How well do those tankless water heaters work?
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at
6:16 pm
I’m considering getting one for my upstairs aptmt. My two-flat has one 40-gallon water heater, and the upstairs tenants go through it quickly in the winter time. Not to mention I pay for all the heating it’s getting a bit prohibitive. I want to know how easy was the install and whether there was an appreciable difference in fuel consumption. Natural gas is my fuel of choice. Thanks!
Tagged with: appreciable difference • fuel consumption • gallon water heater • natural gas • upstairs • winter time
Filed under: Tankless Gas Water Heater
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I’ve been studying tankless water heaters for a marketing study in college and have learned a great deal about them. If you’re going to replace your water heater I would recommend an electric tankless – it doesn’t require ventilation and is very easily installed.
SKYE makes a unit called Fortis that is modular and expandable; it provides hot water practically on demand due to a purge valve built into the system. They’re very efficient because they only operate when the hot water is being demanded. Gas requires ventilation, gas would be consumed by the pilot light, and you would experience a delay in delivery of hot water waiting for ignition of the gas heater.
I hope it’s helpful. I’ve provided a link to the products page for the company. I recommend reviewing their brochure.
Awesome…all the way around…
They are great, and efficient. They will pay for themselves in savings in the first 2 years. It is recommended that for best results use in conjunction with a water softener.Easier install than tank heaters because of the size. You will still need a licensed installer because of the gas.
I think if they are using the water fro showers and laundry, you better check out the capacity to heat the volume of water. I now they will not fill up a whirlpool.I experienced this when I wanted to install one at cottage
Great. They are energy efficient and produce hot water out of the faucet faster.
installed a Rinnai tankless water heater in Jan ‘06. we love it! we can take endless showers. then do loads of laundry.
Only thing I would have done different would have been to buy their unit offering the greatest throughput, just so we could have had two showers going full blast at one time. The Rinnai brand, unlike their competitors, delivers constant temperature at a reduced throughput with increased demand. All tankless units have a limit on how high they can heat water (consider that in MI, in winter, water coming into home is approx 55 degrees.)
retail cost was about $900 for the unit and with our special circumstances (water heater in unheated garage, had to install a heat vent from furnace to keep supply pipes from freezing in MI winters, needed a new exhaust venting system, had to install a larger gas supply pipe to new system) the total job was $3500. And we had a master plumber here all day with a helper and for a few hours next day, so not an easy install. considering gas requirements, venting, electrical.
There was a price savings, but it is hard for me to calculate, as we also had to replace our gas furnace at the same time. (yay that was a fun month, 20 degrees out, furnace goes out on sunday, water heater bursts on following wednesday)
http://www.foreverhotwater.com/
I’ve installed about 45 of them in the last two years at my projects. Rinnai, Bosch, and Takagi are the ones I’ve installed.
All of them offer models with flow rates exceeding the typical residential demand. (assuming you are using gas)
The only problem with the larger ones is that they require at least .5 – .7 gallons of flow through them per minute to turn on. If you use a large one and then try to run a little hot water out of your small lavatory, it will never kick on.
Electric ones suck. Except for single lav use maybe for instant hot.
Of the ones I installed, I would say the Rinnai or Takagi. They are both about the same except the Rinnai takes a proprietary flue pipe on some models.
The Takagi TK Jr. is probably right up your alley. It is cheap and will furnish more than enough water for most residential uses.
Good luck- tisis a good call..