Price of Tankless Hot water Heater?

[Aurora D]

So Hurricane Irene flooded our basement and took out our conventional water heater. We are considering going with a tankless. Anyone have any experience with these? How expensive are they and what about installation? If we get an electric, do we only need an electrician-not a plumber? If we go with gas, do we need both to install?

 

[distherapy]

I am moving into a house that has both, but in the meantime, I can only offer googled help - http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...eaters/overview/tankless-water-heaters-ov.htm

 

[thomas998]

We looked into them... I suggest you do a little more research before youmake a final decision. From what we found the water where we live is too hard for one unless we install other things inline first to filter out the water... We were told that they start losing there efficiency as soon as deposits start to build up on the pipes inside.

 

[Ali]

I wanted one of those newfangled devices too but My house is too old and would need all new pipes. So we didn't get one.

 

[MineMail]

Our house is less than 10 years old and the builders put the hot water heater on the second floor, outside the bedrooms. It was past it's original warranty, so we decided to replace it before we moved in, just to avoid the flood and inconvenience.

My DS and BIL had an electric tankless water heater installed when they built their house. The contractor put the unit in the crawl space, so any adjustments needed after a power outage means he has to go under the house. Stinks when the weather's bad. You can set the default temperature to whatever you want, but a power outage resets it to the factory default. We're fine with the default 120°F setting, so it hasn't been a problem for us as yet.

We chose a gas tankless heater that was installed by the gas company, so both an electrician and a plumber were required. It mounted on a wall and required an air vent, so that meant putting it on an outside wall and having the vent installed. If you chose to put it in your basement, it would be installed off the floor, but the vent might mean putting a hole through the foundation, depending on what your house looks like.

We put ours in the first-floor laundry room for a few reasons. We wanted it accessible if we did need to reset anything. The vent looks fine since it's next to the dryer vent outside. The laundry room already had a natural gas dryer, so no need to run more pipes. The hot water line was easily tapped from that spot to service the whole house. It's close to the house water main, should anything go wrong.

We only have two complaints: the water pressure in the master bath isn't great, probably because the shower is the last fixture on the water line. My next-door neighbor (same style house) has the same layout and complaint with a traditional water heater, so it's probably just a plumbing design flaw. The gas company crew did offer to install a water pump to increase the pressure through the pipes. It's not that bad, so we didn't price the pump. Bought a pressure-increasing shower head instead for $40.

When it kicks on, the heater makes a little noise. Not really loud, but enough that we know when someone's taking a shower upstairs. Of course, it shuts off as soon as the water stops being used. We can close the door and hear nothing, so it's not a show-stopper.

In a way, the noise is a good thing: I'm more aware of when I'm using hot water, especially at the kitchen sink. I've stopped leaving the faucet set for the "hot" side because the sound made me realize I was wasting energy heating water just to rinse out cat food cans. That's a good thing, right?


You might want to see if there are any rebates worth waiting for, if you can hold off. I think every Lennai tankless heater qualifies for rebates when they're being offered. (We NEVER time it right, so do as I suggest, not as I do, lol.)

 

[DisneyWorld Delight]

While they are an awesome investment when they work right, they are a huge pain when they don't. We figured out that 50% of the tankless water heaters we have installed as GCs have broken and needed repair within the first year. And its such a new technology in our area, the parts are not readily available, like tried and true appliances. Being without hot water for a weekend sucks. Food for thought.

 

[herdtoDisney]

So Hurricane Irene flooded our basement and took out our conventional water heater. We are considering going with a tankless. Anyone have any experience with these? How expensive are they and what about installation? If we get an electric, do we only need an electrician-not a plumber? If we go with gas, do we need both to install?

I would assume you'd need a plumber either way, at least to attach the new heater to the pipes. I think you also have to decide if you want to go electric or gas-from what I understand, there are differences to consider. Like a PP said, I think location is also a factor-where you plan to install it.

I am actually interested in a tankless water heater, at some point, as well. I'd defenitely look for rebates and such-maybe contact your utilities companies and see what they say. I know you probably can't wait since you are without hot water at this point but maybe they have something going right now.

Sorry about your Irene damage. Wasn't that something, all the damages? My goodness. I didn't get a flooded basement (my neighbors did though) but a falling tree knocked our electrical service right off the house, down to the meter pricey little storm!

