Tankless hot water heaters?

[RA40]

Someone else is installing it hence the wallet biting price. Our plumber friend is retired and with past injuries, he's not going to be able to heft the tank onto the pedestal. I'm in a similar position, so I'm unable to get it there also. The neighborhood is filled with retirees and the physical stuff is tough to come by. Risking injury vs. ~$300, I'll pay it.

Plumbing is my absolute worst DIY task.

 

[Sgt. LED]

Man if lived anywhere remotely closer I'd just come over and do it for you. I've put several tanks in. Everyone seems to call me, especially family!

We should all live within an hour of each other!

 

[RA40]

Thanks Sgt. That's a really nice offer...it would be nice as we'd be able to have flashaholic meets too. :thumbsup:

 

[matrixshaman]

This really is a fairly easy swap out. Maybe try finding some manual labor for getting it on the pedestal - not sure but I put my 40 gallon tank on the pedestal myself a few months ago and I'm over 60 y.o. They really aren't that heavy but mostly awkward. Should be easy for 2 or 3 people even if you are not in good shape but do be careful if you try it. A couple wrenches and a few connections - just not that difficult but any questions just ask here or PM me. I'm not a plumber but I'm almost done building my second home (first one was in California where codes are very strict) and have done all my plumbing as well as nearly everything else myself.

 

[TedTheLed]

when considering the gpm output of a heater, remember that's just the HOT water -- you'll be mixing that with some cold water too, so that will stretch your hot gpm's number a bit...

also, on some, like the Tagaki (have one, like it alot) you can set the temperature to a very high degree, mine was blowing steam out the faucet till I turned the temp. down..ther is a remote temp. adjust available, so you can set it while you're in the shower ...

 

[jcvjcvjcvjcv]

Here we have a combi (both house warming and water heating) with a separate tank. We replaced it with a newer combiheater without tank, but that was a disaster. The stupid thing had an megalomanic minimum you had to use. Taking a shower with shower on maximum to prevent it from going to cold... not pleasant for the skin. So we have a tank, once again.

And then you think: with a 21 Gallon tank the combiheater should be able to keep the house warm when in the shower, right? WRONG, because the stupid heater gives warming the tankwater priority over warming the house. And it uses trickle charging.... 1 minute of tapping hot water and that darned thing is 8 minutes busy with getting the tankwater to exactly the right temperature again. So we have the tank, no more minimum, but the house still gets cold when taking a shower.

Aah, the blessings of seperate heaters

 

[trauts14]

we just installed one in our commercial kitchen. we had a natural gas 100 gal. commercial hot water heater. now we have one rhinei(SP.) and our natural gas bill dropped 200 dollars. historically(before the tankless) our natural gas bill was 500 bucks. now it is approx 300 dollars.

the only downfall is youcannot expect heavy water flow when u have 2 or more devices drawing water.

 

[RA40]

Had a tankless estimate done today. Ouch...well beyond what I had previously figured, came in a few ticks shy of $4K. The asbestos lined vent pipe from the original tank system was best left alone too. The option was to run the vent to the side wall. Given that, we scheduled an install for a tank system.

Appreciate all the input here...helped me a lot in understanding tankless. Thanks!

 

[Sgt. LED]

Exactly

 

[RA40]

This was a good company to deal with...good call backs, answered all my questions... Considering this is a holiday weekend, they managed to get the install scheduled for today. Good timing too, I noticed the leakage was significantly more this morning. The leaking had caused one of the supporting feet to rust out. No sooner than he moved the heater a bit after draining it, the leg sheered. The tank was halfway rusted at the bottom...not good. No telling how it would have been in a day or so more with 40 gallons of water and sediment in it.

The install took two hours and now we've got a 50 gallon Bradford & White tanked heater. Worries over.