home improvements - tankless water heater

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robphelan

robphelan

Diamond Member
Aug 28, 2003
4,084
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when our water heater (electric) goes out, i'm planning on replacing with a tankless.

does this add to the overall value of the house? I would imagine that it would add a certain coolness factor.. and every little bit helps when selling a house.

anyone currently using one of these?

EDIT: the house has 2 adults, 1 child and another little girl being born tomorrow!
 
BillGates

BillGates

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2001
7,388
2
81
I would think that it might add to the appeal the house has but maybe not necessarily its value. I am house hunting right now and would really like to have a tankless water heater installed.
 
J

JeffreyLebowski

Lifer
Aug 23, 2000
15,509
1
81
The trick to the tankless setup is you have to get a unit that will accomidate your needs. The entry level ones will only provide enough hot water for 1 application, IE running the dish washer, or running the clothes washer, or the shower. The higher end models will allow for doing several of these at once. I looked into this as well and if I remember correctly, the electricity costs are much higher than with a traditional water heater.
 
Kelemvor

Kelemvor

Lifer
May 23, 2002
16,928
8
81
There are mainly two ways of doing the whole tankless heater stuff.

1) Get one main unit the services the whole house. This has never ending hot water which most people want, but there are limits on how much water they can pump through at a time. This means that if you are doing laundry, dishwasher, and taking a shower all at the same time, you could be requesting more hot water than the unit can put through so you might not get as hot as you want.

2) You can get smaller units that only supply water to a certain room or utility. These are less expensive and provide less flowthrough capability.

But what I woudl probably do if I had a large family is put in a whole house tankless heater but then supplement that with a smaller one specifically for the showers or something like that. That way you can have multiple things going on at the same time and not have to worry about maxing out the flow.

But we just have my wife and I and we don't get up at the same time and don't do dishes or laundry when someone is showering so it's no big deal.
 
kranky

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
Just did a lot of research into those last month and decided not to get one, and replace our gas water heater instead.

From what I found out, they need regular maintenance every couple years (not covered by warranty), and that's a hundred bucks or so in parts. If you don't do it yourself, then add another hundred for the plumber. And chances are there are few plumbers trained to service any particular tankless system.

Another reason is that I could not have used the same venting I have now - it requires a heavy-duty vent. That would have been a major undertaking. I was quoted $900 for installation if the existing vent could be used. So it was going to be a $2000 job (unit plus installation) even if my vent was good to go.

The other reason I passed is that they can only raise the temperature of the water a certain number of degrees. They cannot take very cold water and turn it into very hot water at a heavy rate of consumption, which is an issue for some people in the winter when the incoming water is very cold.

It sounded great at first, but after I did some digging I abandoned the idea.
 
Q

QED

Diamond Member
Dec 16, 2005
3,428
3
0
I installed an electric tankless unit in my old 2-bedroom condo.

It saved us quite a bit on electricity each month, since they use almost no electricity whatsoever when you are not using hot water (which is like 95% of the time).

However, keep in mind that when they are in use they draw a lot of amps so be sure that your current breaker box can handle the extra load. Our unit, which drew about 55 amps (IIRC) was good enough for a single shower and sink to be used simultaneously.

Since our unit was somewhat underpowered, you couldn't get super hot water in the wintertime due to the decrease in incoming water temperature. If I had to do it all over again, I would couple the tankless unit with a standard hot water heater set at its lowest setting (or maybe even off). If you heat water that's already at room temperature you will use much less energy in the long run...
 
Q

QED

Diamond Member
Dec 16, 2005
3,428
3
0
Originally posted by: robphelan
Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
Stumbled on this as well..

http://www.askthebuilder.com/451_Tankle..._Heaters_-_Some_Surprising_Facts.shtml
Click to expand...

wowsers... that was interesting reading. we don't have natural gas, but i'd hate to see my electric bill spike 2-4x higher than what it is now.
Click to expand...

Your electric bill won't spike.

I had one, and my bill went down.

In that article he makes the assumption that the tankless unit uses its maximum amount of energy whenever it is on, which isn't true. You would have to be using its maximum throughput and maximum temperature setting to do so.

I think it is very misleading of him to take the most power-hungry tankless unit, assume it is being run at maximum capacity all the time, and then try to compare that to a standard water heater.
 
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