 

[formill]

We looked into tankless electric when our oil fired hot water heater died.....anything I read about electric tankless suggested you need huge amounts of power- possibly more than the 200amp service we have to the house as we have an electric furnace also- and that even still depending on family size electric will have a really hard time keeping up with demand and will go to lukewarm water while using in any quantity. I did read we could have maybe put one tankless heater at each fixture in the house to help boost it or something but then it was seeming so complicated and expensive we gave up and went with an electric tank style. My parents have gas available (we don't) and have tankless and are very happy with it never run out of hot water now where they did if they had company with their old tank one.

 

[silmarg]

I live in a 100 year old house. We had a typical gas fired water tank type heater and we have an oil boiler that also produced domestic hot water via a coil.

In the summer we'd turn off the boiler and in the winter we turn off the hot water heater - thus only paying for one fuel at a time.

At the very beginning of the winter season (maybe 3-5 years ago) the water tank sprung a leak. So I had all winter (when i would not be in use) to come up with a replacement.

I am handy and decided to look into the tankless route.

The unit cost close to $1000 (we bought the highest capacity unit they make) and the special vent piping was a couple hundred bucks (and I didnt need that much of it... the vent piping is crazy expensive).

The unit had to be installed in the opposite side of the basement from when the old heater was (as the venting location is very exacting). I did have to re-arrange some water lines. The gas line was basically where i needed it to be (so only a slight modification there).

My understanding is if you are hiring someone to put one of these in the labor could be in the $1000-1500 range.

Since we owned it it has been fairly reliable. We did have a nasty black out the blew a fuse in the unit. There is an air and water filter in it that needs cleaning every so often. And I hear one should clean the burners every few years with compressed air (I have done that as of yet).

These units are supposed to last 20 years. We shall see. So far I like the unit, but I am sure I would've went the tankless route if I had to pay a contractor $3000 for parts and labor. I justified the purchase since I was doing the install myself. And since I had several months to do the install... it was really no big deal.

I hope this helps!

 

[ceecee]

We have the tankless and I really love it. It takes up a lot less room. But the good thing is we don't run out of hot water. We had a 60 gallon before and the spa tube would use all the hot water. We had a plumber put it in, DH says it saves $ I haven't noticed a big difference. We did get a rebate.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

While they are an awesome investment when they work right, they are a huge pain when they don't. We figured out that 50% of the tankless water heaters we have installed as GCs have broken and needed repair within the first year. And its such a new technology in our area, the parts are not readily available, like tried and true appliances. Being without hot water for a weekend sucks. Food for thought.

Honestly, this is NOT new technology. It's been used in other countries for years. It's "new" here, but IMHO that's not a good excuse for the manufacturers not having the parts.

 

[DisneyWorld Delight]

Honestly, this is NOT new technology. It's been used in other countries for years. It's "new" here, but IMHO that's not a good excuse for the manufacturers not having the parts.

I totally agree. Maybe it's our city, but we seem to be the only GCs installing them and the supply houses don't really handle the parts. We have to get parts from Bosch directly and even overnight shipping seems to be a hassle.

 

[DISdreamin']

We looked into tankless about 7 years ago when planning our home. What we found was that, in our area, our water was too hard to get much lifetime out of an on-demand HWH without investing a huge amount in treating the water beforehand.

Also, if you are trying to retrofit, the on-demand units seemed to require a huge throughput for either gas or electric, from what I recall. It is very likely that a retrofit might require a larger diameter natural gas line or larger amp service. It is something to inquire about or factor in.

We also heard complaints of a cold-water sandwich effect at the time we were shopping. It actually led us to believe that installing multiple smaller units might be wiser than one large unit, given our floorplan.

Just some food for thought! Good luck with your decision.

 

[J'aime Paris]

My step dad is a plumber and he's not a fan of them. Too much hassle if you have any problems with the unit.

 

[flapbreaker]

We had a gas tankless installed and love it but it's important to understand a few things about them. If you lose power you will lose hot water (unless you have a generator). Of course this is also true if you have an electric tank version but not true if you have a gas tank style. Also, if you live in an area that gets really cold then this can limit their ability to heat the cold water on demand. Manufacturers usually have a diagram showing max temps achieved with certain incoming cold water temps. Installation is very expensive. You wouldn't think so but it all ads up. We were told that we had a very easy installation and we still paid almost 4k for it if I remember correctly. For one, they need their own gas line from the meter. You cannot simply use the gas line from the old hot water heater or tie into the pipe supplying your furnace. These units typically are 180,000 to 200,000 BTU's and require a lot of gas when heating. As an example, most furnaces are only 80,000 BTU's. This is why they can't share the same gas line. I don't know if it saves money like they claim, it's possible that you will use more hot water simply because it doesn't run out. It's this last part that I believe is the ONLY reason to go tankless. If endless hot water is what you want then it's the product for you. But if it's to save money, forget it. A typical tank hot water heater is less than 500.00 and the cost difference between the two negates any energy savings in my opinion. Again, we love our and have not had a single problem with yet (3 years now). Ours is a Rinnia just for reference.

