Do tankless water heaters work well?

Tankless water heaters are to die for – but they are not for everyone. A tankless water heater stores no hot water and is triggered to come on by water flowing through it. Once the demand is sensed, it begins heating up. Full bore capacity can normally take five seconds. No a big deal huh?

Now, assume your kitchen sink currently takes 4 seconds from the time you turn on the tap to the time you get hot water. This is the travel distance time from your existing tanked unit. By merely replacing the unit, you need to combine the heat-up time of the tankless PLUS the travel time to get to the fixture. Nine seconds can seem like an eternity. If budget is not an issue, there are piping & pumping strategies that can eliminate this delay.

On the flip side, in my home I located the unit central to all fixtures and knew of this delay going in to it. I have a gas fired Rinnai brand which I love and wouldn’t have anything but. I’ve substantially dropped my gas bill as I am no longer paying for stored hot water 24 hours a day. The efficiency of these units will smoke any high-efficiency tanked model available.

Always work through a licensed plumber and ignore the units at the big box stores. Although attractively priced, they have higher pressure drops across the units and lower water flow rates. Be sure to check with your local utility about rebates that may be available along with the new 2006 federal tax credit for high efficiency equipment.

Instant (Tankless) Water Heaters have come a long way in the last few years, you can now get some that are 95% efficient, they use a plastic flue pipe, as all the heat is absorbed into the heat exchanger to heat the water.

They can supply not only enough hot water for 2 showers, 1 bath and 4 faucets, but also up to 8 hot water radiators too (central heating), radiators heat up in less than a minute from cold.

Gas is the way to go, as they do need a large amount of instant energy.

It's hard to say what you'd actually save on the utilities, but you would save something. You'd also save some space. You'd never run out of hot water. And they last longer than a tank water heater. $900 is the absolute cheapest price for an installed tankless I've ever heard - it's a little less than the cost of a good unit by itself. Note that the better units are from Noritz, Takagi, or Rinnai.

It's good when it works. Want to get three seconds of water to rinse something quickly or to wet a towel? The machine will fire up and then shut down. Do this a few times in a row, and you're getting warm water instead of hot water (because of the cold water that flowed through as the machine was firing up). That isn't a big deal, but I find myself being aware of not turning the hot water on and off. If you turn on the tap for two seconds to squirt some warm water and then turn it off and repeat, you'll either find yourself getting cold water or you'll learn to leave the warm water on all the time.

And when my flow sensor decides to not sense that water is flowing, the machine will not start, or if it is running, it will shut down. So, if while the hot water is running you suddenly use cold water, this can cause the pressure to drop just enough that the flow sensor thinks the hot water has been turned off, and the machine kicks off and then back on, and someone in the shower gets a few seconds of cold water. This is also a problem if I turn on a little bit of warm water. It's not enough flow for the machine to turn on. You have to turn the water full blast to get warm water.

My experience has not been great.

But I can shower until my skin falls off, of twenty people could shower one after another without a problem. Just don't suddenly use a lot of cold water, as I mentioned, or you'll blast whoever is in the shower with a few seconds of cold water.

Look up "cold water sandwich" if you want to know more.

tankless water heaters are the wave of the future. They are more energy efficient because you are not holding water at a set temperature. You have an endless water supply. It also takes up less space.

I had one when I lived overseas and I loved it! Other than waiting a minute for the hot water to kick in, it was great because I had unlimited hot water. It was also nice because I knew I wasn't wasting energy heating water I wasn't using at the time.

I would highly recommend one. However, I've heard that there are some specifications involved in the installation, so you might want to get someone to give you an estimate to see if you can actually get one installed in your house.

it's quite convenient to use tankless water heater n the heat is instant.

Go for it, the initial expense will be recuperated by the energy savings, and the convenience is never running out of hot water. Be sure to get several estimates, the installation can be pricey.

They are commonly known as flash heaters as well. They been used in European countries for decades because of space limitations in apartments and small houses. In fact sometimes they work a little TOO well. The one I had in Portugal would scald you very easily.

I don't have one yet, but I will at my next opportunity. They are more energy efficient than tanks, and NEVER run out of hot water.