We're looking into possibly getting a tankless water heater, as our regular one is on it's last leg. Does anyone have any experiences with them? We like the fact that they're (allegedly) more energy efficient, as they only heat the water you need.
I have one and love it. I just bought this house 3 months ago though and it came with the house. I can't attest to the water/money savings, but it is always hot and I've never run out of hot water. My utility bills are much cheaper than I expected and I think that is mostly due to the tankless water heater and programmable thermostat.
We have tankless, on heating oil if it matters. We can run the dishwasher or washing machine while taking hot showers with the forced hot water heat running with no issues. Our old one sucked. The heat always kicked on a minute into my shower in the morning and would freeze me out. Plus less space is needed for it.
Post by urbancowgirl on Jul 27, 2014 16:49:30 GMT -5
We have a tankless and I'm meh about it. It came with the house and only serves half of the house, so I can't attest to how much we save with it. We have a lot of problems with the hot water cutting out during showers.
Hmm... Our current water heater is electric, but we have natural gas heat. No idea how much it would cost to have a gas line run to the utility room. We were looking at 5 gpm (gallon per minute) ones.
We have read they can fluctuate in the winter since the ground water is colder. We live in NC so it shouldn't be a huge issue, but it can get into the teens or a little colder in the coldest part of winter.
We have a tankless gas hot water heater and love it. We've never had issues with it providing water (even when we had all three showers running), and it's never run out. I've heard that they're not worth the cost because they tend to die earlier, but ours was already in the house when we bought it. Also, I don't know if they all have this option, but ours is set up to recirculate the water in the pipes so you don't have for the water to flush out of the pipes to get hot water. We can schedule it to recirculate at certain times (mornings for showers, mostly), but also shut it off to save energy so it's not running all the time and love that feature!
Post by WinterWine on Jul 27, 2014 19:52:57 GMT -5
We replaced our old gas water heater with a gas tankless when it died. I love that we never run out of hot water and can do laundry, dishwasher, and 2 showers at once despite having the smallest size. They are more Eco friendly as water isn't heated unnecessarily, it takes up less room on the garage as well. Though it does reduce out monthly gas bill, they are significantly more expensive to buy and install, so it isn't necessarily a $$ driven choice.
My understanding is only the gas ones are more Eco friendly, and you need a gas line of a decent circumference to get a high enough flow. Don't remember the stats but can check with H if you need as he installed ours.
Maybe the groundwater temp issue is limited to electric models?
This would be my guess too. We live in NH, so obviously the winters get very cold here. We also have well water, which is super cold during the winter. Yet none of that has been an issue for our propane powered tankless water heater. I'm a huge fan.
Maybe the groundwater temp issue is limited to electric models?
This would be my guess too. We live in NH, so obviously the winters get very cold here. We also have well water, which is super cold during the winter. Yet none of that has been an issue for our propane powered tankless water heater. I'm a huge fan.
Lemon, it sounds like your house is very similar to ours. Can you please tell me more about what model you have and where it is in your house, the setup, etc? Did it come with your house or did you put it in? We are buying a house in VA with a well and propane-powered conventional hot water heater. We would like to replace it with tankless to free up space in the mudroom for a laundry sink. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!
This would be my guess too. We live in NH, so obviously the winters get very cold here. We also have well water, which is super cold during the winter. Yet none of that has been an issue for our propane powered tankless water heater. I'm a huge fan.
Lemon, it sounds like your house is very similar to ours. Can you please tell me more about what model you have and where it is in your house, the setup, etc? Did it come with your house or did you put it in? We are buying a house in VA with a well and propane-powered conventional hot water heater. We would like to replace it with tankless to free up space in the mudroom for a laundry sink. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!
Sure! Ours is a Rinnai that the previous owners put in. It's located in our basement and has a direct vent outside. It's on an outward facing wall in the basement, closest to the propane tank located just outside. Since we didn't put it in, I'm not sure if they chose the location for it out of convenience or cost. I'm sure an installation guy could tell you which locations would work.
The only "issue" we've run into was in the winter when the snow was piling up during our first winter here. We didn't realize we had to keep the vent clear of snow. So it shut itself off and wouldn't kick on until we cleared away the snow. An excellent safety feature and now we know to keep everything cleared away from the outside vent.
Post by barefootcontessa on Jul 28, 2014 11:48:14 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings about ours. We were on a tank on our old house and we rarely ran out of hot water. We have a tankless now and have to run the tap and wait for hot water. My dad installed a hybrid system, small tank with tankless system to avoid that problem. This is what I want to do.