 

[Muushka]

Our electric hot water heater died about 8 years ago. Tankless wasn't something we even considered.
We had a gas hot water heater replace the electric one.

Our gas bill without the hot water heater was $5 less.
For $5 a month, I love our gas water heater!

 

[lunalibre]

We had a gas tankless installed and love it but it's important to understand a few things about them. If you lose power you will lose hot water (unless you have a generator). Of course this is also true if you have an electric tank version but not true if you have a gas tank style. Also, if you live in an area that gets really cold then this can limit their ability to heat the cold water on demand. Manufacturers usually have a diagram showing max temps achieved with certain incoming cold water temps. Installation is very expensive. You wouldn't think so but it all ads up. We were told that we had a very easy installation and we still paid almost 4k for it if I remember correctly. For one, they need their own gas line from the meter. You cannot simply use the gas line from the old hot water heater or tie into the pipe supplying your furnace. These units typically are 180,000 to 200,000 BTU's and require a lot of gas when heating. As an example, most furnaces are only 80,000 BTU's. This is why they can't share the same gas line. I don't know if it saves money like they claim, it's possible that you will use more hot water simply because it doesn't run out. It's this last part that I believe is the ONLY reason to go tankless. If endless hot water is what you want then it's the product for you. But if it's to save money, forget it. A typical tank hot water heater is less than 500.00 and the cost difference between the two negates any energy savings in my opinion. Again, we love our and have not had a single problem with yet (3 years now). Ours is a Rinnia just for reference.

Needing a separate gas line may have only been a building code requirement for your area. Where I live in Texas, that was not required.

We replaced 2 40-gallon gas tank water heaters with 1 gas tankless water heater 4 years ago. We absolutely love it. One very important thing to consider is how much water you want to heat at a time. A lot of people don't buy one sized appropriately for their needs. Say, for example, you've got 2 bathrooms, plus your washer, diswasher, sinks, etc. Size the heater so that you can support supplying hot water to ALL those items at once. Too many people say, "oh, we'll never be running the washer/dishwasher/both showers at the same time"...and then they do, and they don't have enough hot water.

I think a bigger concern for you in NJ would be the water temperature in the winter. The water here in Texas just doesn't get that cold, and the ground never freezes. I'm not sure a tankless heater would get your water warm enough in the winter. A plumber would be able to help you with that determination.

Our gas heater still has an electric thermostat. If we want hot water during a power outage, we'd have to hook it up to some sort of generator or to some other portable power source (we've got one we use for camping that we could use for emergencies).

I can't tell you how much installation is because we rolled all the costs into a much larger general remodeling project we were doing at the time. I'm sure that got us a much better deal on installation.

I recommend doing a lot of reading, and then get estimates from multiple reputable plumbers before making a decision. Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[flapbreaker]

Needing a separate gas line may have only been a building code requirement for your area. Where I live in Texas, that was not required.

Nope, wasn't code. There's a formula based on needed BTU's and current pipe size. I don't understand it all but that is what was explained to me. It could be that you don't use your furnace much being in texas or your furnace is a much lower BTU. Often times, in the northwest the gas line to the hot water tank is simply plumed off the line that feeds the furnace but it can't handle the load of a 200,000 btu tankless and the 90,000 btu furnace at the same time.

 

[donac]

We replaced our furnace last year. They offered us two types. we went with a more traditional one for the area. The non traditional (this This Old House) we were told could add on a tankless water heater when we had the money. We were told we could have hot water for at least an hour.

At this point in the conversation dh and I looked at each other and said NO because ds 1 would never get out of the shower. We didn't even stop to consider it for a second.

 

[cndij]

We put in a Rinnai tankless system when we bought this house 5 years ago. Since we moved my inlaws and the three grandaughters they are raising in with us, we tried to go very energy efficient because of the demands of 8 people living here. We got the high capacity, which is enough for 2 showers or baths at the same time, or a shower while running the dishwasher or washing machine. This one was about $1200 but well worth the cost in my mind. My gas bill runs about $30 a month and that is with a gas dryer and one cook stove in gas as well. The Rinnai replace 1-40 gallon + 1 - 50 gallon electric that were in the house when we moved in. I also have a replacement insurance policy with my gas company that costs me $8 a month in case this one goes out.