Anybody have a tankless hot water heater?

[Rich Stern]

Our natural gas water heater seems to be dying. It's providing much less hot water than days gone by. It's 15 years old; probably at the end of it's life.



Not sure whether to replace it with a new unit of the same type, or take the plunge on one of the new tankless systems. The tankless systems seem to be very controversial ("they save energy"..."they really don't save energy"..."they supply not enough water"..."they don't supply enough hot water"...etc.).



Anybody have tankless system experience they can offer?

 

[Todd Z]

I bought my house 2 years ago with a tank less system....



I am Oil and Not natural Gas...



After I was the third person in line to take a shower, a cold shower mind you, noticing the oil burner was constantly running, I converted to a superstore system the next week....



Tank less is great for low water consumption applications and if the boiler is over sized for the house.



Most of the time that is not the case and people need extra water....



Todd Z

 

[James W]

I did a bunch of research on them. I almost put one in, but because NG prices had gone up last year, I did calculation and found that the 80Gal electric one I put in vs a tankless one it would not make sense. Total install for 80Gal electrical was just under $2k, total for tankless would have been about $4.5k.



Also you have to get a hoss with a big ass burner to do the whole house. Takagi (http://www.takagi.com/index.asp) makes some that can do a whole house, but I was also concerned that only a few had been installed by the plumbing contractors in my area. I was worried about part availability if it breaks. We use a LOT of hot water, so it would have taken over 10 years for me to make up the difference in total installation cost.



I spoke with some satisfied customers that the plumber gave me names of. I'm sure he would not have given me the ones that are pissed. Anyway, they were quite pleased.



Good Luck.

 

[Nelson Atwell]

???



A tankless water heater produces hot water as it is being used. There is no tank storage of heated water. The water is heated as it passes through the heater on the way to the spigot. To have cold water, the heater is either not adjusted correctly, or it has too great a volume of water flowing through for it to be heated. The tankless water heater will always run when the hot water is turned on, but shutoff immediately after the water is turned off, if it is working properly.



I've used tankless systems overseas and they work just fine, and they provide an endless supply of heated water.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Yeah, Todd Z, what you describe should never have happened with a correctly functioning tankless system...just the opposite, the problem you describe is the #1 reason most change to tankless systems.



TJR