Industry Blogs

Residential water heaters are often taken for granted. They’re usually installed in a closet or basement or other out-of-the-way spot, and it generally costs less to replace a standard water tank system than other home systems, so many homeowners don’t see water heater maintenance as an urgent priority.

But proper maintenance almost always pays off in the long run, and not just for homeowners. While contractors may benefit from the additional business generated by emergency service calls, those one-time sales aren’t nearly as important as the name recognition and trust they can cultivate with maintenance agreements that help insure optimal product performance and longevity.

Unfortunately, many water heater service professionals either don’t recognize the value of maintenance plans, or don’t know how to effectively communicate the advantages to their customers.

Pay a little now or a lot later

Over the life of an appliance, the minor cost of an annual inspection or tune-up can help save homeowners in multiple ways. Inspections can catch small issues before they become major problems, which in turn helps extend the life of the water heater. In addition, regular service helps ensure efficient performance, which can reduce energy costs and provide for consistent product performance.

Preventive maintenance also helps protect homeowners from the inconvenience and high costs associated with emergency service. Unplanned repairs tend to cost more than regular maintenance and can interrupt household routines, which can be more than a nuisance. Missed work and the disruption of planned events like family vacations can add to the financial burden of emergency water heater repair.

Many successful contractors recognize that it’s in their own interest to help customers avoid emergencies, no matter how lucrative they can be. Routine service calls don’t generate a lot of income, but they build name recognition and, more importantly, lasting relationships. That can be a vital distinction when it’s time to replace an existing water heater, or in the unfortunate event of an emergency.

Maintenance vs. warranty

One misconception that contributes significantly to deferred maintenance is not having a full understanding of a manufacturer’s warranty. Many homeowners assume that the warranty will cover most repairs. Why pay for even minor service now if you expect your warranty to cover the cost of major repairs later?

But the scope of a warranty is limited and very specific, covering demonstrable defects in manufacturing. Proper installation and application and, in some cases, even documentation that the recommended maintenance has been performed, are typically required in order to maintain a valid warranty. Even then, warranties typically don’t apply to local conditions that can significantly affect water heater performance, like water quality, climate, air quality and the hardness of the water supply.

A warranty is an important tool that homeowners should be familiar with. But the best warranty will not apply to the simple wear and tear of daily use or issues arising from local adverse conditions.

Connect with homeowners

It doesn’t take salesmanship in order to maximize the long-term advantages of maintenance agreements. In many cases, a few simple tweaks to existing workflows can be extraordinarily effective tools to open new opportunities for preventive maintenance.

One simple enhancement is to follow the example of HVAC contractors and leverage seasonality. If water heater use tends to go up in your service area during colder months, try to schedule new maintenance service calls in late summer or fall. Employ multiple seasonal opportunities to connect with customers, from back to school, winter holidays, summer vacation or the switch to Daylight Savings Time, and set up regular seasonal reminders for follow-ups.

The single best time for a maintenance agreement conversation is immediately after a substantial repair or emergency service. Homeowners who have recently experienced the cost and disruption of a major equipment repair or unplanned replacement are in a position to recognize the likely payoff of an investment in ongoing service.

Ultimately, communication is the most crucial tool for connecting with customers about preventive maintenance service. Contractors who can effectively and objectively relay information to homeowners are in a position to relieve the anxiety many of them feel about water heaters and other large home appliances. By educating them and offering a convenient, affordable solution, you can establish your company as the trusted solution for any foreseeable service.

Dustin Bowerman is director of corporate training and product support for Bradford White Corporation, a full-line manufacturer of residential, commercial and industrial products for water heating, space heating, combination heating and storage applications. For more information, visit www.bradfordwhitecorporation.com.

Do you have a strategy for your social media? How does your customer base see you on social media? Are you reaching new customers? These are all great questions as a business owner you should ask yourself when doing social media. You should also be asking your social media partner these questions and how are they going to help achieve your goals.

