Do you have a tankless hot water heater? Do you like it? Why or why not?
Have you considered getting a tankless hot water heater and decided against it?
We are considering getting one. I am actually familiar with tankless hot water heaters from my time living in Ireland. In Ireland, there were two standard ways to have a hot shower. Option 1, typically in older or lower income homes, was an “immersion.” If you wanted to take a hot shower, you turn on the immersion, which heats the water, and an hour later you probably have enough hot water for a shower. One house I lived in had a timer so you could pre-heat the hot water for your morning shower. Most places didn’t which practically speaking meant I showered a lot less.
Many newer houses or those belonging to higher income people had tankless hot water heaters. Basically, the water gets instantaneously heated. I did not like these systems. The issues I personally experienced were:
- Water could be cold or hot but not in between. You were either scalded or frozen. If you were getting scalded, you’d try to turn down the water a touch and the water would go from too hot to too cold, usually very cold.
- Low water pressure. In Ireland, these were usually individual shower units and one big system of water heating and dispensing. For whatever reason, the water pressure was always paltry.
I also remember my parents had tankless water heating in France and my mom would talk about how she or Dad would be in the shower and somebody else in the house would turn on the hot water elsewhere, and the person in the shower would be doused with icy water and you’d hear a blood-curdling scream. They used to joke about this. Of course, this was in the 70s.
One hopes technology has improved in the last few decades, but googling it, it’s a little unclear. A lot of the same old problems still seem to exist. What’s your experience?
We installed a tankless (gas) when we did our renovation. Because we replaced most of our plumbing and because our MB is farthest from the water heater of any bathroom, we also did a recirculation system (which is great). We have a Navien. We sized it for I think like 10 gpm (I don’t remember) but it was something like I sized it for a shower, DW, Washing machine or 2 showers all at once.
Its been really great – particularly when we have guests. Because we don’t have to stage showers or worry that we cannot support 4 showers in an hour period.
Around here, you do need to have them flushed once a year or every two years to keep scale from building up.
So if you have access to natural gas, I’d go for it. If you are all electric, I’m not sure.
Hi Karen,
That is awesome to hear. So you haven’t had any problems with getting blasted with cold water? Or achieving warm temperatures?
We do have access to gas.
We did have one issue due to a faulty diverted valve in our recirculation system. Once replaced it was all better. Symptom was warm water would run out slowly around 5 minutes in.
My feeling on reading lots of reviews is that about 5% are lemons. Or were 5 years ago. Best to go with a company and plumber who will warrant them for 2 years. You’ll know by then if yours is a dud.
Do you know the part # of the system you bought? No worries if it’s too much trouble to check.
We were quoted a Rinnai RU199IN at $6205. You can buy the parts at Home Depot, including termination kit, for $2400. Our quote also includes $2400 for electric and gas routing, for a total of $8550 installed, which seems like a lot to me.
The reason we’re considering this is because we’re trying to install A/C but our hot water tank is blocking the path to an upstairs return.
I’ll look, but ours was 2500 installed. But it was part of a renovation so pipes were also very close by.
Thanks Karen. What a difference in cost! We were considering the water heater in order to facilitate some ducting changes to improve HVAC performance. However, I think we’ll hold off and just install the A/C without the ducting improvements until I have time to shop around for prices. Having researched this a bit, I’m fairly enthused about replacing the tank water heater with a tankless.