Tankless h20 heaters, solar panels, and hail (Dallas: appliances, new house)

[tombraider]

Who knows about tankless water heaters? I saw someone one here said having one on the second floor made them nervous. I don't know anything about them. Are they risky?

Are there a lot of solar panels in the Dallas area? I hear you guys get bad hail storms that damages the roofing also??

And I noticed a lot of privacy fences and different roof types. Does the wind damage these fences a lot?

[ChristieP]

We have a tankless water heater, and no, there's nothing to be "nervous" about it being on the second floor. There is almost zero risk of leakage from it, unlike the traditional tank kind. I would never want a traditional water heater, or a washer, on a second floor.

We do occasionally get hail storms here that damage composite roofs, and they would also trash solar panels, too. No, the panels are not common at all, and most HOAs forbid them for appearance reasons.

No, we do not usually get enough straight line winds to damage fences.

Metal and tile roofs are not usually damaged by hail.

[mSooner]

Yes, it is the normal water heaters that tend to be in attics here and cause issues when they break. Happened to my parents this past week...they don't know if there is a lot of water damage yet.

[JTC Mom]

Tankless heaters are great. Be sure to get a gas heater with at least 175k BTU if you want to heat water for multiple baths and appliances. Also be sure to get a recirculating feature or a small conventional tank to be able to have hot water instantly. Without one of these features you mayhave to wait a couple of minutes after you turn it on before you get hot water. Finally, I would add that I have never saved money from using a tankless heater. You could, in theory, if you use the same amount of hot water. In practice, however, we are all enticed to take longer showers by the endless supply of hot water.

[ChristieP]

Our gas bill has gone down by 1/3 since we switched to the tankless. Since we are now only using hot water 3x a day, and still taking normal length showers, its made a big difference!

[Eric S]

We had a Takagi tankless noncondensing natural gas water heater in our upstairs area and it did leak on us...BIG TIME. WE caught it as it started as a small leak that put out the flame on the unit, leading to no hot water, of course. It eventually become a moderate leak that caused us to empty a 5 gal bucket twice a day... even with the water walve leading into it turned off. We had it replaced with a Rheem model WITH a catch basin installed around it and an electronic leak detection system that positively shuts off the water going into it. This new Rheem unit is a condensing tankless which buys us some efficiency, but needed for us to install a small water pump to pump the condensate up into the attic where our HVAC units are to share their drain into the sewer line. The builder of our home really messed up in two ways: First they installed a big recirculation loop in our home (two story and about 3800 sq ft) that allowed for us to have instant hot water with no lag. Well that voided the warranty on the Takagi... and they would not install the new Rheem unit with the recirculation lines and pump in place. So we ended up with a huge run of dead pipe that was capped off. Second, they didn't install any kind of system to catch a leak if it were to happen. What a mess. To make matters worse, we now - with the new unit and no recirc loop - have to wait about 3+ minutes for hot water to "come down" to the master bathroom with the shower on full blast hot.

Live and learn. Tankless heaters are not always perfect or even nearly perfect or even better in my opinion... just different.

YMMV

-Old Man Simpson

[sossie]

We have two and they are located in our garage=plenty of hot water -very minimal gas bills and we use alot of hot water-3 teenagers haven't yet learned about the 5 minute shower rule...takes about a minute for the hot water to kick in once all the standing cold water in the pipes flushes through...

[biscuitmom]

Originally Posted by tombraider

Who knows about tankless water heaters?

I lusted for one for some time but after watching friends and neighbors intstall them and listening to their stories, I changed my mind. Way too many problems.

[DaveG99]

my new house has a tankless water heater and I wont ever go back to a hot water tank system again. Endless hotwater is fantastic. And my gas bill is like $15.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

I had an energy audit by my cop-op. The guy said it didn't make sense for a conversion but was OK in new builds. He mentioned the lag time to get the water hot, no different than my "regular" heater. I have a 50 gal tank so it's effectively endless to me. I might feel differently if I had a big family.