Tank-less Water heater Vs. Traditional Water Heater

83oldyoda4x4 said:
Soo how shitty does your water pressure have to be for this to occur?
I have seen it in the movies but never had it happen in person.
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I grew up in a house that was built in 1859 and indoor plumbing was added in the 19 teens. It happened there, nowhere else I've stayed.

We have a tankless and the only complaint I have is the wait for hot water, but thats mainly the plumbers fault. It's mounted on the outside wall of the house in the middle, but both bathrooms are on one end. It should have been placed near the bathrooms and just had a small electric tank heater at the kitchen sink on the other end.
 
drkelly said:
We have a Rinnai tankless water heater. We have been in our house 8.5 years. I didn't know that the unit has to be cleaned/flushed every year. Ours took a shit at year 7. Had a new one installed last year. We like it because you never don't have hot water, and my wife can fill up her HUGE bathtub. I don't find the delay in hot water to be a problem.

I've also never experienced the movie toilet flush water problem. We are on a well too.
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My first cleaning was probably around 7-8 years. Getting close to that again...
 
I watch Ask This Old House often and Richard the HVAC and Plumbing contractor says that if folks would replace the anode every few years in tank type WHs then they'd last 30+ years.

The one in our old house was a Whirlpool lifetime warranty smart tank type. The “brain” stopped working once and they sent one right out but other than that, never a problem in the 15 or so years we had it and it’s still in use by the new owner.

The one in this tin can is original 1991, but the place was never a full time residence until this past year. We’re replacing it this spring. Not sure what the tier one tank type is now, the Whirlpool water heater line was bought by AO Smith I understand.
 
We are really considering the switch. Have a 40 gallon tanked heater, but endless hot water would be nice. only one bathroom. Thats almost always the limiting factor on our shower, is we run out of hot water.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
How much is a normal tank replacement cost? around 1k?
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Pretty much everyone around here is charging 1k LABOR for a gas hw heater changout. Had a friend get multiple quotes and they were all the same.

We have a 40 gallon electric hot water heater at the house and struggle with hot water usage. We only get about 2 showers back to back before they start to get cool - we are a family of 5. I have often thought about installing a propane tankless hot water heater inline with the electric and hooking a 100lb tank to it. It would only get used when the electric hw heater couldn't keep up.
 
JSJJ388 said:
We are really considering the switch. Have a 40 gallon tanked heater, but endless hot water would be nice. only one bathroom. Thats almost always the limiting factor on our shower, is we run out of hot water.
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NCJeeplover said:
We have a 40 gallon electric hot water heater at the house and struggle with hot water usage. We only get about 2 showers back to back before they start to get cool - we are a family of 5. I have often thought about installing a propane tankless hot water heater inline with the electric and hooking a 100lb tank to it. It would only get used when the electric hw heater couldn't keep up.
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Turn up the thermostat on the water heater.
 
One huge advantage of the tankless was when our kids were younger, we would turn the panel down to 110 or 115 when they were getting a bath and just turn the faucet on full hot. No guessing or chance of them messing with the temp and scalding themselves.
 
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You can add a mixing valve on the tank water heater, too.
 
JSJJ388 said:
We are really considering the switch. Have a 40 gallon tanked heater, but endless hot water would be nice. only one bathroom. Thats almost always the limiting factor on our shower, is we run out of hot water.
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An alternative approach is to turn up the temp on the WH so the standing water is hotter, and when you shower turn the valve more to the right so that the head temp is the same. This will draw down the WH slower.
Downside is of course its more energy from keeping it hotter, but if you wrap it in insulation you may not notice much difference in cost.

We do this, have a 40gal gas WH and the only time we run low is 3 immediately consecutive showers.
 
shawn said:
Turn up the thermostat on the water heater.
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When we first bought the house you couldn't get through 2 showers without freezing. I checked the temp and it was 107. I bumped it up as high as I was comfortable which was 140. Now you can get through 2 showers easily but the third starts to notice the difference and the 4th and 5th are getting frigid. We usually get around this by planning showers out, but sometimes that doesn't happen.
 
Looks like a tankless wouldn't really be worth it to us. Wife and I can both take our showers back to back and still have hot water. Our water heater is dated 1997, so I don't know.... don't want to speak anything into existence. But just trying to gain some knowledge on the subject for when that time comes.
 
83oldyoda4x4 said:
Was just about to post this. You can add a anti-scald valve? i think thats what you call it.

