Instant Hot or tankless water heater

[WarhammerUC]

I'm looking to replace my pricy oil boiler and switch to gas.. any recommendation on what brand and what to look for ? I did some research but its all mostly advertisement.. no real user experiences... thanks for opinions..

 

[warmodder]

My parents have some kind of contraption like that. I can't offer any real advice except to say it has always worked really great. The water is always hot when you need it.

 

[nonameo]

Don't those only come gas powered?

 

[FreshPrince]

I hear good things about the tankless water heater, you get hot water when you need it and you never waste extra energy.

problem is that it's expensive

 

[Anubis]

they are pretty awsome, they have a large upfront cost but pay for themselfs over time as you never need to keep water hot in a hot water tank, they are generally gas powered, no idea on brands or where to get tho

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: nonameo
Don't those only come gas powered?

No, there's electric too, but they're not nearly as efficient.


There's both good and bad aspects of tankless.

Good:

1) Instant on.
2) Never run out of hot water
3) Uses zero energy when not on (except for pilot light)

Bad:

1) Very expensive when on. If you use a lot of hot water it can be more expensive because it requires a lot of energy to heat water that quickly.
2) Limited water volume. Only small volumes can be handled because it's got to be heated so quickly. Don't expect to run a shower and fill the washing machine at the same time.

 

[Jumpem]

Rinnai.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: nonameo
Don't those only come gas powered?

No, there's electric too, but they're not nearly as efficient.


There's both good and bad aspects of tankless.

Good:

1) Instant on.
2) Never run out of hot water
3) Uses zero energy when not on (except for pilot light)

Bad:

1) Very expensive when on. If you use a lot of hot water it can be more expensive because it requires a lot of energy to heat water that quickly.
2) Limited water volume. Only small volumes can be handled because it's got to be heated so quickly. Don't expect to run a shower and fill the washing machine at the same time.

Incorrect on both. Yes they do use a lot of gas when running, but it's always less than the amount used by a tank type water heater.

You can buy a unit sized to fit your needs. The smaller units do have very limited capacity, but larger units will produce enough hot water to run 3 showers at the same time. If you really want huge volume, you can connect two of them together.

I recently installed a heater that will produce enough hot water for three showers, it was around a thousand bucks with installation hardware.

 

[RESmonkey]

Did anyone misread the title thinking "Instant Hot and tanktop less chicks" and click it?

 

[waffleironhead]

I have the Bosch 125fx-lp(now called the 1600 series). I love it, no such thing a no hot water. The only way to run out of hot water is to run out of water or gas. I bought it for space savings as well as energy savings, but the energy savings is non existant as we just take longer showers

Some things to consider when purchasing a demand water heater.

1) Gas supply or electricity supply coming into the house. These things use a lot of resources. So make sure you have a large enough supply to feed it. For the electric ones if you dont have at least 200 amp service than forget about it. The gas ones uses a lot as well depending on the model. I had to re plumb my gas lines as the old water heater was run on 1/2" black pipe whereas the demand needed 3/4" pipe to run properly.
2)Size of the model? The 125 model I have is only good for one major fixture at a time. Someone using the shower, forget about hot water at the sink. They make bigger models that are good for 2 fixtures(2400 series) but since it is only my wife an I we didnt need anything bigger.
3)they are pricey. Not ony the heater but the venting. they need stainless steel vent pie(not normal class B) which is costly. So dont assume you are going to reuse the existing vent from the current heater, not gonna work. Best ebt it to place it on a outside wall and vent it out the wall(requires a powervented model).
4) how cold is you ground water? The optimal flow rates on demand heaters are based on the amout you need to raise the temp of the water. 50 degree ground water takes a lot more to raise to 100 than 60. and what you lose in the bargain is flow. For example the richmond tankless heater models 42,53,74 equate to 4.2 , 5.3 and 7.4 gallons a minute at a 45 degree rise. But if you need to do a 77 degree rise they drop to 2.4,3.1,4.3.

If I was buying one today I probably would buy a Richmond instead of a bosch. For one thing they are more efficient. Look at the energy factor rating, higher is better. the richmonds all are above 80 which allows you to get the enery saving tax credit form the irs. Also they go about the hot water differently than the bosch. What happans with the richmond is that you set the temp that you want the water to be when it comes out of the tap. Then the unit adjusts the flame to heat the water to that exact temp. While the bosch you set it to how much rise in temp you want. Which is where my problem comes in because I am on a well. Say the ground water is 50 degrees and I want it to 100 I set it to do a rise of 50 degrees. Then when my pressure tanks sits for a while and the water in it gets up to room temp say 70, the water coming out of the tap is suddenly 120 not 100. The Richmond would have no problem because it is only going to heat it too 100 no matter what.(DISCLAIMER- my 125 is about 6 years old now so bosch my have changed their ways by now)

Im kinda sleepy so this may be rambling and inchoerent, and Im sure I missed some points but Ill reread it tommorow and see if I have more to add then.

