"Tankless Water Heater?" Topic

Who has experience with these? I am interested in getting one but every plumber I talk to tells me it is a bad idea. I was wondering what other thought.

David

I've seen them (had one but never installed, long story). I understand that you need to make sure that your gas feed is at the correct pressure. I think they are worth the effort if you can meet the requirements

My wife had one installed in her house and swears by it, not at it, by it. When we're all home as a family, there's no worry about running out of hot water for the shower.

We would have to get an electric one since we don't have gas at the house. The people I have talked to tell me 2 things.

1. It will be about $1,000 to install.
2. We will not be happy with the flow rate. (We estimate about 2 GPM for 125 degrees.)

We live in S.C. so don't have too much cold in the winter.

I think it also depends on your plumbing. We looked into it last year but found out we would need 2 of them – one for the appliances and kitchen and one for the bathrooms. And that's for a small house with 3 people.

Over here in the Netherlands all modern heaters are low energy combination central heating boilers/tankless water heaters. Very compact, very efficient. We just had ours replaced by a new model in January. One is plenty for a four bedroom house.

Dave P., we looked into it as well, and found the same
as Grenadier Books. For the 3 of us, in ~ 2,000 square
feet, we'd need two units, three for absolute max
useage (dish and clothes washer, two showers, all running
at the same time).

Our estimated installed cost, electric, was $2,895.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

I've had dozens installed in the last 10 years. They do have lower energy costs in general, but not always enough to justify the $2500-$5000 they can cost compared to $350-$500 for a conventional water heater.

If you're looking at an electric one I'd say skip it or consider a propane burner.

I've got one, (or rather have one in my house in NZ). I installed it not for cost but for space savings.

By getting rid of the internal hot water heater – which was in a cupboard rather than a roof-space – I gained enough space to turn the downstairs laundry / spare WC into a proper second bathroom. The continuous heater fits on an external wall at the rear of the house, so takes up no interior space at all.

Costs were about the same as mentioned above. The house is on mains gas, so no problems there.

Always delivers plenty of hot water at good pressure. the house is now rented out to a group of 4 people and provides all their hot water without ever running out.

The only downside I found was I one day had a power cut. Ha! No problem I thought. Gas cooking, gas heating, torches and candles for light, and of course, gas hot water.

Wrong! The system needs electricity to work. What it does I am not sure, but the power cut meant instant cold water, unlike a tank which stores hot water.

But as power cuts are rare, I am happy with the system, and so are the tenants.

I was wondering what other thought.

When we looked to replace our water heater, I checked these out and a big problem is that they are based on FLOW. So if you do one thing, you get nice flow, two things, less flow, three things, even less flow, and so on until you get a trickle.

What our plumber recommended was to install a regular water heater, heat the water up HOTTER and then install a mixing valve to mix cold water back into the hotter water thereby making it seem like you have a larger tank. That way, 40 gals of 170F water mixed with cold water gives the illusion of 50-60 gals of 120F water. This has worked well for us.