Water Heater Installation in Green Bay, WI
Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Brown County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
What a Green Bay winter asks of your water heater
Your water heater works alongside your furnace nine months of the year here, from September through May. On winter nights that average 14°F from December through February, water entering the tank starts out cold, and the tank has to work harder to bring it up to temperature.
Storms are part of living here too. Brown County has seen 22 winter storms and 78 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and statewide, about 18% of households lost power for at least a day in 2024. A gas water heater with a standing pilot keeps making hot water through an outage. An electric one, or a gas unit with electronic ignition, comes back on by itself once power returns. A new installation is a chance to plan for that. The federal minimum efficiency a new tank has to meet is not one number. It is set by a formula based on the tank's rated volume, so two tanks of different sizes are held to different minimums.
- 14°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 9 months
- September through May, the months homes here need heat
- 18%
- of Wisconsin 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 $330 a year to run in Wisconsin compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical Wisconsin home, from EIA household energy data and Wisconsin fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Look at the age first. Tank water heaters have a working life, and once yours is old, a repair is often just delaying the next one. Water pooling at the base is another sign, especially if it's coming from the tank itself rather than a fitting, because that means the tank is rusting through from the inside. Rusty or metallic-smelling hot water, popping or rumbling sounds, and hot water that runs out faster than it used to are all signs the tank is wearing out. If you're seeing more than one of these, a contractor can tell you whether it's worth repairing or time to replace it.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want out of it, not on whether your current tank is failing. A tankless unit heats water on demand, so you don't run out partway through a shower and it doesn't sit there keeping a tank of water hot all day. Winters here run cold, down to 14°F on a typical night from December through February, and that means the incoming water is colder too, so a tankless unit has to work harder to hit the same output temperature than it would somewhere milder. That doesn't rule it out, it just means sizing matters more here. A contractor can size a unit against your actual hot water use and tell you what it would take to install.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The biggest change is that you stop storing hot water and start heating it as it flows through the unit. That usually means new venting, since tankless units vent differently than a tank, and it may mean upgrading the gas line or electrical circuit feeding it, because the unit draws more at once even though it isn't running constantly. Wall space changes too. A tankless unit mounts on the wall and takes up a fraction of the floor space a tank does. A contractor looking at your home can tell you exactly what needs to change to make the swap.