There is a lot more that goes into social media than just putting out an organic post or wanting to run ads on Facebook or Instagram. Just like any other form of media you need to have a strategy and need to have a full funnel approach to make sure you are able to capture new and existing clients wherever they are at in their buying cycle.

We are going to talk about 5 tips when doing social media in the trades.

First Tip: Goals

What are your goals for social media? Is it lead generation, traffic to the site, brand awareness, engagement, etc.? Understanding each of these goals will determine how you go after your existing and new customer base. You should have separate budgets for each goal so that you know exactly how each campaign and goal is performing. You need to set up each campaign based on your goal and make sure that each creative matches what the goal is.

Second Tip: Creative

Creative is key for social media. Creative needs to match your brand, audience, and platform that you are going after and engaging. When looking at social platforms, understanding who the end user is going to be on the other end is crucial. You need to match your creative to the platform and the audience who is consuming that media. You also have to look at what your goal is for each campaign. If you want them to fill out a form for an estimate or get more information that creative needs to guide the end user to filling out a form either on your website or through their social platform. All creatives must have a strong call to action (CTA) for what YOU want them to do. Once you know how you want your new potential customer to interact with your company, tracking is going to be KEY!

Third Tip: Tracking

Tracking is crucial for you to not only see your ROI, but also understand how your customer base and new potential customers are interacting with your brand. Tracking in Facebook ads, Facebook events manager and Google Analytics is key.

What is a conversion for your business? Phone call, form fill, chat, or scheduling an appointment? Once you know what a conversion is, work with your social media partner to make sure that you are measuring the same data points. What is the goal of each campaign as a lead generation campaign is going to be measured differently than a website traffic campaign? Make sure that you are setting up conversions and understanding the data and how many touch points your customers and potential customers need prior to converting is important to your strategy. This is why doing the full funnel approach is critical to any successful campaign. We already know that your average consumer needs four to seven touch points prior to converting.

Fourth Tip: Platforms

What social media platforms should you advertise and post on? This also plays into goals, as we want to match the correct platform for your goals. Not all social platforms will match your goals. There are so many social media platforms that you can go after. You will look at each platform and evaluate each one to see what makes the most sense for your business and your end user. The creative will also need to be a little different for each platform for the end user. When looking at goals your social media partner should make the recommendation of which platform makes sense and what the creative should look like.

Fifth Tip: Results

Reviewing your results each month is important. Measuring the metrics monthly will allow you and your social media partner to determine if a campaign needs to be adjusted. This could be the creative, the audiences, location, or starting to use A/B creative in the campaigns. Testing will help determine if you need to make adjustments, but starting everything all over again. This will also give you insights into what works during the year and going back to best practices and creative each year. It is extremely important for you to create the ads manager yourself so that you can also keep historical data. Social media can help with additional touch points within the customer journey. How you work your social media strategy will help with your business goals, engagement with your existing customers and new customers, plus bringing brand awareness.

Social media is a platform that all trades should be part of. We all do some much for the communities and helping others in need of help and your customer base and new customers want to see that you are part of their community. When you are part of a community you want to support local business. This is what social is all about and these are some of the items that you want to incorporate into your strategy, but also post on a regular basis to show the community that you are there for them.

Organic social posting should also be discussed during your social media evaluation. Too many businesses are forgetting about organic posting. You should be posting two to four times a week, and it should be a mix of culture, reviews, education, and promotions. Getting more of your organic followers to be engaged with your organic posts will help others see them. Boosting organic posts will also help your brand to be seen. Just remember boosting is a different strategy than a paid strategy. Hopefully this article has sparked your interest to review your social strategy. Really look to see if you are getting the most out of it!

Chris Yano is CEO of RYNO Strategic Solutions.

Three considerations for right-sized tankless installations–and increased customer satisfaction

Propane tankless water heaters use less energy, cost less to operate, and produce fewer emissions than other options, which is why a growing number of homeowners are requesting these systems.

As contractors know, determining the right configuration for their projects isn’t always straightforward. Whether considering a single unit for the whole home or multiples that run in tandem, knowing how to predict demand is key to giving customers a setup that meets their performance and cost expectations.

