Talk to me about water heaters

[2curlydogs]

The water heater in our house is original to the house, so over 20 years old. It's time to replace it before it craps out and floods my basement.

CR doesn't have any ratings, so.... any recommendations or things to consider? We routinely run more than one source at a time - laundry and shower or laundry and dish washer - so from the (very brief) reading I've done that seems to exclude getting a tankless one.

[Pibs]

Our house came with a gas tankless heater, but IDK what brand it is. We've had all 3 showers going at once and people cleaning up in the kitchen without any issues. I regularly shower when either the dishwasher or washer are running without problems, though the pressure in the shower changes as the washer fills.

I think a key to it working in our house, which is about 3200 SF, is that it has a pump/recirculation system that has a timer so it'll swoosh all of the water through the pipes so we don't have to wait for it to flush all of the cold water out before we get hot water.

If it died, I'd be on board with buying another tankless. I'm not sure if they're cost effective yet, but I love this one enough to consider buying another one even if it were less MM.

[thatgirl2478]

From what I understand, if you live in an area with extremely cold winters, you may not get hot enough water because the water coming in is SO cold. But I haven't experienced a tankless water heater first hand so YMMV

[bunnymendelbaum]

What do you have now? gas? electric?

[2curlydogs]

Jan 29, 2016 8:26:44 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

What do you have now? gas? electric?

Gas.

I'm in WI.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Jan 29, 2016 10:25:11 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Jan 29, 2016 8:26:44 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

What do you have now? gas? electric?

Gas.

I'm in WI.

Is it in your basement? Inside wall or outside wall? Do you know how it vents? Because that determines quite a bit for cost. I can't remember if gas tankless have to be vented directly through an outside wall? and they can't be too close to a window or opening above/adjacent.

[2curlydogs]

Jan 29, 2016 11:34:37 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Jan 29, 2016 10:25:11 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Gas.

I'm in WI.

Is it in your basement? Inside wall or outside wall? Do you know how it vents? Because that determines quite a bit for cost. I can't remember if gas tankless have to be vented directly through an outside wall? and they can't be too close to a window or opening above/adjacent.

Basement. In the middle of the storage area, really. It's right next to our heater (also gas).

[FoxInFiji]

Jan 29, 2016 12:30:42 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Jan 29, 2016 11:34:37 GMT -5 bunnymendelbaum said:

Is it in your basement? Inside wall or outside wall? Do you know how it vents? Because that determines quite a bit for cost. I can't remember if gas tankless have to be vented directly through an outside wall? and they can't be too close to a window or opening above/adjacent.

Basement. In the middle of the storage area, really. It's right next to our heater (also gas).

Bunny's right on.  Venting is an issue with a retrofit tankless.  I'm guessing your current furnace and water heater are both venting through the same chimney/flue right now.  If you walk around the house do you see any vents or does it go to the roof?  A combined vent won't work with a tankless.  Tankless also need an outdoor air intake.  This is normally done with a PVC pipe within a pipe (outside air in the outer pipe and hot vented air in the inner pipe).  This pipe also can't run very far or have too many elbows.  Like others noted it can't be too close to vinyl siding, windows, or doors because it comes out very hot.  A tankless is also not freestanding and will need some type of unistrut or wooden support build to hold it in the middle of the space.  Alternatively you could relocate the water heater to an exterior wall and just reroute the natural gas line (probably the cheaper option). 

The long term maintenance and ability to replace parts on tankless water heaters is still relatively new.  So if you do go with one do your research and get a good brand who will still be around when you need parts down the line.  The true ROI calcs I've seen are not a good as advertised because they don't really have that long of a lifespan (just like 30 yr shingles don't really last 30 years). 

