Best Water Heaters (2026)

Tankless gives you endless hot water, a 20-year service life, and wall space back — at double-plus the install cost, especially if your gas line or venting needs upsizing. A tank is cheaper, simpler, and any plumber can service it same-day. My rule: replacing like-for-like on a budget, stay tank; remodeling or building with gas already sized right, tankless is worth it.

For tanks: 40 gallons handles 1-3 people, 50 gallons is the safe call for 3-5, and back-to-back showers plus laundry pushes you to 50 minimum. For tankless, it's flow math — add up the fixtures that run at once (a shower is roughly 2 GPM, dishwasher 1-2) and buy that many gallons-per-minute. Oversizing a tankless buys you nothing; undersizing buys you cold showers.

Gas heats faster, recovers faster, and costs less to run where gas is cheap; electric is simpler, safer to install anywhere, and the only option without a gas line. Electric elements are also a genuinely easy repair. If you've got both hookups, gas usually wins on operating cost — but a modern electric with good insulation is no longer the consolation prize it used to be.

Two things, and almost nobody does either. Flush a few gallons through the drain valve once a year to clear sediment — sediment is why old tanks rumble and heat slowly. And have the anode rod checked around year five: it's a sacrificial part designed to corrode so the tank doesn't. A $40 anode swap is the cheapest decade of tank life you'll ever buy. And put a drain pan under it — the add-ons rail has one.