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Tank or Tankless Water Heater?
- Thread starter SJLee
- Start date
sneha1965 said:
No certifications here, but I had a licensed plumber helping me. He ran the natural gas line. I did the electrical which was no big deal. In Washington, you need to be licensed to run gas, not sure about plumbing upgrades.
-Mike
I like having a tank. If an earthquake occurs and water mains are damaged, fifty gallons of fresh water is a valuable asset.
I looked into them about a year and a half ago when it was time to replace our water heater. I didn't do much research, but from what I saw the cons outweighed the pros for me. The main reason I went with a tank was because it seemed like it was easier (translated - less expensive) and more effective to do in new construction than install into an existing home.
On the other hand, we'll be slowly bleeding money over the next 10-12 years heating water we're not going to use, so I'm sure there's a break even point we could have calculated to see if it's worth it financially.
On the other hand, we'll be slowly bleeding money over the next 10-12 years heating water we're not going to use, so I'm sure there's a break even point we could have calculated to see if it's worth it financially.
steamthief said:
That is a great point, but we have emergency supply kits already stashed away for that purpose.
-Mike
The standby heat losses from a regular hot water tank have been estimated to be $40 - $50 per year. If you have a heating season then any "lost" heat is used to heat your house and the standby losses are even less. Payback will never happen 99% of the time.
I bought a regular hot water tank for $300 and it took me 1 hour to install. The water is exactly the same as what comes out of a tankless, so there is no reason for me to pay $2000 + for something where the end product is exactly the same.
You need to check the codes on the installation before you commit. I had to make this call about three weeks ago. In our case, installing a tankless would have required re-ducting the exhaust from our existing tank heater, changing the material to stainless, and making a number of other changes. It would have almost doubled the cost of the installation.
Codes may differ, but it's not necessarily just replacing type A with type B...in an established home, it may mean additional costs for modifications.
Whether I can buy X times as many tank heaters isn't the entire issue. I've had two tank heaters go bad in 13 years, and both had the potential to cause extensive damage. The first one split down the side and began spraying water directly onto a sheet rock wall, and would have destroyed the wall if I hadn't been lucky enough to be sitting next to it on the other side. I heard the noise of water spraying immediately and shut off the water. Most recently, the tank started leaking and shallowly flooded about 60% of a very full storage room. Fortunately we caught it within a couple of hours and salvaged almost everything, but we lost much of a day to moving stuff, propping up things on blocks and peeling back carpet in an adjoining room to dry the padding and carpet.
When tank heaters fail, it can be very messy and destructive, and the way they build them today they often go bad in less than 10 years. I would love to avoid the potential for more repetitions of the last two replacements. If I ever get the chance to pre-plan a heater installation I'll probably go tankless but have time for all the work required. It's not something I'm going to do myself, even though I'm chronically cheap and a dedicated do-it-yourselfer.
Codes may differ, but it's not necessarily just replacing type A with type B...in an established home, it may mean additional costs for modifications.
Whether I can buy X times as many tank heaters isn't the entire issue. I've had two tank heaters go bad in 13 years, and both had the potential to cause extensive damage. The first one split down the side and began spraying water directly onto a sheet rock wall, and would have destroyed the wall if I hadn't been lucky enough to be sitting next to it on the other side. I heard the noise of water spraying immediately and shut off the water. Most recently, the tank started leaking and shallowly flooded about 60% of a very full storage room. Fortunately we caught it within a couple of hours and salvaged almost everything, but we lost much of a day to moving stuff, propping up things on blocks and peeling back carpet in an adjoining room to dry the padding and carpet.
When tank heaters fail, it can be very messy and destructive, and the way they build them today they often go bad in less than 10 years. I would love to avoid the potential for more repetitions of the last two replacements. If I ever get the chance to pre-plan a heater installation I'll probably go tankless but have time for all the work required. It's not something I'm going to do myself, even though I'm chronically cheap and a dedicated do-it-yourselfer.
True that, it's why my folks made the change over about 15 years back. Went into the kitchen one morning to find much of the ceiling and a not-insignificant amount of water over the floor!
Oddly enough, the prices don't differ too much between tanked and tankless over here. Extra cost will come in to it if you need to do a lot of re-plumbing. When my flat was changed over it was a fairly minimal amount of work that was needed. There was a change over from being electrically heated to being gas heated, which IMO is a big money saver too. But mileage may vary depending on local utility costs in that sense!
- Dec 28, 2009
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I have a water softener system that filters out all the water in the tank but the water would be boiled before I would drink it and would still be a great source of water in case of an emergency. I also keep a ton of bottled water on hand and purifying tablets.
In this day and age you simply can't be too prepared. I also have food stored up too. Our family would be good to go for quite a while before we would need help if anything bad ever happened.
Yikes!
As Jay stated above, we also have flats of bottled water stored for drinking in case of emergency, as well as food, ammo, etc. The tank water would be used for washing, etc. Good link, though, we'd have to crank up the propane stove and do some boiling to make sure the tank water doesn't kill anybody.
It's been many years since I lived in a tankless home, but when I was in Okinawa the house I rented had a tankless heater for the bathroom and another one for the kitchen. Both were small gas fired units and both delivered instant hot water and never ran out of same. My brother in law recently installed a (gas) tankless heater in a bathroom he added to his garage so he could clean up before going in the house. We were over there for thanksgiving dinner and he said it works great and has never been slow to deliver, or not delivered enough hot water for him to get a shower.
I'm no expert on plumbing or hot water heaters, but I would think based on my limited experience with tankless heaters they would only be more efficient than a tank style heater if mounted physically close to where the hot water they produced was needed. Long runs of pipe between the heater and sink or bathtub would kill any advantage they might have.
I'm no expert on plumbing or hot water heaters, but I would think based on my limited experience with tankless heaters they would only be more efficient than a tank style heater if mounted physically close to where the hot water they produced was needed. Long runs of pipe between the heater and sink or bathtub would kill any advantage they might have.
When tankless heaters fail, it can be very messy and destructive.
Any time you have plumbing under pressure that fails - you're going to end up with lots of water everywhere.
The effect would be just the same as if you had long runs of pipe between a tank and a tap. There will be cold water in the pipes that has been left since it was last used (so you have a few seconds wait til that clears out), and there will be some cooling of the water as it flows from the hot source to the tap (the level of which depends on length, insulation and piping used).
Unless you are trying to get at something else?
We had some significant winds in our area a few months ago that killed power to nearly everyone in my area for 2 days (some as many as 5 days). Although we didn't have light, we had hot water the whole time. Our tankless friends did not.
The effect would be just the same as if you had long runs of pipe between a tank and a tap. There will be cold water in the pipes that has been left since it was last used (so you have a few seconds wait til that clears out), and there will be some cooling of the water as it flows from the hot source to the tap (the level of which depends on length, insulation and piping used).
Unless you are trying to get at something else?
Nope, that was what I was thinking.
