: Are two water heaters better than one? My house is spread out, my existng water heater would service the kitchen and laundry the proposed second heater would service the original bathroom plus the new one we're going to build upstairs in a relative location. We have a family of 6 and the demands for more hot water are growing.

Steve,
In your situation, two may be better. You can put them closer to the action, and will have more heated water to go around.

When starting from scratch, I like using a 75 gas with a recirc line.