We had to add one when would would run our water stove in the winter.
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Yeah, the mixing valve goes on the output side of the water heater and mixes the outgoing hot water with cold water. You can set the water heater to maintain a high temperature, but the mixing valve makes sure that the water going down the pipe is only 110F or 120F or whatever you want. The water in the tank is hotter, so you use less of it.

You can also replace the shower heads to use less water. We have 2.5gpm Delta raincan style heads that are great.
 
For those thinking of going tankless what has your maintenance schedule been for your conventional WH? Have you drained and changed out the diode or the heating elements? Just wondering. I drained and changed mine and it was like a brand new WH with no complaints on water heat or length of volume available. Mine is set to 125*. Just curious.
 
skyhighZJ said:
For those thinking of going tankless what has your maintenance schedule been for your conventional WH? Have you drained and changed out the diode or the heating elements? Just wondering. I drained and changed mine and it was like a brand new WH with no complaints on water heat or length of volume available. Mine is set to 125*. Just curious.
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At the old house, I drained it yearly. It was in the garage and it was an easy process. Stuff like course sand would come out of the hose.

Once I replace the one here, I’ll start the same regimen.
 
We went from a 35 year old electric tank one to a gas tankless exterior mounted. It was a lot more but no regrets at all from us. The kid can burn themselves in the shower and then I can still take a hot shower right after them. No change in water temp the entire time.
 
shawn said:
You can add a mixing valve on the tank water heater, too.
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I did just this back in early 2019, cranked the temperature up on the electric tank heater and installed an Apollo TankMax. Prior to that if my wife and I took back to back showers or someone was running the wash and needed to shower then the water temperature would drop noticeably before finishing the shower. After the install that problem went away; it's not "endless" hot water but for $65 from Home Depot it was very effective. I keep pretty close tabs on the electricity usage in the house and can say that nothing really changed. Apollo Tank Max Hot Water Extender System 69TANKMAX

I read more than once that switching from a gas tank heater to tankless electric is about the only switch that makes sense economically. The issue with "taking to long to get hot water" is a function of the plumbing arrangement in the house and has nothing to do with the tankless heater itself. When I built the master bath addition on our house I put a 20 gallon electric tank heater directly above the bathroom in the attic space and double-wrapped it in a blanket and fed it with the hot water line from the 40 gallon at the other end of the house. The shower takes exactly eight seconds to get to full temperature, the sinks about ten seconds because the pipe run is slightly longer.
 
OnlyOneDR said:
I read more than once that switching from a gas tank heater to tankless electric is about the only switch that makes sense economically
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Switching from electric to gas saves money. Tank or tankless doesn't matter as much, but the first hour rating (total gallons before it gets cold) will also be higher on a gas tank as compared with an electric of the same size. As a random point of reference, I went to Lowes and picked out an electric and gas WH, both 50 gallon tank models. First hour rating on the electric is 62 gallons, gas is 81.
 
yeah I know here the price once you convert to cost per therm is a lot lower for gas than electric. It may matter that our gas supplier is deregulated so you can get i cheaper from "not-BGE"
 
shawn said:
Switching from electric to gas saves money. Tank or tankless doesn't matter, but the first hour rating (total gallons before it gets cold) will also be higher on a gas tank as compared with an electric of the same size. As a random point of reference, I went to Lowes and picked out an electric and gas WH, both 50 gallon tank models. First hour rating on the electric is 62 gallons, gas is 81.
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That is not a universal statement. Electric water heaters are more efficient at converting energy to heat than gas water heaters. It really depends on the fuel source. Natural Gas is cheap as compared to Propane so it really depends on which "gas" you are on and what the local billing rate for electricity is. First hour rating only means that the energy source can dump more energy into the water faster, it does not necessarily translate into savings.
 
OnlyOneDR said:
Natural Gas is cheap as compared to Propane so it really depends on which "gas" you are on and what the local billing rate for electricity is.
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Yes, let me qualify that:

If you're considering propane, don't.

As for the others, yes... it may not be a universal statement, but it is certainly true in this part of the country that gas will cost you less per year than electric (roughly 1/3 less), regardless of whether you're using a tank or tankless.
 
Thought I’d update with current price to replace a standard water heater yourself

Heater - 550ish for a 40 gallon
Misc. pex fittings and pipe - 60ish (would have been less but ended up replacing a few other fittings that needed replaced anyway)

2 trips to lowes

Total time 2.5 hours
Time actually changing the tank out about 30 minutes start to finish
 
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