I’ve had this one for several years now.
No problems or issues at all, and endless 130 degree (or hotter) water. Available in both LP and NG versions, but keep in mind that you may need a larger gas feed than an old tank heater required.
Not sure if this is still correct, but I got a Federal tax break for the purchase and installation.
Vent installation has a few restrictions, it doesn’t seem to be as strict as has been mentioned above.
Two last items:
The tankless that I purchased will throttle water pressure in order to maintain the set temp. That’s never happened in my house.
Also, when I was researching the various tankless options, it seemed that most people thought that the electrics were not up to the load of a whole house. Those seemed to be best for point of use. That may have changed in the last few years.
We’ve had a tankless for over 4 years now. Household is two adults and two pre-teen girls. I love the tankless and think it was one of the best things we did during our remodel.
Now, we do have an ideal situation for tankless:
I love it. Never have issues. We have a little controller for it inside the house and everyone likes to adjust their showers to “their” temperature.
I’ve been hearing about tankless for years and vowed that the next time I have to replace my WH, I’d go tankless. But we recently replaced our conventional HVAC system with a geothermal system, which uses electricity to run the system, rather than the gas-powered forced air system we had previously. As a result, the only things in the house that use gas now are the water heater and the clothes dryer; the majority of the cost of our gas bill goes to heat water. And the bill is only about $25/month.
So even though I’ve been insisting to my wife that I want tankless, I’m questioning if that’s the way to go at this point since my breakeven point would be so far off. If I do decide to do it, it won’t be for any savings, but so one daughter’s 25-minute showers (:() won’t deplete the hot water before the other one steps in.
Have you a thread on that, or a link?
An acquaintance of mine wanted to install those, but for one reason or another did not. There were several wells with ABS plastic pumping water through them for a heat pump. I’d like to know how that works out.
I don’t. I’m happy to answer any questions about it, but rather than hijack this thread I’ll do an AMA or something. Will try to get to it later today.
TheElf and I have had one for 7 years now and we love it. Unlimited hot water on demand. I can even run the dishwasher, washing machine and take a hot shower at the same time with no temperature change issues. I don’t know about the long-term savings, but when we had it installed the gas company came and (without our knowledge) changed out our meter because they thought it had broken. The second time they came TheElf was home and took them on a tour of our water heater and HE furnace. Our bill had reduced 75%.
Presuming an old tak does not have a leak, and the space, what do people think anout using the old tank as a reservoir to allow the water coming in from the cold outside to come to room temp before the tankless has to heat it?
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Presuming an old tak does not have a leak, and the space, what do people think anout using the old tank as a reservoir to allow the water coming in from the cold outside to come to room temp before the tankless has to heat it?
[/QUOTE]
Using an old water heater as a storage tank is just a leak waiting to happen, and as there’s no functional heat exchanger, the water is not going to warm up by any useful amount, even if you strip off all of the insulation.