Here are three factors to consider when right-sizing a tankless system for projects.

How much water will the customer need?

Knowing how many people will live in the home, who will be using hot water, and for what purposes is the first step toward installing a system that will fulfill their specific needs. Additionally, understanding a customer’s lifestyle and habits–when they shower, how often they do laundry, and whether they expect to install radiant heating–can help determine expected peak demand times.

Take stock of the number and type of appliances and systems requiring hot water and note their water delivery rates. To calculate peak demand, the Department of Energy (DOE) recommends counting the number and gallons per minute (GPM) rate of faucets, showers, and appliances that could be in use in the home at any given time. Features such as in-floor radiant heating and spas can considerably raise a home’s hot water demands. Propane tankless water heaters provide an endless supply of hot water, averaging roughly 222 gallons per hour, compared with an average first-hour delivery rating of just 62 gallons per hour for electric storage tank models.

How much will the water need to be heated?

It’s important for contractors and installers to know the difference between outdoor ground temperatures and the desired indoor hot water temperature. That will reveal how much the water will need to heat and, therefore, how quickly the unit can deliver hot water.

For example, a typical shower head delivers 2.5 GPM, so a 9.4 GPM unit would run three to four showers depending on the inlet ground water temperature. According to the DOE, the average groundwater temperature across the U.S. is 50 degrees. In most cases, water should be heated to at least 120 degrees, so the home will need a tankless unit that can heat 2.5 GPM by 70 degrees. Lower flows can be heated to a bigger temperature rise and higher flows to a smaller temperature rise. Most propane or natural gas tankless water heaters on the market can handle a rate of 5 GPM at a 70-degree temperature rise. As fixtures are added, demand on the system increases and that 5 GPM rating can quickly get overwhelmed.

While a tankless unit will provide hot water almost instantly at the unit, the water still has to travel to the faucet, so location of the units is an important part of system design. Oftentimes, two smaller units, each placed closer to the end use site, can provide the project a higher level of satisfaction than one large or two smaller units installed in a single location. This also provides some redundancy if a unit or fixture needs to be serviced.

What can the home accommodate?

Peak demand scenarios are why contractors shouldn’t assume an undersized system will cover their client’s full range of needs. Oversizing isn’t as big of a concern with tankless systems. While oversizing a traditional tank water heater would result in significant wasted energy over the life of the unit, tankless units vary their flow rates based on demand and, therefore, having excess capacity doesn’t necessarily mean a tankless system is using more energy.

New projects can more easily accommodate tankless units at the point of use than existing homes, which are often designed for a central tank system–and may be better suited for one or more units installed in the basement. For most projects, one unit is sufficient. Multiple units may be used to handle larger loads or as homeowners scale up in the future as their hot water needs change. Because of the popularity and dependability of propane tankless water heaters, new products are available on the market that would allow customers to have “multiple” heaters in a single cabinet, or on a single rack that comes to the project ready for installation making system design easier still.

To determine the optimal number of tankless units for a home, help customers understand their consumption habits and how the system can be sized to meet their expectations. Determine peak demand and gauge actual usage and lifestyle habits. Then, compare prices for systems that meet those needs relative to a client’s budget. Put in as much capacity as those factors will allow to balance cost and comfort. By simply installing a propane system, customers will see optimal cost savings. That’s because propane tankless water heaters offer reduced energy costs, a lower total cost of ownership, and a longer service life compared with other options. Notably, propane tankless systems can reduce energy costs by up to 50 percent and eliminate standby energy loss from the tank.

To learn more about propane water heating systems, visit Propane.com/Water-Heating.

Bryan Cordill the director of residential and commercial business development for the Propane Education & Research Council. He can be reached at bryan.cordill@propane.com.

The right residential water heater solution depends on multiple factors

Tankless water heaters are one of the most talked-about topics in the home services industry. The rising popularity of tankless water heater technology is being driven by the perception that tankless heaters provide the same dependable performance as traditional tank-type units while using less energy and taking up less space.

