Out of town visiting my kids over a long weekend, and Monday on our last day away I get an HSM alert - leak detected, water heater! CRAP!!
My neighbor came over and confirmed the leak. I have an automation that shut off my water valve (Water Cop) so that was taken care of.
Now need to replace the water heater (a few months over 10 years old). Thinking tankless possibly...
Anyone have a tankless that integrates in any way w/HE?
As long as we're talking, any positives or cautions about going tankless? SoCal single story ranch, two bath (shower and tub/shower). Bath tub maybe gets used once a year, 99% showers, currently just wife and I, two kids & GF visit at holidays.
Location where heater would go has gas line & venting already in place.
What's the size of the gas line? BTU demand for a tankless is much higher than a tanked water heater. So they usually require a 3/4" or 1" gas line. Tanked heaters take a 1/2" line typically. There are also differences in venting.
To be honest, in my opinion, a 50 gallon tanked water heater would be an inexpensive choice. Even if you don't keep up with the maintenance (annual flush, changing anode rod every 4-5 years), you'll still get 10 years service out of it.
Tankless heaters are more expensive to maintain (and take more time to maintain). And their life-span isn't dramatically higher than tanked water heaters.
Thanks. I'm pretty tired of replacing the water heater every 10 years (and that's been our consistent experience) and was hoping I'd get more like 15+ w/tankless. The location where we have our water heater is a horrible spot to get the old tank out, new tank in, hard to get plumbers to actually agree to do it, so that's been a problem as well.
Thanks for the tip on the gas line and venting. I expect the gas line is a 1/2" line, but would have to check. And if having tank gas water heater venting (depending on wether it's "over-engineered" or not) isn't a help that is another strike against tankless.
We've never flushed the water heater, but our big problem has been leaking, which I assume is driven by rust or the constant heating of the tank ends up messing w/seams. Does flushing do anything that would help w/avoiding leaks developing?
The other angle w/the tankless is "point of use" installs, where (from what I've read) you can put multiple small tankless heaters in/near bathrooms/kitchen sinks/dishwasher, etc., to seve them directly.
Tankless REQUIRES annual or biannual maintenance. They have to be flushed depending on the hardness of your water. Tankless with NOT work when you loss power.
That plus the reason above. I will be sticking with a tank.
Yes they do and I got conned into paying for the maintenance up front with my plumber and then they went out of business during Covid . I am a pretty handy guy and did some research and learned it is simple to do after watching a YouTube video. I do mine every 18-24 months since my water is pretty clean. Basically you put vinegar in a bucket and run a sump pump from it for 45 minutes. You don’t need to babysit it either. So I wouldn’t say this annual maintenance is a negative and it’s super simple.
This is the primary reason we went with tankless several years ago. It took forever to get hot water in our up master bedroom and got a circ pump to help and automating that pump is what prompted me to buy SmartThings in 2014. Secondary reason is 2 teenage kids who take long showers.
I had 2 tank heaters before in our garage utility room and got tons of space back by installing the tankless on exterior wall by the gas meter. So you don’t have to install it in the same location as your existing.
I have a Rinnai and it has a built in circ pump. I automated that by soldering a wire to the circulation button on the display and it turns on when any shower light turns on or if we tell Alexa to turn on hot water. Then my app will turn it off after a set period or with the shower light turning off.
One of my sons admitted after he moved out that he used to take a nap in the shower! Turn on water, lay down in tub, nap.
He tells me he's much more conscious of wasting energy and water now that he's paying for it. When he visits I remind him of our newly instated "NO NAPS!" rule in the shower. I should probably get a sign...
Wife has made a ruling, we are not going tankless. The tankless estimates were $4,000 and up and a tank 50g gas water heater is $1,900 installed. We just spent $4K on our two dogs (vet bills) and are in the process of arranging to cover the down payment on a house for my older son, so she is not in the mood to spend more than we have to on a very un-sexy item like a water heater. Psychological timing issue.
So I expect we'll run another 10 years or so on the new tank heater and then we'll move over to a new/cool tankless option.
I don't know where $4,000 came from but I don't know what you price checked. We had one installed for $1700 in 2012. I know times have changed, but I price checked a Navien which is what we have, and the price was about $1700. Installation should not add THAT much more. The life expectancy of ours is like 20 years, and they use less energy. There def is maintenance, and I find myself doing it 2x yr. A drag I suppose but it's cheap since I do it myself.
Don't know what to say, I got the same price range from multiple plumbers, both independent guys and small companies. SoCal so things always seem to be more here. I'm OK w/my wife's preference...we have a lot of family stuff going on including health issues w/some of her relatives, and I think one motivation for her is less complication/new things to worry about is also reducing her general stress level.
It can triple that price depending on what has to be done for installation - for eg. The length of 3/4” or 1” gas pipe that has to be run. And what has to be done for safely exhausting the vent gases.
