Looking at my water heater tank, it’s getting to the big 10 year mark, I know from experience that they tend to start getting rebellious at this age (hmm just like children).
So this spring I would like to replace it and was thinking of those systems that just burn fuel when you run the hot water.
Anyone with such a system? What is your opinion on it? Do you get enough hot water when you have the hot faucet wide open? Does the temp vary much with faucet position (i.e. 1/4 open will burn you, but wide open will be luke warm)? And if you had to replace you current system would you rather replace it with what you have now or would go back to the old hot water tank system?
Does the brand matter, or can I just run to home depot and pick up whatever one they are selling?
We used to have a “tankless” system – I don’t know if this is what you’re referring to. Problems I perceived were:
The system worked off the main home heating source – an oil burner. Which meant that the oil burner fired up several times every day even in mid-summer.
The system worked by having a small diameter coil where the water to be heated ran. This narrow diameter coil was highly susceptible to clogging up with our hard (but delicious) well water. It needed frequent replacement and/or cleaning out. The alternative was installation of a water softener, which we didn’t want to do because we like the taste of our well water.
It was incapable of handling the situation where you did a couple of loads of laundry, and a couple of people also needed a shower. It would have been entirely overwhelmed by the requirements of a 21st century family with children and the accompanying laundry, dish-washing, and personal hygiene needs.
It’s possible the technology has improved since then, but I like our hot water tank. It’s also had the advantage that in case of power failure (which knocks out our well pump), we already have 30 gallons of clean, potable water on hand.
MLS Yes what you are talking about is a bit different, I used to have that type of system a long time ago. It was OK when you didn;'t need a large amount of hot water all at once. BTW if you turned the valve on the dishwasher and washing machine partially closing the flow of water you got hot enough water for cleaning.
These new systems seem to be a lot better from what I’ve heard, but don’t know if the are worth it. They are also seperate units.
Also if you have converted to a gas hot water tank then they usually work w/o power,
Two years ago we moved to a home with a tankless hot water system and I think we’re just about getting used to it.
The biggest drawback I’ve found is taking a shower in summer. The water entering the house can be quite warm and we can’t set the shower flow fast enough to ensure that the spray isn’t scalding. In winter the mains water is much cooler so the heated water comes out of the shower at a sensible temperature.
Mrs 666 thinks that we waste an awful lot of precious water waiting for the flow to come to the required temperature.
Given the choice I think we’d both choose to go back to a hot-tank system. Then we’d have the ability to use an electric heater as backup.
This is my individual quirk, but using gas in the house isn’t an option for us – I’m afraid of it. Every once in a blue moon some residence or other blows up because of a gas leak. That can’t happen with oil.
Is this for an apartment or a house? How big?
In the UK on-demand ‘combi’ water heater systems fuelled on natural gas and running both hot water and radiators are very common. Every apartment I have ever lived in has had one. The older models tend to be a bit flaky (pilot lights going out and such, not much in the way of throughput) but the newer ones are excellent - minimal gas consumption (because it’s only on when you need it), rapid response time, controllable.
I can imagine for a larger family house with a couple of bathrooms, washer/dishwasher etc. all going at once you might find the peak output too low but I don’t know how the things scale up.
The brand does matter quite a bit, IMO. These things need to run efficiently for years with minimal servicing and are a major pain in the rear when they break. Invest in one with a good reputation, a long warranty and a reputable after-sales organisation.
A friend of mine changed over to a tankless or instant heater and loves it. If he wants to take an hour-long hot shower, he can.
Our water heater’s at the 17-year mark. I wish I could readily change from a standing tank to instant, but the way the house is laid out, we’d pretty much need three units - one for the kitchen, one for the laundry and one for the upstairs bathrooms. Also, running gas lines would be a pain. Otherwise, just replacing the standing tank with an instant unit would still leave us waiting for hot water at the other end of the pipe.
My friend’s house is laid out sensibly, at least as far as water pipes are concerned. His laundry room also houses the heater, and the kitchen and bathroom are on opposite walls from the laundry room, so there’s only 10-15 feet of pipe going either direction from the heater.
Consumer Reports did an analysis of on-demand systems sometime in early 2005. Their opinion was that they are NOT worth it, and certainly are not the panacea that manufacturers claim. Only in certain rare applications would they make sense, they said.
Actually, hot water **heater[/b[ is redundant. The example you cite as wrong is actually correct. The units store heated (or hot) water, not cold water.
I replaced my huge tank heater with a Stiebel Eltron three years ago. 666 is right in that it does take some getting used to, but for me it was more like a few months. Now it’s second nature.
Pros:
I opened up an entire closet for storage that used to be occupied almost exclusively by a 40 gallon water tank. So now my kitchen has a pantry
I also noticed a slight drop in monthly electric bills - maybe 8 or 10 dollars.
Cons:
when the outside temp drops below 25 degrees or so, the water starts getting tepid if you open up the shower valve for max flow. On those rare occasions, I have to explain to guests how to operate the shower controls while they look at me like I’m nuts.
No hot water if the power goes out.
Luckily I’ve never had a power outage and the temperature drops below 25 degrees very infrequently. Maybe 15 or 20 days out of the year. If I lived any further north, I’d want to get the next model that has three heating chambers instead of two.
Actually, the heater part is correct. You can’t call it a hot water and expect anyone to understand that you are discussing that big cylindrical device on the service porch. Hot water is what is inside that big cylindrical thing. It is the hot part that can be considered to be redundant. It doesn’t heat hot water, it heats cold water and makes it hot. The name of the device is a water heater.
My replacement unit will be gas, I feel comfortable with it, and really hate the idea of taking a very convinent power source (electricity) and just using it to heat something via resistance - what a waste.
When power goes out, my well pump doesn’t run, but have a small reserve of water pressure. I also have a generator (IIRC 5.5 kw’s) which will run the waterpump, but I don’t know if it will run both the waterpump and an electric water heater. I know it won’t run my electric dryer, (which I also want to replace w/ a gas dryer). So power failure operations is a factor. The gas tank heater generatates any power it needs to work and will keep running w/o electricity.
I can get used to reducing the flow of water, here the outside temp in winter can easially be 0F for days at a time, I don’t know how this effects the temp of the water entering via a underground pipe in a well almost 500 ft down.
This could be a big factor, it takes a lot of power to pump water up the above memtioned almost 500 ft into a pressurized tank.
Are you wasting water waiting for the temp. to stabilize? Does the temp yo-yo or just take time to get to full heat?
I don’t understand why you will need 3 to replace 1. My understainding is that it can replace the standard tank. I too have a very long run to the bathrooms, and do waste a lot of water waiting for the hot water to make it from the tank to the shower.
I used the term hot water tank to avoid this issue, but I can see that hot water heater does work, normally the water in the tank is hot, lets say 135F, then the flame kicks on and heats it up to 145F. Through use and natural cooling the temp gets back to 135F and the cycle continues. So what else do you call something that heats hot water? A hot water tank (take to another thread or outside please)
Personally I can go with water heater or hot water heater and not have a problem. But you have to have the word heater in the name or it makes no sense.
(take to another thread or outside please)