Does my title bother you? It should
i was asking for opinions on replacing my old water heater, or going with a tankless on demand system? Two of live here, but we tank longer than we should showers. Any experience with savings or not?
thanks!
Does my title bother you? It should
i was asking for opinions on replacing my old water heater, or going with a tankless on demand system? Two of live here, but we tank longer than we should showers. Any experience with savings or not?
thanks!
Go get a new one at Lowe's. Put it in. Save half of a challenge car over hiring it out.
Gas? Electric? Tankless? A 55 gallon drum with a roaring fire in the back yard?
In reply to Dr. Hess (Forum Supporter) :
Currently operating cost of gas makes them a better deal than electric. The exception is when natural gas isn't available.
The most efficient is a tankless water heater but it's slightly more complex to install.
It's not just brands but models. That is a really loaded question because not all models are available everyplace.
Finally I'll assume you intend to buy it and install it yourself. If you feel challenged by that and plan on having it installed, that's not how it works.
The plumber has a relationship with a distributor and that's what you will get.
Either this is a test to see if anyone catches that "hot" is redundant, or you need to provide a lot more information before anyone can provide advice.
Ha ha ha!!! Somehow my entire post except rhe joke part disappeared!
i was asking for opinions on replacing my old water heater, or going with a tankless on demand system? Two of live here, but we tank longer than we should showers. Any experience with savings or not?
thanks!
Edit: just saw your update, guess my tips are super relevant. Maybe they'll help on the general tip side, haha!!
Just replaced one at my sister-in-law's house a few weekends ago, so I'll give you my take for what it's worth.
I have an all electric tank-less, the 27Kw version. I love it, but there are drawbacks. I'll keep it simple.
Pros:
1. Never run out (biggest Pro, most obvious). Wifey can take a 2 hour shower, Kids can fill a 60 gallon tub, and 30 seconds later I can have the same shower I always take and its piping hot.
2. Space. Mine is the size of a 90's PC tower. It's stuck on the wall behind the clothes dryer and unless I'm changing the inlet filter, I forget its there. The old 80GAL tank I had took up what felt like 20sq ft of space...
3. Easy to install. I'm no genius, but I bought the breakers, ran the wire, and piped it up in a day. The most effort was removing the old one, as it weighed 200lbs.
4. Ease of replacement. If it dies, I can change it out in under an hour with pliers and a screwdriver.
5. Cost. You only pay for the water you use. So if you travel a lot, or often shower elsewhere (I used to shower at work frequently, for example), you can save real money as you only heat what you dispense.
Cons:
1. Flow. With these units, especially the electric ones, you have a maximum GPM at any given temperature delta it can handle. So you have to be careful. Yes, you can get as much hot water as you want, but only so much per minute. This means not starting the dishwasher and clothes washer *while* wifey takes her 2 hour shower... basically, for the one we have, as long as no one is washing their body, anything goes. During shower/bath time, you have to be mindful. I have heard the gas ones have more BTU/higher delta, which makes sense, but I don't have any experience with those.
2. Initial cost. Mine was $400, plus about $400 in parts. I needed (4) 30A breakers, 100ft of 12/3 with ground, 3 sticks of PVC, a new particulate filter, etc. Gas ones are more costly in every way unless your a tradesman who can make deals and do the gas/exhaust work.
3. Delay. With tanks, you get water in however long it takes for it to flow from the tank to your dispense. Tankless have to warm up, and It's quick, but not 'now' quick. Electric is faster, as soon as the flow trigger is set, the 3 zones kick on and heat the micro-coils and I can feel the pipe on the outlet getting hot in 3-4 seconds. The gas ones are a bit slower, I'm told. This delay equals a touch of water waste, if that bothers you, and a touch of irritation if your wanting to wash up in hot water at the furthest sink from the heater. It takes time.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
-J0N
In reply to carczar_84 :
I've never needed an expansion/surge tank before, but it seems like I might need one at the new house.
Can I get a $2 summary of what to look for/where it goes?
