Tankless Water Heaters - Efficiency vs Economy
A recent visit to a potential client’s home prompted me to do a bit more poking around on this perennial subject. I found this article by Consumer Reports which I thought I would share. Please enjoy and as always in choosing a new domestic water heating system, think green. Go solar… -SteamMan http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/appliances/heating-cooling-and-air/water-heaters/tankless-water-heaters/overview/tankless-water-heaters-ov.htm
A recent visit to a potential client’s home prompted me to do a bit more poking around on this perennial subject. I found this article by Consumer Reports which I thought I would share. Please enjoy and as always in choosing a new domestic water heating system, think green. Go solar…
-SteamMan
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/appliances/heating-cooling-and-air/water-heaters/tankless-water-heaters/overview/tankless-water-heaters-ov.htm
Great discussion. When we reno’d our house, the plumbing contractor (no one I’ve recommended here) said tankless heaters do not work well with pressure balance shower bodies. I’m curious if there is any validity to that view.
One consideration in having a combined unit is that if the furnace should fail, you also have no hot water. For myself, I prefer the separate water heater. I didn’t know that a tankless water heater requires a stainless steel vent. If so, then it would definitely not be an option for me since my hot water/furnace “closet” is in the middle of the basement, along a joint wall. I’m definitely not interested in moving the whole shebang to another location.
Usually when they start to leak.
We got a new oil boiler last year, and our water is heated in the boiler and there is no separate hot water heater.
The installers said it would cost about the same as having a separate oil boiler and a separate gas hot water heater and turning the boiler off in the summer.
Surprisingly, they have turned out to be right.
Our total heating and hot water bill last year from Nov 09 through Nov 10 was $155 a month. This is for a three-story 2700-sf attached row house with a cellar. We started the year with a full tank of oil.
To compare, we previously lived in a second story apartment (about 900 sf for the whole floor) that was open on one side, and our bill for gas heat and a separate gas hot water heater averaged about $200 a month.
stupid question to follow: when it fails, does the water heater simply fail to heat, or does it undergo something more catastrophic? Along these lines, prior to either of the above, how do you know when you need to replace it?
ROFL.
Keep the existing water heater until it fails.
What option did you choose?
I had Richie from Sessa Plumbing here for an otherwise minor problem last month that, for some reason, I couldn’t fix. I have a 25+ year old copper core water heater and asked him if he thought I should invest in a tankless, especially insofar as I’m the only one living here so keeping a huge tank of water hot 24/7 struck me as criminally inefficient.
He talked me out of it. Besides the fact that gas prices are falling, installation costs would be very high. For one thing, I couldn’t use my existing chimney to vent it. Tankless requires a stainless steel vent, which due to the nature of the chimney would have to be run separately out the back of the house. Factoring in the cost of the heater, installation, 20+ years of gas bills, etc. I wouldn’t come even close to break-even before it was time to replace the heater.