The hybrid ones look interesting. 20 gallon or so tank with a heater about twice as big as a typical 40-50 gallon heater has. They put out a lot more gph of hot water than your average tanked heater with about 1/2 the height footprint of a typical tanked heater.
John Welsh said:Downside, wait for hot water.
Upside for an occasional use home, you are not paying to keep water warm during the weeks you're not there.
Turn off the breaker??
poopshovel again said:Feck. I was hoping this would be the “easy button.”
You KNOW asking our opinion is never gonna be the easy button!!
When I bought my house I needed to replace the water heater. I really, really wanted a tankless setup. Until my plumber pointed out that it'd be $4000 to buy and install it vs the $800 for a traditional water heater.
Poopy, I don’t think tankless is your solution. Mostly because of cost and breaker space (NOBODY has 6 free slots in their panel).
Find a place for a tank, even if it’s in the attic, crawl space, or in an exterior closet.
As a professional, I don’t have an opinion. Honestly, I can’t ever figure out why people love them. Here’s what I know:
- They are ridiculously priced.
- Contractors recommend them highly, because they make a lot of money on them.
- They won’t save you money.
- Gas ones are much more efficient than electric, but they won’t save you money either.
- Everyone I know who has them is happy with them.
I am convinced that consumer’s contentment with these is ill-based. I suspect it is based on their previous bad experiences with tank water heaters that were poorly sized, scaled, or had corroded inefficient heating elements. A properly sized water heater that is in good working order with properly sized piping should not run out of hot water regularly. I have lived in 9 different houses with a family of 7 and never had unreasonable shortages of hot water.
DIn reply to docwyte :
I bought mine for less than $1500 at the big box store. I did my own install, it wasn’t complex or difficult. Cold water in. Hot water out. Gas and electrical power. Same as a tank water heater. Since it was so much smaller I had plenty of places to put it versus the one spot in the shop. ( ground floor)
Now when I put my two* tank heaters in the shop everyplace was a compromise. Put them out of the way and the water pipe lines were too long, Put them where the runs were shortest and they were great big obstacles to efficient use of my shop. If I put them up on the main floor and they failed, ( and they always fail) the potential damage would be major.
The tankless one is over the wash basin so potential failure will go in the sink and drain. But I could have put them over the shower or dealt with potential failure several other ways.
Now I’m fortunate I have both. It takes me less than 5 minutes to shut valves flip circuit breakers and drain the tanks to use the tankless
Well open the drains, because they are both over the floor drain. I suppose another 7-10 minutes to completely drain the tanks.
Maybe it’s telling that I’m using the tankless now?
* 2 because in addition to hot water one tank would serve as heat source for infloor radiant heating. I choose Electric because at the time natural gas was more expensive than electric to operate. That since has reversed so I’m using the gas tankless because it’s cheaper to operate.
If I was really fair I’d have both electric and natural gas tank type and a separate meter for each but I’m not Consumer Reports.
I haven't read but the first 2-3 posts and what they talk about is ONLY on smaller electric units. I've been living with gas powered tankless for 11 years and they are the most awesome thing since sliced bread.
The wait is less than it was for my traditional HWH to clear the lines at my old house. BUT I designed the house to have shorter runs from the HWH to the showers, tubs and sinks than the old house because they just stuck the old one in the garage with no thought towards how it impacted us.
At the longest run it takes less than 30 seconds to begin running hot.
My wife has a 75 gallon tub and we can fill it multiple times without running out of hot water. We never run out of hot water.
I even hooked a hose up to one of my HWHs and completely cleared my long driveway of snow and ice one year.
The cost to operate is miniscule. As an ad I head today said "why boil water all do on the off chance you'll need some of it sometime"
Maintenance has been zero. Both of my neighbors have already replaced both of their traditional HWHs.
With all that said, some care has to be taken with placement. If you just replace one like I had located in the garage with a tankless it won't help you in any way except for the fact that you won't run out of water.
You will need double walled vent pipes, but that's a one time expense.
If we had gas here, I would do a gas tankless. But we don't, so we don't. We sometimes have power outages that go for a day or three. The genset can keep the lights and the std water heater going. But it could never run a 27kw tankless and no, I don't have space for 3 40's in my panel either. Oh well.
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