In reply to jmthunderbirdturbo :
Wow!!! Great info! When you switched to the tankless, I assume it was from a gas water heater? Did you notice a total difference in monthly energy cost? Less gas but more electricity?
thanks!
In reply to RevRico :
A tank on the supply line, usually close to the heater.
In reply to RevRico :
Grizz covered the basics. With the water meter in place, as the water heats and expands it has nowhere to go now that it can't "push" back to the supply side. We just installed a tee off the cold supply side of tank, a section of pipe and an elbow to the expansion tank. You'll also need to set the expansion tank air bladder pressure to match your typical water pressure at your house. You can get a pressure gauge for a few bucks at the box store and the tank is pressurized with a standard schrader valve.
In reply to joey48442 :
No, I have no gas at my place, just power. We are out in farmlandvilleplace Ohio, so we're on well and maintain our own Aeration system for septic. Old unit was a GE 80Gal, *3 element* behemoth, that was not leaking, but so full of scale we couldn't empty it (at least 20%).
We did notice a drop in power consumption, but we also did a lot of other mitigating around then, too. LED bulbs, replacement windows, new multi-speed furnace blower, etc. I would do the swap again, no question.
-J0N
In reply to carczar_84 : thanks! Makes sense I think I'll be doing some measuring before I go to the store!
Electrical capacity is probably the biggest issue - as mentioned above, four 30 amp breakers (for a total of 120 amps) is often required, so you have to make sure your electrical service and your breaker panel can handle it. Also, depending on the hardness of your water, tankless heaters can be more susceptible to getting clogged up with lime so you may need to do regular maintenance to keep that from happening.
joey48442 said:Does my title bother you? It should
i was asking for opinions on replacing my old water heater, or going with a tankless on demand system? Two of live here, but we tank longer than we should showers. Any experience with savings or not?
thanks!
Make sure your gas line is up to the flow demands. A tank heater might use 30-40k btus because it has the luxury of slowly heating and maintaining temperatures. A tankless might use 150-200k btus.
I also have read that there is a time factor involved. Once you turn on the hot water flow, THEN the heater kicks on and starts heating. It may take a longer time to get hot water at the faucet than with a tank.
and YES. The title bothers me 
If you're electric, hybrid heat pump water heaters may be worth a look as well. It is my understanding that they're actually more efficient than electric tankless. Which is also the reason there were multiple (government and utility co) energy rebates/incentives that brought the hybrid heat pump price down to almost the same as a conventional water heater, but none to help offset the additional cost of tankless. Add to that we would have also needed to spend even more to expand our panel capacity to handle the extra breakers for a tankless, and it was an easy choice for us.
Can't get conventional water heaters any bigger than 50-55 gallons now because of new minimum efficiency laws. You could do an 80 gal hybrid. Unit costs around $2K and comes with 10-12 year warranty on tank, but only 5 of compressor/heat pump stuff. Will save you money over conventional electric and is on par for operating costs with a conventional gas water heater. The farther south and the warmer the climate, the more you save. If you were talking about gas, I would do everything I could to talk you out of it. The savings vs repair cost, install cost, etc just don't justify a retro install. Maybe makes sense on a brand new structure or a place where they use a ton of hot water. A place like a health club where somebody is always in the shower makes sense, but not in a home with two people.
Have tankless water heater on 2 properties, love it.
CONTRACTOR 1:
However, this morning, one rental property (house built 2001, water heater is gas and 12 years old, died). Called home warranty company. Quote is $1975 to replace.
He says home warranty will pay $1500, and I have to pay $497.
Been on hold with warranty company for 2 hours. Figuring out,
1) why I have to pay?
2) If they will cut me check and I can have another cheaper contractor do it?
_____________________________________________________________
Just talked to warranty company. They say I have a ULINE 50 gallon. Their replacement is an American pro 50 Gallon. Nothing fancy. $1495 for water heater installed - they will cover.