Totally believable. That’s an average install price for a tanked to tankless conversion around here. Tankless installation in new construction is about $2500-3000
We got one last year and have been very happy with it. The energy savings will allow it to be completely paid-off in 5 years. It also cools and dries the room it’s in which is a really nice bonus, but needs some space (or can be ducted). It does have a higher purchase price.
Also note that it is noisier since there is a fan that will run when it is heading the water.
This is better than a tanked electric - that’s for sure. But the cost to operate is more than a natural gas heater (at least for now). That will probably change ….
We have one in our cottage and we like it (actually cools the room down when it's running in the summer). One of the plumbers I was talking to (did our remodel work and wasn't going to be able to do this install as just too busy, so he had no skin in the game) said that the heat pump models were larger than the regular ones at the same capacity and we'd likely have to size down if we got one. Maybe not a huge deal but again the wife was nervous about changing anything so we stuck w/the basics.
I have always thought this was a great option for a house, until I lived with it. YMMV
My son has a house with gas, heat pump and Hydronic heating, Everything can be switched around depending on the price of the resources.
I have to say that running the tap for 60 seconds to get water up to temp on the H tap is a pain.
Washing the dishes is really annoying because if you take too long between hotwater rinses of the dishes you keep getting luke warm water.
The added worry early this year was the system through an error code and the plumber showed up, looked at the system and said "I've heard about this equipment but we have never seen it" referring to the redundant dual Rinnai units.
You can add a recirculating pump to any system, it just has to be external in some cases … an 2x the piping.
I too have priced tankless out a couple of times and the difference in prices could be the flow rates. You can get lower priced ones if you are happy with 2.5gpm. Of course not a viable option for most homes if you are just going with one unit.
I went down this road at the old house and ended up with another tank water heater. In this house I revisited the idea of tankless, but with electric only it was not recommended.
Our water heater is EOL, but I expect to get much longer out of it. We had a sulfer smell and I learned it's caused by the magnesium anode rods. I went with this powered anode rod, which completely eliminated the sulfer smell and is said to greatly prolong the life of the tank. I phoned Rheem before purchasing it and they confirmed that installing this rod would not void the warranty.
When I installed it, I found that the existing anode rod was in really good condition, despite the tank being 10 years old. I don't think the previous owner would have replaced it, becuase they would have had to completely drain the tank and tip it on it's side to get the one-piece anode rod installed. So my tank should be in good condition despite its age. Next tank, I will take out this powered anode rod and put it in the new tank. I would recommend you do that from the start. A lot easier when the tank is new, and no reason to rely on magnesium rods that usually have nothing but the support wire left by the time most people have a failure.
We have one on our current tank and will have it installed on the new one as well...it only services the master bath vanity and steam shower, but those are the only ares we use water at that end of the house, and hot water arrives quickly at the other end (near the heater). We also have a water cooler for cold drinking water near the sink, so (since we live in a semi-arid desert called SoCal that has no water of it's own) when we do run water to get it hot we run it into a small pitcher and then pour that water into our cooler to drink later.
The local water authority offers tours of the system that moves water from the Colorado to Southern CA - it is both impressive and scary. Impressive in terms of size and scope and capabilities of the infrastructure, and scary when you realize how tenuous our connection to water is, and of course how over-extended the Colorado River is.
A tankless water heater can be installed on the exterior of the house in NC, so I am sure it also can be in SoCal. No venting issues and easy to access. I’ve installed our last two tankless units (2 different houses) and will never ever ever have a tank again. It spoils you.
To many folk this suggestion might not seem reasonable with your natural gas already there to be tapped....but if you are having problems with tank corrosion and are considering tankless as a solution...then you might consider the Marathon (originally a MN startup) that Rheem bought out a few years back.
Sure, gas fired is the cheaper fuel but perhaps your temperate locale might lean toward a more moderate muni water temp and the delta temp not that costly to reach especially when you consider less need to re-heat due to this tank's superior insulation. You won't find many tanks as well insulated and able to hold temp as this one.
There are potential incentives your State might have for buying a Marathon given their increasingly electric-for-everything mindset.
Changing out the lower heating element from the 4500watt supplied to a 3000watt tungsten will increase element life and help lower precipitate from hard water if that is a problem.
EDIT: After reading succeeding posts about traditional tank maintenance I came back to note....there is NO ANODE to be changed in this tank, because there is no steel tank to divert the corrosion of.
. I am a pretty handy guy and did some research and learned it is simple to do after watching a YouTube video. I do mine every 18-24 months since my water is pretty clean. Basically you put vinegar in a bucket and run a sump pump from it for 45 minutes. You don’t need to babysit it either. So I wouldn’t say this annual maintenance is a negative and it’s super simple.
I should probably get a sign...
to get much longer out of it. We had a sulfer smell and I learned it's caused by the magnesium anode rods. I went with 
