Tankless Hot Water Tank Service in Calgary and the Foothills

Tankless water heaters in Okotoks: sized right, softened, and serviced

Tankless water heaters are a genuinely good fit for most Okotoks homes, with two big caveats. First, they have to be sized correctly for your fixtures and your incoming water temperature, which in Alberta gets down to around five degrees Celsius in winter. Second, they have to be protected from hard local water or the heat exchanger will scale up, lose efficiency, and eventually fail. Right On! Plumbing & Heating installs, converts, and services tankless units for homeowners across Calgary, Okotoks, High River, and the Foothills.

Sizing a tankless for an Alberta winter

Manufacturers rate tankless capacity at a temperature rise that is generous for southern climates. In Okotoks, with five-degree incoming water and a 49-degree target output, the real-world flow is significantly less than the sticker. A unit that says it will run a four-fixture house in Texas will deliver one shower and a sink at the same time in Alberta if it is undersized. We calculate the right unit for your home based on actual fixture counts, peak simultaneous demand, and the real Alberta temperature rise. Most Okotoks homes need a 199,000 BTU condensing unit, and larger homes with multiple ensuites sometimes need cascaded units.

Hard water and the descaling reality

Every tankless heat exchanger in Okotoks needs annual descaling. We flush the unit with a food-grade descaling solution, clean the inlet filter, check the burner and combustion, and verify gas pressure. Skipping this for two or three years builds up scale that drops your flow and your efficiency. Skipping it for five years usually voids the warranty and shortens the life of the unit by half. We strongly recommend pairing a tankless install with a whole-home softener, which makes annual service easier and keeps your investment protected. See water treatment for softener options.

Conversions from tank to tankless

Converting a standard tank to a tankless almost always involves a new gas line of the right size (tankless burners pull more BTU than tanks at full load), new venting through a side wall with concentric or twin-pipe vent kits, new water connections at the wall, electrical for the controller, and a fresh condensate drain on condensing models. We handle the whole conversion in one visit, remove the old tank, and clean up.

Repair, troubleshooting, and error codes

If your existing tankless is throwing error codes, cycling on and off, or losing temperature mid-shower, we diagnose it on the first visit. Common Okotoks tankless problems include scaled heat exchangers, dirty inlet filters, failing flame rods, and undersized gas lines that were installed when the unit was first put in.