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Tankless Water Heaters

post #1 of 31
5/5/09 at 2:09am
Thread Starter 
To save space I'm thinking about getting a tankless water heater. My house is small, only one bathroom. Any of you have them? Thoughts?
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post #2 of 31
5/5/09 at 2:34am
something like this? i have panasonics in my house- they're eyesores indeed in the bathroom but they get the job done. one thing you need to make sure is there will be no chance of an electric shock when turning them on- i know it might sound stupid but there are reported deaths/injuries because of substandard or poorly installed heaters.
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post #3 of 31
5/5/09 at 9:59am
We have a gas bosch tankless in our laundry/utility room--also a 1-bath home (we've lived here < 1 week ). It's nice that it's small and wall-mounted, and it does not run out of hot water. However, you can't do more than one hot water activity at once--if you're running the dishwasher, you can't really shower. If you're washing dishes and someone in the br turns on the hot water, your pressure drops.

I can't imagine having a hulking tank in our utility/laundry room, though, and there's only two of us, so it works for us.
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post #4 of 31
5/5/09 at 11:23am
I have a huge water tank in a basement and that stupid (Made in USA) thing runs out of water quicker than 2 people can take showers. Forget running Dishwasher or laundry simultaeniously.
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post #5 of 31
5/5/09 at 11:32am
My builder is pushing these. He says we'll save money in the long run, and given the minerality of our local water, will have less problems, as you don't have to repeatedly heat the same water. He assures me we'll never notice the difference between that and a nice 50 gal traditional style. It'll be months before I pursue much more detail on that, but I'll post when I laern more.
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post #6 of 31
5/6/09 at 8:03pm
You have have tankless water heaters mounted on the outside of the house. It's a small box that heats the water instantaneously as it passes through. It'll never run out of hot water like a traditional tank does, which fills with water, heats it all up, then refills once it has reached a certain level of emptiness. Plus, you can get hot water throughout the house simultaneously, without having to worry about showering when someone else is doing the dishes, etc. It's more expensive of course, but a solid investment.
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post #7 of 31
5/6/09 at 10:37pm
I'm getting one of these soon as we're redoing our bathroom. As I understand it, it needs to be mounted on an exterior wall or maybe a basement or garage interior wall. The tanks are more expensive than traditional heaters, but the real expense is the stainless steel flu. Depending on how far you have to go to reach the roof or outside area, that material could cost as much as the tank itself.

But the energy savings and always having hot water is nice and worth it in the long run.
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post #8 of 31
5/6/09 at 11:42pm
I have a 60 gal. tank, looked into a tankless, guy asked how many people and how many bathrooms, I answered and he said it would be a huge waste of money and I would not be happy with the lack of hot water. That is all I know and since there was a lot more money to be made by the plumber for the tankless and he steered me away, I tend to believe him.
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post #9 of 31
5/7/09 at 12:06am
In my experience they can make it a bitch to get the hot/ cold balance right, you end up going between a scalding shower or freezing your ass off. It might just have been jhanky set up though.
In theory and done right they make a lot of sense.
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post #10 of 31
5/7/09 at 12:56am
http://www.tanklesswaterheaterguide.com/ This website seems to have good info. Basically you calculate with their guide the flow rate that you need in your house based on your fixtures and then it helps you select which unit you would need to heat the water to a given point based on flow/minute. Then you can decide if the unit you need costs more than it would be worth.
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post #11 of 31
5/7/09 at 12:59am
I can't say anything about the tankless but conventional heaters cycle at different rates and this is just as if not more important than tank size.
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post #12 of 31
5/7/09 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by acidicboy View Post
something like this? i have panasonics in my house- they're eyesores indeed in the bathroom but they get the job done. one thing you need to make sure is there will be no chance of an electric shock when turning them on- i know it might sound stupid but there are reported deaths/injuries because of substandard or poorly installed heaters.
These are pretty much standard issue in Vietnam, and indeed I have two of them in my house now, and my last three houses have had these too. I actually kinda like it. It is plenty hot enough - I like hot showers and keep mine on setting 6 or 7 (max 10). My gf showers with it on 3-4. Yup - there have been reported deaths (a couple here a few years ago received some publicity) basically due to poorly installed machines. I did have smoke coming out of mine a few months ago, which was a little scary. Turned it off, got out, called the guy, replaced element, and it is all good again. The only issue I have had with it was when I installed a rain-shower head for it. Basically it cannot heat enough water fast enough to power the bigger shower head....I gave up on that idea and went back to the standard size.
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post #13 of 31
5/7/09 at 2:44am
They may be standard most everywhere except the U.S. I've lived in Chile, Argentina, and now Korea and they have been standard everywhere. The best has been in Korea, where hey also heat the water for the underfloor heating system. In South America I lived in older housing so there were some problems, but now I am extremely happy with what we have.
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post #14 of 31
5/8/09 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piobaire View Post
My builder is pushing these. He says we'll save money in the long run, and given the minerality of our local water, will have less problems, as you don't have to repeatedly heat the same water. He assures me we'll never notice the difference between that and a nice 50 gal traditional style. It'll be months before I pursue much more detail on that, but I'll post when I laern more.

I'd like to hear what he says. Also, have you discussed triple-paned windows with him?
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post #15 of 31
5/8/09 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by m@T View Post
These are pretty much standard issue in Vietnam, and indeed I have two of them in my house now, and my last three houses have had these too. I actually kinda like it. It is plenty hot enough - I like hot showers and keep mine on setting 6 or 7 (max 10). My gf showers with it on 3-4.

Yup - there have been reported deaths (a couple here a few years ago received some publicity) basically due to poorly installed machines. I did have smoke coming out of mine a few months ago, which was a little scary. Turned it off, got out, called the guy, replaced element, and it is all good again.

The only issue I have had with it was when I installed a rain-shower head for it. Basically it cannot heat enough water fast enough to power the bigger shower head....I gave up on that idea and went back to the standard size.

I get the feeling this is an Asian-only product, Mat.
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