They are saying, I need the following done:
Expansion tank $395
Sediment Trap $125
Extend Pan Drain $35
T&P Drain $115
Cold Supply $75
Vent Short $65
Total: $810 addtional to water heater MINUS $250 code coverage = My out of pocket $560
----------------------------
CONTRACTOR 2 - $1150 FOR THE WHOLE JOB
Canoe zombie thread
ddavidv said:Canoe zombie thread
Which is too bad since this is relevant to my interests.
This past weekend I installed a Rheem 60 gallon hybrid electric heat pump water heater. Install went well enough, as usual hauling the old beasty out of the basement was the hardest part. 12 pack of Pacifico to the neighbor and we had it up the stairs in 2 minutes.
Only other gotcha was the the challenge of the piping, the old hot water heater had the pipes to the top of the unit, this one had the pipes on the side plus a condensate line needed to drain off the condenser. Also I did not have an expansion tank so I plumbed one of those in as well.
So far so good, I unplugged my dehumidifer since this lives in the same room and apparently does the same job. I am going to monitor basement humidity and see if I need to run my dehumidifier. Its winter here in Wisconsin so not too humid anyway but we have a finished basement and like to keep it nice and dry. Since the dehumidifier is bought and paid for I am going to set it above the maintenance humidity so it will only run if/when needed.
Already seeing a significant decrease in electrical consumption just in the past day, looking forward to seeing how it hits my bill. Napkin math says it should pay for itself in 2 years or so, maybe better considering I needed a new heater anyway and there is a tax credit on it.
Hyper relevant to me as well.
Currently on a 15 year old (!) gas tank. Flows well and heats fine but I'm certain it's full of scale.
We're in the South, it's warm 9 months of the year, only 2 folks in the household and gas is uber expensive. I think a hybrid system is the droid I'm looking for but I know zero about electricity and I'd be nervous to mess with add breakers, etc. Any advice?
In reply to calteg :
Our electric utility offered a pretty fair rebate/subsidy on installation of the air source heat pump water heater-- definitely check to see if that's the case or not.
The unit I installed is a Rheem Performance Platinum ProTerra. 59 gallon, so 60 gallon class.
Heat pump hot water heaters require 30A of 240V for the resistive coils to run as a backup/supplement to the heat pump. So you will need to run wiring.
In theory you could run them "heat pump only" with a lot less 240 (basically a dehumidifier at that point) but it would not be to code. But it would run.
It comes with a reasonably nice scheduling app, can be monitored remotely.
You can not install them in a tiny enclosed space like a closet without adding ducting since they draw heat out of the ambient air. I think they recommend a minimum of 100 SqFt. Mine is in about 400 sqft below grade.
They do work more efficiently if you can put them in a hotter environment like a garage or utility annex.
The connections are many and not in the standard place so plan on a bit more fiddle diddling to get installed.
It is a bit frustrating, this unit was not really designed for retrofit. It would have been much preferrible to have the hot and cold water connections and condensate drain either pass through the heat pump on top of the unit (although leaks would be bad) or at least be on the back of the unit closer to the wall. Not a huge issue but an annoyance and I ended up with longer and more complicated piping runs.
They also make a bit of noise, about what the volume is of a refigerator running. Definitely not silent like my old unit was. Do not believe the 49db claims by Rheem, its louder than that. Not a huge issue if it is in a garage or basement, could be an issue depending on where you locate your water heater.
There are two sort of unsung benefits to heat pump water heaters: First, they are a dehumidifer. So if you ran a dehumidifer in your utility room, now you won't need to run it as often or maybe at all. Second, they make cool air. While they will not cool your house like an A/C would, I have seen guys duct in outside air or air from a different room and then duct from the heat pump discharge into an insulated closet and make a root cellar/wine fridge, etc which would run for essentially "free" since its a byproduct of water heater operation.
Lastly, there are some decent tax credits, 30% of purchase and install up to $2000 from Uncle Sam, maybe a bit from your local utilities as well. You can also go down the rabbit hole of peak and off-peak energy charging and set it up to run more during off-peak and then coast during on-peak, IE run it up to 140 during off-peak and then coast down to 120 during peak.
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