Water Heater Installation in Myrtle Beach, SC
Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Horry County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
What a Myrtle Beach water heater has to handle
Winters here are mild. Heat only runs November through March, and even then nights average 37°F. That is not what puts a water heater to the test here. Power is the bigger issue. Nearly half of South Carolina households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024, and the county has logged 111 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A water heater installed here should come back on by itself once power returns, without anyone having to relight it or reset it by hand.
Federal rules also set a minimum efficiency for storage water heaters. That number is not the same for every tank. It is a formula based on the tank's rated volume, applied separately across four draw patterns, so two tanks of different sizes face different minimums. Whoever installs yours needs to size it to your household and meet the minimum that applies to that size.
- 37°F
- the average winter night, and colder incoming water means longer heating
- 5 months
- November through March, the months homes here need heat
- 45%
- of South Carolina 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 $300 a year to run in South Carolina compared with an electric water heater.
Estimates for a typical South Carolina home, from EIA household energy data and South Carolina fuel prices. Your home will differ.
- How do I know it's time to replace my water heater?
- Look at the tank first. Rust colored water from the hot side, a tank that's damp or weeping around the bottom seams, or a popping and rumbling sound when it heats are all signs the tank itself is failing. Once a storage tank starts leaking from the tank itself rather than a fitting, it needs to be replaced, not repaired. If it's still running fine but getting old, ask a contractor to look at it before it fails on its own, since a leaking tank can mean water damage on top of the replacement.
- Should I switch to a tankless water heater?
- It depends on what you want from it, not on age or a failure. A tankless unit heats water as it flows through rather than storing it, so you don't run out of hot water partway through back to back showers, and it doesn't sit there holding a tankful of hot water around the clock the way a storage tank does. It also needs a different kind of venting and gas or electrical supply than a storage tank, so switching is a real installation project, not a swap. A contractor can look at your gas line, venting, and electrical panel and tell you what the switch actually involves in your house.
- What changes when you install a tankless water heater?
- The unit itself is smaller and mounts on a wall instead of sitting on the floor, so the space where your old tank stood opens up. Gas fired tankless units need venting sized and routed for that specific unit, which is often different from what the old tank used, and they draw more gas at once, so the gas line sometimes needs to be upsized. Electric tankless units draw enough power that the electrical circuit feeding them is often larger than what a storage tank used. Because of that, a contractor needs to check the gas supply, venting, and electrical setup in your home before installation, not just swap one unit for the other.