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Did anyone misread the title thinking "Instant Hot and tanktop less chicks" and click it?

Tanktop-less chicks making water, instant or not, isn't my kind of hot movie, sorry.

 

[RESmonkey]

No, I meant "INSTANT HOT TANKTOP LESS CHICKS: JUST MIX WITH WATER!" Just poar in the powder, and outcome "HOT TANKTOPLESS CHICKS."

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

I installed a Siebel Eltron model when I remodeled my kitchen. It's out in the garage opposite the kitchen and provides hot water for the sink, dishwasher, and the clothes washer in the garage. All 3 can be running at once, no problem. The key is to get one that suits your capacity requirements. There are various models to handle all capacities from under-sink models that provide low capacity to those can handle your entire house.

They also come in electric and gas models. If you already have gas avaiable that would be the preferred way to go, imo. If you must go electric, as I did, the larger models require a 240V line. The model I chose pulls 100 amps too so I had to contract an electician to come in and run a new circuit.

Despite the expense I absolutely love it. Prior to the remodel my kitchen pulled hot water nearly all the way from the other side of the house and it took a minute or two for the water to warm up. Now it takes a few seconds. Any higher electrical or gas costs will be offset by not having to waste a few gallons of water every time just to get it hot, not to mention the time convenience.

I'm waiting for my hot water heater to take a dive and I'll replace that with a tankless unit as well, especially since it already has the current and amperage to make that possible. As far as electrical bills I really didn't notice any difference either way so if you go electric I'm not that should be a consideration.

 

[Pabster]

I only have experience with the electric models. Bosch, in particular. They're awesome.

Limited water volume is a common misconception. You can get a unit to fit any usage pattern.

 

[cardiac]

Might be a little info you can use in this thread: Discussing water heaters and boilers....

 

[Lounatik]

My dad installs this water heater in Florida ( He does not buy them off of ebay, but it is the same person) and he sent me one of them and i love it. I had to run a 60 amp 240v line from my breaker box to my utility room, but it was no big deal. It does a good job of covering 2 showers ( with water saving heads) or a shower and dishwasher/washng machine or sink running. I haven not gotten my bill for last months gas usage, but I imagine it will be cut probably by 2/3 because my heater is in my garage and needed to be running quite a bit in the winter even when we were not using it.

It was a fairly easy install,too. If you are a bit handy, you can get it done in about 2-3 hours. Not a big deal at all.

If you look further down the list on ebay, you see the guy is selling larger units also. I imagine they are better suited for larger homes.

Edit: I forgot to mention its size: It is about the size of a hardcover book of about 800 pages. Nice and compact. Freed up a lot of room in my workroom.

Peace

Lounatik

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: Pabster
I only have experience with the electric models. Bosch, in particular. They're awesome.

Limited water volume is a common misconception. You can get a unit to fit any usage pattern.

If you're living in the middle of Libya that might be true. For everyone else there are usage patterns and areas where tankless sucks. There are two keys to determine whether tankless is the right option

1) Water volume daily. Tankless uses a LOT more energy when operating than a conventional tank. Most people don't use that much water and so won't run into a problem. Anyone that uses a lot will see their bills rise. The break-even point is usually 200-250 gallons daily. If you use that much or more you might pay more for a tankless

2) Most important is "temperature rise". Any decent unit can produce adequate flow if the water coming in is 75*, so if you're living in the middle of the Sahara there's no problem. For those in the real world, especially in northern climes, there's a BIG problem. The water coming into a home might be 35* or so. Typical hot water is 125*. That means the water must rise 90* before it leaves the heater. Even complete morons like a few people in this thread will see that there's a HUGE difference between making water rise 50* and making it rise 90*. A powerful unit that could supply 5 gallons a minute 50* rise might only supply 1 gallon a minute at 90* rise. And don't whine about the math, that's really the way it works, efficiency isn't linear. 5 gallons a minute is enough to run a single shower and maybe a faucet or two. It's not enough to run two showers or a shower and washing machine simultaneously. If you want more water delivery you need additional units with one supplying each bathroom or several hooked up in series so that the water rise load is split up.

