[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by darstar

Everything I have heard about these tankless water heaters has been negative. They only work well when used at point of use , not whole house. The best system , is using your hot water boiler as a source , with a recovery system tank , and valving. Tank less water heaters are prone to run out of hot water quickly. There are also electric pumps that keep the hot water circulating , and under pressure , that work better and can only be used with a volume of ready hot water. The use of 3/4 inch piping , insulated through out the system , also helps. If you have a rain shower , it is a must. Volume is whats it is all about. I believe in the use of very large bladder pressure tanks also , but , then I have a well. I buy all my equipment on Ebay , taking advantage of deals available from different suppliers. It takes me a while to get all the stuff together , but , in the end , I will have a state of the art system , for half the cost. My rain shower head is 14 " in dia , Hansgrohe , the best available. Can't beat the German products when you can afford them.

You must have heard about tankless water heaters ten or more years ago. Now they are terrific. They are fast becoming the standard here (already are pretty standard in Europe).

We have a whole house tankless water heater, and we had one in our last house too. They are wonderful for large households. We have 7 people in our family and since we are often on the run during the day and evening, we tend to do dishes and laundry in the mornings as well as showers. We would probably need two 80 gallon hot water heaters to avoid running out of hot water. We have a large (12") sunflower shower head in ur bathroom (which is what I think you are referring to as rain shower- probably the same thing).

The tnakless waterheaters do not run out of hot water quickly. THey never run out of hot water. You can open every fixture on full hot and leave them all running all day and you will not run out of hot water. You will get some drop in volume when you use too many fixtures on hot at once. For us, at three major items (two shoers and the dishwaher for example) you notice some drop in volume, but not a problem. the forth fixture (another shower or clothes washer) makes a very noticable drop that will take away some of the pleasure of your shower, but not really a problem. At the fifth item being turned on, you pretty much want to give up on your shower.

At our old house we had a Takagi Mobuis tankless. We had fewer issues with volume with that heater. Now we have a Rennai. The drop is more noticable. We had planned to put in two tankless water heaters (one in the basement, one int he attic) but the plumber and contractor talked us out of it. I wish that they had not. We are ok with one tankless, but the added volume for the occaisions when we run four or five fixtures at once would be really nice.

Notably, we do nto see any significant impact from sinks being turned on. I think that a sink does not use enough hot water to make a difference.

OUr boiler has antifreeze mixed into the water so that we do not have any problems with any pipes that are in an outside wall, or if the boiler fails. (if the boiler fails, our water pipes will still freeze, but at least the heating pipes will not). So we could not use our boiler as a water heater. Besides we have a 220,000 BTU boiler and a 210,000 BTU (I think - maybe it is 180,000) tankless water heater. IF we were to use the boiler for both hot water and for heat, we would need something around 300,000 btu or more. That would have to be a commercial unit.
There are three big downsides. One is the cost. A tankless water heater costs between 1600 and 2400 plus installation. Rennai and Norritz only allow certified installers to put them in. Takagi allows anyone to instal them. The second problem is that you must have soft water. hard water will caused the water heater to become choked with scale very quickly. THat may require you to instal a water softener. THe third problem is that they need large sized gas lines and cannot be located very far away from the meter. They are more efficient than a tnk heater, but they use a whole lot of gas in short spurts.

With soft water, a tnakless supposedly lasts consdierbly longer than a tank water heater. We cannot comment on that since neither one of them is more than ten years old.

[darstar]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

You must have heard about tankless water heaters ten or more years ago. Now they are terrific. They are fast becoming the standard here (already are pretty standard in Europe).

We have a whole house tankless water heater, and we had one in our last house too. They are wonderful for large households. We have 7 people in our family and since we are often on the run during the day and evening, we tend to do dishes and laundry in the mornings as well as showers. We would probably need two 80 gallon hot water heaters to avoid running out of hot water. We have a large (12") sunflower shower head in ur bathroom (which is what I think you are referring to as rain shower- probably the same thing).

The tnakless waterheaters do not run out of hot water quickly. THey never run out of hot water. You can open every fixture on full hot and leave them all running all day and you will not run out of hot water. You will get some drop in volume when you use too many fixtures on hot at once. For us, at three major items (two shoers and the dishwaher for example) you notice some drop in volume, but not a problem. the forth fixture (another shower or clothes washer) makes a very noticable drop that will take away some of the pleasure of your shower, but not really a problem. At the fifth item being turned on, you pretty much want to give up on your shower.

At our old house we had a Takagi Mobuis tankless. We had fewer issues with volume with that heater. Now we have a Rennai. The drop is more noticable. We had planned to put in two tankless water heaters (one in the basement, one int he attic) but the plumber and contractor talked us out of it. I wish that they had not. We are ok with one tankless, but the added volume for the occaisions when we run four or five fixtures at once would be really nice.

Notably, we do nto see any significant impact from sinks being turned on. I think that a sink does not use enough hot water to make a difference.

OUr boiler has antifreeze mixed into the water so that we do not have any problems with any pipes that are in an outside wall, or if the boiler fails. (if the boiler fails, our water pipes will still freeze, but at least the heating pipes will not). So we could not use our boiler as a water heater. Besides we have a 220,000 BTU boiler and a 210,000 BTU (I think - maybe it is 180,000) tankless water heater. IF we were to use the boiler for both hot water and for heat, we would need something around 300,000 btu or more. That would have to be a commercial unit.
There are three big downsides. One is the cost. A tankless water heater costs between 1600 and 2400 plus installation. Rennai and Norritz only allow certified installers to put them in. Takagi allows anyone to instal them. The second problem is that you must have soft water. hard water will caused the water heater to become choked with scale very quickly. THat may require you to instal a water softener. THe third problem is that they need large sized gas lines and cannot be located very far away from the meter. They are more efficient than a tnk heater, but they use a whole lot of gas in short spurts.

With soft water, a tnakless supposedly lasts consdierbly longer than a tank water heater. We cannot comment on that since neither one of them is more than ten years old.

Thanks for the info. Quite different than what I have been hearing. Won't work for me anyway , as I only have electric available. No gas , as on my mountain top gas would be a real problem.
From what I hear , Boilers can supply hot water , But requires a tank in conjunction with the boiler. I have forgotten some of what I reached last summer. Time to think about it again. I wanted to go ground source therm. but requires 5 holes thru rock at 150 foot each. Kinda expensive...

[BrendaRogers]

I live in Lake Tahoe at 7500 feet and its COLD, by bill is about $150 a month BUT my husband cuts wood and we use our fireplace/stove for heat and it saves alot.

[dimpelss]

Everything has gone up here except the wages including food, just from last year my gas and light bill has rose about $130 together and it is a shame. These charges for recovery and supply and demand is outrageous yet I have manage to burn the same amount of gas for years using just my stove 9(sometimes my furnace, oh and my house is well insulated) because it heats up quicker when it's extremely cold. Then they will put on your bill an estimate sometimes so look out for that and my meter is not even locked, it's on the side of my house and my dogs are nowhere near lol I just don't get it.