If you’re selling luxury bathrooms in your showroom, you’re selling hot water. And lots of it, with faucets, showerheads, hand showers, body sprays, steam units, whirlpools, wet bars, bathing pools, bidet seats and multiple lavs.

Now, how much do you know about it?

The evolution of a wide variety of wonderful luxury products over the past 20 years has allowed homeowners to turn their master bathrooms into their own in-home spas. But most standard-sized, tank-type water heaters can’t supply enough hot water for all the above needs – not exactly a recipe for customer satisfaction.

The most successful sales consultants know they are selling an experience, not just a group of products. In luxury bath sales, hot water delivery systems play a hidden but critical role in your customer’s ultimate satisfaction.

Which is why I say: It’s time to bring water-heating systems out of the warehouse and into the showroom.

Luxury Bath Experience

Rinnai

Why would a decorative plumbing showroom want to show and sell any type of water heater, even a modern tankless unit? Most water heaters are not “luxury-looking” products. But hot water is central to the experience of luxury desired by your customers. Your customers need them and you have an obligation -– and an opportunity – to educate your client about considerations of comfort, convenience and conservation in their new bathroom.

Water heating directly affects the sustainability of your project and long-term operating costs for clients.

Water heating expertise gives your showroom another point of differentiation, with products that other showrooms will overlook.

Water heating expertise allows you to offer the “total package” for the master bath or home in general – not just part of it.

 Understanding the basics about luxury bathrooms and hot water usage will strengthen your relationships with plumbers, remodelers and builders.

You may be thinking: Water heaters are complicated. They are really not luxury products in the same way as faucets, vessel sinks and spa-type showers. When am I going to find the time to learn what I need to know to sell them effectively?

Water heaters are not all that complicated. In fact, they are no harder to sell than steam generators, whirlpool tubs, towel warmers and exhaust fans. As always, it comes down to understanding what’s important to your customers and then matching their lifestyle needs to the different value-added benefits of various water-heating solutions.

Yes, it is critically important to size the unit properly for the specific application: You don’t want your customer’s new whirlpool to be full of tepid water. There are calculators to do this, or you can call your manufacturers rep in for a quick Water Heating 101. Sizing comes down to some basic concepts of flow, temperature and volume.

Water Heating 101

GE

The most common way to heat water in the United States is with a tank-style water heater. It heats water and keeps it stored, whether in use or not. If demand is high, the hot water can run out. And once you run out, you have to wait for the water to get hot again.

The overwhelming majority of American homes today have 40- or 50-gallon water heaters. Since a water heater generally has about 70% usable capacity, this means that they have about 30 to 35 gallons of truly hot water in reserve. With an active family that takes back-to-back showers in the morning, or if they are looking to install a large deep soaking tub, they may indeed run out of hot water.

Tanks are typically located in the garage – like in our home in Sacramento – or in the basement where they don’t detract from design aesthetics or available storage space. Unfortunately, that can be quite a distance from the point of use.

Ask your clients if it takes a long time for hot water to get to their bathroom. If so, tell them that you have a solution that will use less energy, while being small enough to position the water heater closer to the point of use – thus permitting faster hot water delivery. I’ll bet you’ll get their attention.

Smarter Hot Water

Stiebel Eltron

Tankless water heaters are growing in popularity in the United States. Used extensively in many parts of the world, they are the leading appliance for heating water in Europe and Japan. U.S. consumers are growing more aware of them because they require less energy consumption than tank heaters and, more critically, because the tankless water heater is probably the best hot water engine to deliver the in-home spa experience.

Tankless gas water heaters are more energy-efficient than conventional tank heaters, because they eliminate the need to maintain a large supply of heated water. Yet your clients will never run out of hot water. (You do know that water – hot or otherwise –isn’t really endless, right?) There is no downtime during your client’s personal rush hour, whether that’s first thing in the morning at home or between activities at the vacation house. Other benefits of tankless water heating in luxury bathrooms include:

Tankless water heaters are truly green. You heat water only when you use it, and with clean, high-efficiency burners.

Tankless water heaters burn natural gas or liquid propane far more efficiently than tank heaters, boasting an Energy Factor above 0.80.

Most tankless units come equipped with intelligent electronics that ensure a safe and consistent temperature for as long as needed, as easily adjustable as other digital controls. It may be that the homeowner wants a temperature of 122°F for a series of loads in a high-efficiency washing machine, then wants to drop it down to a max of 106°F for the baby’s bath time and back up to 110°F for a steamy soak later on.

Tankless can be located virtually anywhere inside the home, which means these heaters can be installed closer to the point of use to reduce the waiting time for hot water. Tankless units are compact and hang on a wall, so they can fit into places where tank units won’t work, either due to local building codes or because of the trade-offs in the amount of space tanks require. With literally no “footprint,” tankless units provide more design flexibility.

Rheem

Unlike tank heaters, tankless units can even be installed outdoors, and not just here in sunny California! They’ve even been approved for cold weather conditions to -30°F. I’ve heard of a plumbing contractor who installs them outside in Utah ski country! Installing units outdoors can cost your clients less than the equivalent hookup of a tank-type unit, because no venting is needed outdoors.

One unit – about a third of the size of a conventional water heater – will meet the hot water needs of most households. After all, Americans are used to staggering showers, dishwashers and laundry. Your high-end clients may be more satisfied with extra units if multiple demands for hot water regularly peak, and extra units may be required in some larger homes with multiple generations and many bathrooms under one roof. Current technology allows simple installation of two units to perform as a single water heating system. The units connect with a simple cable, and the control software is already pre-programmed in the controller.

Tankless water heaters can produce without noticeable performance degradation for many years. Sediment buildup is one of the biggest problems for tank water heaters, but it is possible, with simple maintenance procedures, to prevent sediment buildup in tankless heaters (except in areas with especially hard water). The standard residential warranty on tankless is 10 years on the heat exchanger and three years on parts.

New construction is a breeze, but replacing a tank unit in an existing home with an indoor tankless unit takes a few extra steps, depending on the water heater’s location and the piping layout. Because tankless water heaters house more powerful burners than their conventional counterparts, they usually need to be fed with a ¾-inch gas line (compared with ½-inch for most tank water heaters). And because of their efficiency, they need special venting. While the total installed cost of $1,500 to $3,000 is more than the cost to swap out a tank unit, it’s less than some of the products you’re specifying and, of course, less expensive and wasteful to operate over time. And it provides a vastly superior hot-water experience.