Groundhog’s Day has come and gone, and the little varmint predicted six more weeks of winter.

With more cold weather on the horizon, can your water heater keep up with more demand? Check out this blog post to see how soft water can keep you and your family basking in the warmth of hot showers for the next six weeks.

Did you know: Water heaters represent up to 14% of an average household’s energy consumption. That being said, picking the best and most efficient model for your home is an important decision.

When researching your water heater options, keep in mind the below information from the Water Quality Association’s Softened Water Benefits Study:

Gas Storage Tank Water Heaters:

• With softened water – Gas storage tank household water heaters operated on softened water maintained the original factory efficiency rating over a 15-year lifetime.
• With hard water – Hard water can lead to as much as a 24% loss of efficiency in water heaters. Each 5 grains per gallon of water hardness causes a 4% loss in efficiency and 4% increase in cost for gas storage tank water heaters when using 50 gallons of hot water per day.

Tankless Heaters:

• The economic savings of softened water with instantaneous tankless water heaters can lead to recovery of the cost of a water softener and operating supplies in a period as short as a year, if the incoming is sufficiently hard.
• With softened water – Indoor instantaneous gas water heaters (tankless heaters) operated on soft water maintained the original factory efficiency rating over a 15-year lifetime.
• With hard water – The study found that tankless water heaters completely failed to function because of scale plugging in the downstream plumbing after only 1.6 years of equivalent hot water use on 26 gpg hard water. Softened water saves 40% of costs compared to operating on 20 gpg and saves 57% compared to operation on 30 gpg hard water.

Electric Water Heaters:

• Up to 30 pounds of calcium carbonate rocklike scale deposits can accumulate in electric water heaters.
• Each 5 gpg of water hardness caused 0.4 pounds of scale accumulation each year in electric storage tank household water heaters.
• “the life of the heating element can be expected to shorten due to scale buildup increasing the operating temperature of the element” in the electric storage water heaters operating on unsoftened water, says Batelle Memorial Institution.

Carbon Footprint:

• The carbon footprint increases 18% for gas tank water heaters when operated on 26 gpg hard water for 15 years as compared to the same operation on 0 gpg softened water.
• For instantaneous-type natural gas water heaters, this same carbon footprint increases 4% when operated on 26 gpg hard water versus 0 gpg softened water over 15 years.

Do you know how hard your water is? What model water heater do you have?