Despite claims of "it works for me!!" be idiots who don't understand the entire equation that does not mean that it will work for you. If you live in Michigan the cost benefit analysis is very different than it would be if you lived in Florida. If you're considering one you have to CAREFULLY consider your water needs and the incoming water temps at your house. Otherwise you're going to be unpleasantly surprised when the output is barely a trickle.

 

[slsmnaz]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
Rinnai.

:thumbsup:

That's what we have and it works great. One thing many forget is where you are going to mount the heater. If it's outside you may want to add a recessed box to house it. If inside you need to remember it requires special venting.

As for limits IIRC it's about 6-7gpm for 1 unit. That's going to be more than enough for almost all households.

 

[IronWing]

Anyone live in areas with hard water and no softener use one of these? How badly do they scale? Our current tank heater is scaling up to the point it's making those popping noises and it is only ten years old. We just shelved the idea of going to a passive solar water heater because it would take the brunt of the scaling.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Pabster
I only have experience with the electric models. Bosch, in particular. They're awesome.

Limited water volume is a common misconception. You can get a unit to fit any usage pattern.

If you're living in the middle of Libya that might be true. For everyone else there are usage patterns and areas where tankless sucks. There are two keys to determine whether tankless is the right option

1) Water volume daily. Tankless uses a LOT more energy when operating than a conventional tank. Most people don't use that much water and so won't run into a problem. Anyone that uses a lot will see their bills rise. The break-even point is usually 200-250 gallons daily. If you use that much or more you might pay more for a tankless

2) Most important is "temperature rise". Any decent unit can produce adequate flow if the water coming in is 75*, so if you're living in the middle of the Sahara there's no problem. For those in the real world, especially in northern climes, there's a BIG problem. The water coming into a home might be 35* or so. Typical hot water is 125*. That means the water must rise 90* before it leaves the heater. Even complete morons like a few people in this thread will see that there's a HUGE difference between making water rise 50* and making it rise 90*. A powerful unit that could supply 5 gallons a minute 50* rise might only supply 1 gallon a minute at 90* rise. And don't whine about the math, that's really the way it works, efficiency isn't linear. 5 gallons a minute is enough to run a single shower and maybe a faucet or two. It's not enough to run two showers or a shower and washing machine simultaneously. If you want more water delivery you need additional units with one supplying each bathroom or several hooked up in series so that the water rise load is split up.

Despite claims of "it works for me!!" be idiots who don't understand the entire equation that does not mean that it will work for you. If you live in Michigan the cost benefit analysis is very different than it would be if you lived in Florida. If you're considering one you have to CAREFULLY consider your water needs and the incoming water temps at your house. Otherwise you're going to be unpleasantly surprised when the output is barely a trickle.

Translation: I undersized my unit and I'm very unhappy about it.

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: Pabster
I only have experience with the electric models. Bosch, in particular. They're awesome.

Limited water volume is a common misconception. You can get a unit to fit any usage pattern.

If you're living in the middle of Libya that might be true. For everyone else there are usage patterns and areas where tankless sucks. There are two keys to determine whether tankless is the right option

1) Water volume daily. Tankless uses a LOT more energy when operating than a conventional tank. Most people don't use that much water and so won't run into a problem. Anyone that uses a lot will see their bills rise. The break-even point is usually 200-250 gallons daily. If you use that much or more you might pay more for a tankless

2) Most important is "temperature rise". Any decent unit can produce adequate flow if the water coming in is 75*, so if you're living in the middle of the Sahara there's no problem. For those in the real world, especially in northern climes, there's a BIG problem. The water coming into a home might be 35* or so. Typical hot water is 125*. That means the water must rise 90* before it leaves the heater. Even complete morons like a few people in this thread will see that there's a HUGE difference between making water rise 50* and making it rise 90*. A powerful unit that could supply 5 gallons a minute 50* rise might only supply 1 gallon a minute at 90* rise. And don't whine about the math, that's really the way it works, efficiency isn't linear. 5 gallons a minute is enough to run a single shower and maybe a faucet or two. It's not enough to run two showers or a shower and washing machine simultaneously. If you want more water delivery you need additional units with one supplying each bathroom or several hooked up in series so that the water rise load is split up.

Despite claims of "it works for me!!" be idiots who don't understand the entire equation that does not mean that it will work for you. If you live in Michigan the cost benefit analysis is very different than it would be if you lived in Florida. If you're considering one you have to CAREFULLY consider your water needs and the incoming water temps at your house. Otherwise you're going to be unpleasantly surprised when the output is barely a trickle.