That is true for certain single-family residential applications. The efficiency and reliability of tankless technology is sufficient to meet many household needs. As long as homeowners do their homework, have a clear understanding of their hot water usage, and work with a professional to select and install the right equipment, there are usually very few issues.

In many circumstances, however, traditional tank-type water heaters still offer maximum performance, reliability and value, and remain a solid option to meet the hot water needs of most families. Both tankless and tank-type applications can be an appropriate solution, depending on a number of factors, including the size of a home, its existing water heater configuration, the demand for hot water, budget, fuel type availability and personal preference.

For a typical residential application — a single-family home with two bathrooms, standard shower heads, a dishwasher and washing machine — one tankless unit will usually be sufficient. But homeowners can run into issues with high-flow, high-demand luxury fixtures, like a car wash shower head or a 90-gallon soaking tub. People may find that their new tankless product works fine 99% of the time, but they can’t get sufficient water pressure out of their high-flow shower head. This is because the flow rate of the fixture exceeds the amount that the unit can produce. Additionally, remodeling or adding to a home with an existing tankless water heater might create more demand than the installed unit can supply.

In those situations, a tankless water heater paired with a storage tank might be the only available option. But this approach is rarely a preferred solution, because most homeowners choose tankless in the first place because they wanted its efficiency or space-saving features.

Tank-type water heaters maintain a constant reservoir of hot water. Tankless heaters only work when a fixture opens, using less energy overall. But tankless requires more energy when it is used, making the transition from tank to tankless a challenge in many circumstances.

Most gas tankless water heaters provide between 120,000 and 199,000 BTUs, compared to about 40,000 BTUs for tank-type residential gas heaters. In order to switch from a gas tank-type heater to tankless gas, the capacity of the gas line may need to be increased, adding complexity and cost to installation. Similarly, an electric tankless water heater can use double or triple the power of an electric storage tank heater, requiring major electrical upgrades.

Venting is another potential roadblock in transitioning from tank to tankless. Adding or expanding the capacity of existing exhaust and intake pipes may be required, which could mean cutting additional holes in the walls and roof.

Maintenance is critical for the longevity and performance of tankless water heaters. Unfortunately, water heaters tend to be the forgotten appliance. They’re hidden behind a utility door or inside a closet, and many people don’t think about them until there’s an issue and they don’t have hot water.

We know many people don’t keep up with the recommended maintenance of their water heaters, but tank-type units can last for 10 years or more with few problems. Tankless water heaters, however, are more likely to show reduced performance and suffer breakdowns if users don’t follow a regular maintenance schedule.

As the popularity of tankless water heaters continues, new features are becoming available, such as recirculation, connectivity and built-in buffer tanks. The Bradford White Infiniti® K Series tankless gas water heaters offer top connections, which make switching from a storage tank heater more convenient. At the same time, innovations like electric heat pump water heaters and condensing gas water heaters are opening new possibilities for energy efficiency in tank-type water heaters.

In the end, the distinction between tankless and tank-type water heaters isn’t as neat as it is often presented. Both technologies offer advantages, and tank-type water heaters will continue to be a solution in many circumstances for years to come. It’s about choosing the right product for the job at hand. As long as consumers know what they’re looking for and work with a professional, they can be confident that they’ll find the right configuration for their home.

GUEST AUTHOR: Trevor Pinto is the Product Manager of Residential Products and Application Support for Bradford White Corporation and has been with the company since 2012.  Pinto began his career in the Product Management Department starting out as a Product Analyst and has grown in the ranks over the past several years.  In his current role, he oversees the residential product line as well as the application support team.  The application support team is responsible for assisting Bradford White’s customer base with selecting the appropriate product for a specific application and providing general product knowledge. 

Prior to joining Bradford White, Trevor graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Criminology.  He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and is a passionate Philadelphia sports fan, enjoys music and the outdoors including camping, hiking, and fishing.  He currently resides in Lansdale, PA with his wife and two children.