*Also special WI note*  The huge thing to take into account for our area is your water quality.  Any hard water or minerals in the water will have a HUGE impact on the performance of the unit.  Unlike a tanked water heater a tankless has lots of small part with a lot of surface area minerals to cake onto.  These minerals line the inside of the heat exchanger and severely limit the heat transfer.  This also means you need to have the unit serviced a lot more often because hard water coats everything.  This isn't really much of an issue in a traditional water heater because mineral deposits fall to the bottom and the elements are always oversized. 

Now I know what you're going to say...But Fox I have a water softener.  But have you ever taken a sample of your water to have it checked by the county health department?  Odds are yes you have a water softener but not fully softened water.  The limestone in our soil gives us really hard water at least in my area.  When I had our water tested it was x4 what is considered "very hard water".  So we bought a big water softener directly through the place that sells to the contractors in our area.  It's 48,000 grain unit with a flow sensor (ie. it only regens when it needs to which is usually once every 2 weeks).  The default size unit stuck in nearly every home is a 24,000 grain unit on a time clock set to regen every 3 days.  Regens use 960 gallons of water and 12 lb of salt for a 24,000 grain unit.  So that's a lot of wasted water and salt if it's not really needed!  I have a huge post about how to size a water softener saved from here if you'd like it. 

HTH!

ETA:  Or you could just bypass all of this hassle and spend $350 on a new gas fired water heater that will last you another 15-20 years.  Water heaters are the piece of home equipment that needs to be replaced the most often but they are one of the least expensive pieces of equipment as well. 

[Redpoppy]

We had to replace our gas water heater in December. It was $1800 installed. About $200 was going from a 6 year to 10 year warranty. Because of the length of the vent pipe it had to have a power vent too. Basically one of the more expensive scenarios.

We considered tankless for about 5 minutes. It would've added even more to the cost to retrofit. We've had no issues running out of hot water.

[Nina]

We had to replace our water heater about a week after we moved into our house. figures right but the something went with the electrical panel that lit the pilot and rather than start replacing expensive parts that we couldn't return if they didn't work we opted to just get a new one. Our set up is in the basement next to the boiler and also gas. Our plumber recommended the brand -Triangle Tube and we went with one of their Smart series. I don't know a lot about water heaters but I guess this heats water all the way around instead of heating it from the bottom like our old one. It came to about 1900 installed.

It has a lifetime warranty. That sounded crazy to me but our plumber says it's for real and this is the brand he uses in his house and his is going strong for 12 years now. I guess he's installed a lot of these and had to replace none of them. That's pretty good and I'm looking forward to getting our money's worth out of this one!

[mila]

Jan 30, 2016 6:18:26 GMT -5 Nina said:

We had to replace our water heater about a week after we moved into our house. figures right but the something went with the electrical panel that lit the pilot and rather than start replacing expensive parts that we couldn't return if they didn't work we opted to just get a new one. Our set up is in the basement next to the boiler and also gas. Our plumber recommended the brand -Triangle Tube and we went with one of their Smart series. I don't know a lot about water heaters but I guess this heats water all the way around instead of heating it from the bottom like our old one. It came to about 1900 installed.

It has a lifetime warranty. That sounded crazy to me but our plumber says it's for real and this is the brand he uses in his house and his is going strong for 12 years now. I guess he's installed a lot of these and had to replace none of them. That's pretty good and I'm looking forward to getting our money's worth out of this one!

Hi, we are looking at TT as well. How is it working out for you? Do you ever feel like you run out of hot water? 
If you don't mind me asking, what gallon tank did you get? (We're looking at the Smart 50)

[bullygirl979]

We have a tankless. While it is super nice that the hot water never runs out, it takes a solid 30-40 seconds for it to get warm. I constantly feel like I'm wasting A TON of water, just waiting for it to heat up.

When it dies (or when my SO has finally had enough) we will probably switch back to a normal hot water heater.

[TBM]

2curlydogs, good to see you! I have been thinking about you and have been wondering how you were...and where you were.

DH wants to replace our water heaters with tankless when we get around to our bathroom renos, but we can easily vent them.