Translation: I undersized my unit and I'm very unhappy about it.

Exactly.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: FreshPrince
I hear good things about the tankless water heater, you get hot water when you need it and you never waste extra energy.

problem is that it's expensive

I have one, the Noritz Model N-069M-OD. The cost of the Noritz was around $1000, and this was around 2 years ago. The installation including the heater was $4000! This is pricey. I had it done for free by a city sponsored agency. The person who runs the agency thought it a likely solution to some problems I had. Basically, it was tough to install my dryer without removing the tank water heater. Also, they'd evidently been thinking of installing these and so I was the first one.

To be frank, I'm not that high on it. I suppose it saves me some money in natural gas bills. If it were me paying for it, I would have bought a 40 gallon rather ordinary tank natural gas using water heater much like the one they replaced and figured out some other way to vent my dryer.

I'm fearful that one day it will need service and I will have to pay a lot of money to fix it. It's a pretty high tech thing compared to a tank water heater and I figure it could be quite expensive to fix it.

Also, it has some peculiarities. If you don't have a minimal flow of water it stops heating what flows through it. That's around 1-2 quarts/minute (I forget which). So, when I have a slow enough flow the water turns cold. Oddly, at very low flows when it's still heating (above the minimum flow) the water turns hotter than it's supposed to be. Mine has the optional ($100) remote control, and I can set the temperature and make some other remote settings changes from within the house (the heater is installed on an outside wall). I set it at 115 degrees in the winter, 110 in warmer weather, just right to take a shower with hot-only flow. I did something like this with my tank heater, too, always setting the thermostat at the point where a shower was perfect at hot-only. But like I say, sink water at low flow can get quite a bit hotter than 115 at my current setting. I called the company and asked if this was a problem with my unit and was told that this is typical behavior. Don't know why.

Another peculiar thing is the fan. When it's heating water, a fan comes on and it's fairly loud and stays on after you shut off the hot water flow, for a minute or so. At first, I noticed it a lot, but not lately, probably partly because it's winter and the windows are closed. It can actually vibrate your house. A friend of mine remounted his Noritz with rubber shock absorbers to alleviate the vibration!

For me, it's adequate in terms of the flow it delivers. My flow requirements are minimal. Also, I live in a mild temperature region.

You can do www.groups.google.com searches in the alt.home.repair newsgroup and read a lot of posts concerning tankless water heaters. I think that in general, the people there aren't high on them.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: nonameo
Don't those only come gas powered?

No, there's electric too, but they're not nearly as efficient.


There's both good and bad aspects of tankless.

Good:

1) Instant on.
2) Never run out of hot water
3) Uses zero energy when not on (except for pilot light)

Bad:

1) Very expensive when on. If you use a lot of hot water it can be more expensive because it requires a lot of energy to heat water that quickly.
2) Limited water volume. Only small volumes can be handled because it's got to be heated so quickly. Don't expect to run a shower and fill the washing machine at the same time.

Not instant on. Mine is installed around 25' from my kitchen sink, so I have to wait for that much cold water to flow through the pipe before I get heated water. So, it's best to mount it as close to your highest requirement areas as possible (e.g. sinks, showers, washer). You have this same problem with a tank heater, of course. The water is heated at the heater.

Mine has no pilot light. It has an electronic gas ignition system, similar to my gas dryer.

I don't know about it being more expensive to run. It's probably not really. It burns gas to heat water. No such system is 100% efficient, but I don't imagine that a tankless is majorly less efficient than a tank water heater. Don't know the stats.

I'm not so sure you couldn't fill a washer and shower at the same time (especially if you have a low flow shower). That's not big usage.

 

[Greenman]

At 4k installed I'd use a tank style heater as well. Either you had a very complex installation or simply paid far to much for it. I wouldn't worry about the unit failing though, at worst you replace it. If it's properly installed you should be able to swap it out in less than an hour.

 

[HomerSapien]

I have been looking into one of these. I have to get an electric one as I do not have a gas line to my house. As for determining what size i will need, i am at a loss. I have a 3bdrm 2 bath house. Currently, it is me and my wife, but we want kids in the future so. I can only think of a time or two when we had the dishwasher, washer, and taking showers at the same time. The dishwasher will be replaced with a more efficient one and we have a high efficiency front loader washer that uses minimal water.

What type of electric heater do you guys recommend and what flow rate do you think i need to look at?

Thanks