Meet those sustainability initiatives for your business while saving money on your future energy bills by installing either a tankless or hybrid water heater in your restaurant.

Rather than hoarding and heating water in a traditional water heater tank with hot water you may or may not use — your restaurant can achieve optimal energy efficiency by opting for one of these more modern options. The best part? Save your business that average of 16% of total energy costs that would otherwise go towards water heating.

Let’s talk about tankless water heaters

First of all, the name isn’t a trick — tankless water heaters are, in fact, tankless. Using either gas or electricity, these clever systems heat the water as it flows through on demand.

Saving you 20-40 per cent more than the traditional tank, this water system is energy efficient and doesn’t ever run out of hot water. Convenient, eh?

Drago’s Restaurant down in New Orleans made the switch to the tankless system after their out-dated 150-gallon-tank heater failed them for the last time. Owner Tommy Cvitanovich first installed a tankless system in his home before opting for Rheem to install one in his busy restaurant.

“Dependable hot water: While space savings and energy efficiency are important to Cvitanovich for both his home and his restaurant, maintaining temperature and reliability were the driving factors for the tankless installation at Drago’s,” stated Rheem in a case study on their website.

Additional perks to going in the direction of a tankless water heater is the easy maintence and 20-year lifespan. For those restaurants interested in going tankless there are also rebates.

If tankless water heaters are so awesome, why go hybrid?

While hybrid water heaters are more expensive than your average water heater at first, the long-term energy savings are worth the investment.  The fact is, the hybrid and tankless options are both going to be more energy efficient than the conventional water heater — both will benefit your energy bill.

The big difference? Hybrid water heaters are essentially tankless units with a tank.

“There is a relatively new hybrid on the block (new to Canada anyhow) called the Eternal Hybrid Water Heater. We’ve gone and checked one out and liked what we saw,” says Home Plumbing Service, “The storage heater is a small 2 gallon condenser style unit meaning it re-uses the exhaust heat over and over again making this a very efficient unit — its claimed to be 98% efficient.”

Still on the fence? Watch this video about how hybrid water heaters can save you money.

For restaurant owners, we have an Energy Auditing tool that you may find helpful.

 

Image credit: Flickr