Coalpail.com Forum

Anybody have any experience with tankless hot water heaters?

I was thinking of taking out my regular tanked heater & replacing it with tankless but, unless you do all the plumbing work yourself, you will never recoup the costs of doing it in energy savings. (plus I read a tankless system requires more maintenance (flushing, etc) than a tanked system)

If you're on city water you might enjoy one. You can do any one thing forever, just don't take a shower while the washing machine is filling. (unless you buy a monster one). They are efficient.

I had some concerns about how my well water might interact with a tankless, so I took a water sample to a local lab to have it tested. Results in hand, I called a couple of the factories to ask. Both said calcium was the biggest problem they've seen, and that would require decalcifying. Both suggested a pre-tank filter though an absence of one would not effect warranty. I'm looking at LPG as that is what my current tanked one is. Horizonal venting, chipped and/or vented for high altitude. Would install it myself.

Every one I have had contact with locally has had problems with hard water plugging. The local water is very hard in general, even the town water supply. I sell a lot of acid to clean them out.

I've been using my new tankless dhw for 4-5 months now. I bought it off ebay for like $190, it is electric. I had to run a 60 amp 6 gauge line for it. It's as small as a bread box & and very easily adjustable. I hooked it all up myself. It was killing me to run the oil boiler, it cost me over $600 from oct to april, just to run the boiler in the mornings for showers and occasionaly for the dishes. That is just insane.

It's called a Titan, American made in Fl

There was just a review of them in the current Consumer Reports, which I haven't read yet. My wife read it and told me her take was it was unlikley to save money over a traditional unit.

George-NJ wrote:I've been using my new tankless dhw for 4-5 months now. I bought it off ebay for like $190, it is electric. I had to run a 60 amp 6 gauge line for it. It's as small as a bread box & and very easily adjustable. I hooked it all up myself. It was killing me to run the oil boiler, it cost me over $600 from oct to april, just to run the boiler in the mornings for showers and occasionaly for the dishes.

George
Did you figure out how much it costs you now for the hot water a month with the tankless heater running? Does it make all the hot water you need for the whole house?

Is only costs a few dollars a month in energy to stand a 40 gallon domestic hot water heater at 125 degrees. Just to stand it at that temperature - not use any of the hot water. That's the thermal loss of a storage tank type heater, not an issue with a tank less DHW production system. Domestic hot water production is another issue. Dependent on the type of energy you use in a traditional or a tank less - its still quite similar cost per 100 gallons of temperature rise.

So think about the payback and not what the sales hype tells you.

you can buy a storage tank type Domestic Hot Water Heater for 20 percent of the monster tank less heater that will produce the same amount of gallons per minute

If production costs are the same or very close - and they are similar because is takes the same amount of BTUs to raise a gallon of water from street temperature to use temperature regardless of what appliance does it. How often can you replace that storage tank heater for same money that you spent for the big gun that you will need to replace it for the same comfort level. Wit a storage tank - you can make DHW off your coal boiler in season and that saves even more.

and I emphasize comfort level because as George says they (cheep tank less appliances) are available for a couple hundred bucks - now you will NATURALLY save energy with one of those - its like comparing a moped to a Mack Truck - one certainly sips less fuel. If is was costing 800 a month to make DHW with the oil boiler - well there were other thermal loss issues afoot.

back to my first statement - It only costs a few dollars a month to stand a tank of Domestic hot water at 125 degrees. You have to ask yourself if its worth it to give up the comfort of having 40 gallons of hot water on demand vs having to stage your DHW use because you can only get a small portion of that per minute with a cheep tank less unit or you have to spend 3 times the cost of a storage tank appliance to achieve the same comfort. - to what ???? save a few bucks a month in thermal loss off the 40 gallon tank!

Grew up with tankless & had one here before replacing with indirect-fired tank.

My opinion? THEY SUCK! Stay away!

I constantly ran out of hot water. Every time I got in the shower, someone would either turn on a faucet to wash their hands or start a load of laundry & the shower would go ice-cold!! Talk about becoming instantly psychotic!!!

The newer ones are probably much better, but how much hot water can that tiny coil make? If you live by yourself, go for it. If you have more than yourself in the house at any one time, I would steer clear. Just my opinion based on my experience with those....

With the indirect-fired unit, I can do a massive load of laundry, start the dishwasher, have the kitchen sink going full-blast & jump into a nice hot 20 minute shower without missing a beat!

I've been using my new tankless dhw for 4-5 months now. I bought it off ebay for like $190, it is electric.

Hey George,

How much does it cost a month to run the electric tankless? It's got be be less then you were paying for oil even with JCP&L's high rates.

Electric 40 gal water heater cost a fortune to run, then I switched to a 30 gallon oil fired, now I'm using the Alaska to heat the water and the 30 gal. as a storage tank. Burned 2 ton since 05/27.

See my thread on the Alaska for the latest update I'm doing.

Consumer Reports (online) http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm has a chapter on them this month & they don't really recommend them. They basically say that it would take over 20 years to get pay-back on energy savings vs cost with one, & before then it would be junk anyway. They don't give even water heating & require more maintenance than tank types. I was thinking of one but....not any more!

Here are a few of their paragraph headings:

Water runs hot and cold
Up-front costs are high
Tankless units might need more care
Efficient storage models are pricey

One of my friends was considering a tankless until he read the Consumer Reports write up.

charlie wrote:Anybody have any experience with tankless hot water heaters?

I was amazed when I looked into it. They are not that much more efficient, something like 15%, payback was more than 10 years. Just yesterday I bought a small 20 gallon electric for summer when the coal boiler will be off. We use very little hot water in the summer as showers are cool. Come winter we use a lot, it gets mighty cold around here.

I would think that an electric water heater would be the way to go, seems like it would be cheaper even then using coal to heat your hot water during the summer months. You can always go solar to not only give you free hot water but to also save money on your regular electric bill.

Electric 40 gal water heater cost a fortune to run, then I switched to a 30 gallon oil fired, now I'm using the Alaska to heat the water and the 30 gal. as a storage tank. Burned 2 ton since 05/27.

Here that same 2 ton would be some $600.00 plus for coal. I don't think anyone spends that much to heat hot water for a whole year? When we switch from our electric hot water heater to our oil burner I don't think our electric bill even dropped 15 bucks a month.