Lets talk tankless water heaters - Page 3

menschmaschine · 05-30-2008, 08:48 PM

I have a Rinnai and love it. I've never lacked hot water and my house has 2.5 baths, dishwasher, laundry sink, etc. The only drawback is, depending on where it's located, the proximity to faucets may provide for an extra long time to get hot water. The thing with tankless is that it's best to have them centrally located in the house, but this frequently interferes with venting, and venting takes priority. It takes me a full 2 minutes to get hot water on the other side of my house from the Rinnai. But since I have a well and a huge septic field, it doesn't really bother me. The benefits outweigh the costs.

I'm also familiar with Noritz and have built houses with them installed. If I were to be in the market for one, I'd get a Rinnai or Noritz, but I'm unfamiliar with the quality of the other brands mentioned.

CBBaron · 05-30-2008, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Germey

I just read another way to deal with that is to reduce the temp setting. That way, you achieve your desired shower temp by using more hot water. The only reason for having scalding hot water (other than shorter time to boiling the pasta) is to reduce the amount of water you use out of the tank. That motivation is now moot.
Plumber says he's installed several outdoor units in Carlsbad. Rheem unit is ordered!

Good point, however the model I have has a factory preset of 120F. You have to buy an expensive add-on regulator to adjust the settings. Of course 120F is just about ideal so there is no reason to change.

I'm sure you will appreciate the unit.

Craig

Germey · 06-03-2008, 06:55 PM

Well, I cancelled my order and will probably get a traditional tank heater. Several codes prevented the outdoor installation that I envisioned, and the estimate for the re-work to install an indoor one was $600-$1,000. That was just for the labor. Ducting and other installation hardware was going to be about $400! I could probably do all the work myself, but I am still dealing with a broken leg and don't think the job can wait that long. Swapping the tank unit is definitely something I can do with an uninjured friend who appreciates good beer.
I think someone here (or maybe it was the Plumber) said that it makes perfect sense in a new construction, but is just too expensive in a retrofit. I concur!
There is an off chance I might go electric tankless, but probably not.

I will still be splitting off a NG trunk for the brewery though.
Cheers, and thanks again for the advice and input.

menschmaschine · 06-03-2008, 07:06 PM

Last I looked (a couple years ago), electric tankless just couldn't handle a whole house. You could essentially only have one hot water source on at a time or it would get cold.

Tough luck on the gas tankless. Well, you tried...and it's better to have hot water than not!

CBBaron · 06-03-2008, 09:18 PM

Sorry to here about your bad luck. There is no option for outside mount in Ohio but our retrofit was not nearly as expensive. The unit we had installed used the same chimney and the plumber just had to run a new gas line on the ceiling of the basement. I guess it really depends on your installation.

As an alternative there are some new gas tank water heaters that are much more efficient than the old style. My brother just put one in his house. The tank is better insulated and the heat exchanger is condensing which boosts the efficiency into the 90s%. His unit has the exhaust vent on the bottom of the tank and uses PVC for the vent. He uses it to heat to whole house with radiant floor heating and provide hot water. I'm sure there are smaller units for hot water only but I'm guessing they are considerably more expensive than the normal units.

Craig