venting is different too, tankless units typically vent through a dedicated pipe rather than sharing a flue. If your home was set up for a standard tank, expect the installation to involve more than swapping one unit for another, and a contractor will need to check the gas line, venting, and electrical before the job is priced.