Tankless water heaters

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Basketcase

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There was a thread on here a couple of years ago and I guess it got erased with the crash or rebuild of the site so...

Does anyone know anything about these, how well do they work? Had a guy in today from Ontario Consumers .... and he said it was about $42 a month plus tax or $3300 to buy outright. Is this a scam or reasonable. The last time I called Direct Energy they were just getting into them and didn't have much info.
 
Seeing the units cost about $1000 from Home Depot, I don't see how the install could cost $2300.
I also plan to upgrade from my old tank soon.
Shop around.
 
You need to specify the size of the house or the rated output of the heater.

IIRC, paid about $1000 installed for a natural gas tankless for a 1800 sq ft home three years ago.
 
Got mine in March this year... so far can't say a bad word about it :)
Got it as a part of the furnace, AC, tankless change in my house.
Since I was already renting the water heater from Reliance I got the whole package form them with way better price then couple of other companies that I asked for a quote.
I'm too lazy to go and check the bill right now but it comes to about $30/month.
Also I was just at Home Depot today I saw a tankless unit for $1000.

Hope this helps.
 
If you need a lot of hot water in a short time, a properly sized heater could be more efficient than the equivalent large tank.

If you use hot water infrequently and so the tank has to cycle on and off to heat water that cools because it just sits, that heater could be a better alternative but you could also insulate the tank with a tank blanket.

It pays to shop around. If you do get one, it makes good sense to install it close to the appliances that use the hot water or the bathroom.

I am not convinced they are such a good idea. I would definitely look at the cost savings over what you have now and then consider how many years it would take to pay back the added cost in savings. And don't forget to consider how long the heater will last. If a heater only lasts five years but it would take ten years to recover the costs, then the tankless heater makes no sense at all (or cents if you will allow me a simple pun).



Basketcase said:
There was a thread on here a couple of years ago and I guess it got erased with the crash or rebuild of the site so...

Does anyone know anything about these, how well do they work? Had a guy in today from Ontario Consumers .... and he said it was about $42 a month plus tax or $3300 to buy outright. Is this a scam or reasonable. The last time I called Direct Energy they were just getting into them and didn't have much info.
Click to expand...
 
Basketcase said:
There was a thread on here a couple of years ago and I guess it got erased with the crash or rebuild of the site so...

Does anyone know anything about these, how well do they work? Had a guy in today from Ontario Consumers .... and he said it was about $42 a month plus tax or $3300 to buy outright. Is this a scam or reasonable. The last time I called Direct Energy they were just getting into them and didn't have much info.
Click to expand...

natural gas is cheap and plentiful right now.

Your best value is a high efficiency water tank for the moment. You can always swap out to a tankless later.

$3300 is a lot of coin to pay out, and it will take years to recoup.


Also, do your research on brand names for tankless. A lot of them have a lot of problems. Pick a reliable brand.
 
All tankless heaters are not equal. Home depot may be selling a low end unit for a 1000, but unless you're a large volume user, you won't save anything. Check you gas bill from the summer months, see how much of it is for actual gas use, you will be surprised how low that will be.

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2
 
Big thread on this on RFD forums in home and garden section. I'm planning to upgrade eventually, but my water heater is gas, so it will take a good coin to install a new one, compared to the electric one :(
 
ViperZ said:
Big thread on this on RFD forums in home and garden section. I'm planning to upgrade eventually, but my water heater is gas, so it will take a good coin to install a new one, compared to the electric one :(
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Why on earth would you want an electric one if you have gas available?

Electricity is very inefficient and expensive by comparison.
 
Installed one in my last house. I called it the "thankless" water heater, and it was a high end unit at the time. I was doing my furnace and AC and thought it would be a good idea. The issues I found were that you had to flush all the water out of the pipe each time in order to get hot water to the tap. So basically there is no hot on demand. Obviously that's one of the savings in that you don't have warm / hot water cycling through the house, but you end up waiting at the tap (depending on how far your tap is from the tankless - think 2 story and tankless in the basement). Second issue was that it lowers your water pressure as it has to slow the inlet flow down enough to heat it. colder the weather the lower the flow.
I'd go with a good well insulated tank, maybe even wrap the hot water pipes as far along as possible and call it a day.
 
I had to replace my 60gal gas tank unit last year. I priced tankless and it was about 1800 for a Rinnia (sp?) which was considered the best option. I dropped to a 50 gal gas as we calculated it would do the best job for the money. The tankless was just not worthwhile at the time.
The reason the install fee can be so high is they need a different vent than your old gas heater may have used and need to be located where a powered vent wont be near a window or door.
They have come down in price, I will look more closely in 10 yrs when this heater craps out.
 
If you are looking in to getting a tankless i would go either with Noritz or Rinnai. This two are pretty much one of the best and most reliable units up there. I put in quite a few and so far this two and takagi are my favorite. Bosch would be another unit that is quite good but i've seen few with problems most of the time do to the bad install. Hope deopot sells rheem form what i recall and i would stay as far as you can from these, they are pretty much same quality as Navien which sears and direct energy sells and they have a bunch of recalls and problems. You don't size the unit by the size of the house but by the number of people in the house , taking in to consideration number of tubs, showers, fixtures and appliances that require hot water. You can go from 7.5 gallon per min up to 12 with units form rinnai or nortiz for residential applications. One thing you have also take in to consideration is that you require to service the units by flushing them with special solution every 2 years or so and that will cost you about $250 or so. i've seen rinnai units used for 6 years with no service to them and they are perfectly fine so it all depends on the type of the water you have( hard/soft and so on). Now as far as the price $3300 is on the high side for a top of the line unit. Its not only unit you need for a good install but also isolation valves, approved venting, right size water lines and gas lines as well as power hook up. You can get them cheaper from local contractors and not the big companies like direct energy. Stay away from too good to be true deals, a lot of guys put these heaters in but when it comes to service or support after they just vanish and even thou you have a warranty on the unit they might not be able to fix it as it takes special training and know-how to service them. You also have two choices in tankless. You can get a condensing unit which will be super efficient at 96+% or non-condesing unit which will be at 84%+ efficient. So there is a lot to a tankless and if you need more info do a research online or msg me and ill be more than happy to give you more info.
 
SunnY S said:
Why on earth would you want an electric one if you have gas available?

Electricity is very inefficient and expensive by comparison.
Click to expand...

What I said was that it is more expensive to upgrade a gas water than electric water heater.
 
I'd stay away from Reliance, Direct Energy and such.. They tend to recruit their techs based on their sales skills as opposed to their technical expertise and yet still charge a premium for their service - typically a lot more than what a shop hiring competent techs will charge. Go with an independent guy for sure. I'll repeat the "beware the too good to be true deals". Those are usually done by fly-by night operators who just close shop and reopen under a different name. In many cases, the equipment "fell off the back of the truck" and you can count on a poor, unsafe install, that will at least degrade your equipment reliability and possibly cause property damage and/or safety issues.
 
I negotiated for the one in my folks house ... the unit itself was about 2k or 2.2k if i remember right ... the install was about another grand... but this is for a 5000 sq ft 6 bath home...

it really depends on the unit you get since there was ones in the 1000 range. this is fine if you are going to run 1 bath at a time ... the unit that was spec'ed for us would allow us to run the washer, the dishwasher and 2 showers at full power at the same time. my parents had a rented 60 gallon water tank before and comparing the bills from yr to yr, the heating bill went down about 20%.
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