<p>Our furnace guy was out today and pointed out that not only is our furnace inefficient, but the water heater is operating on borrowed time (not surprising). He likes Rinnai tankless water heater systems. I’m wondering whether anyone has experience with these systems and what you think of them. We would like to have a little familiarity with this type of water heater before meeting with the sales guy this week. Thanks!</p>
<p>If you lose your power, you’ll lose your hot water. After Sandy, that would deter me from considering a tankless system. If you often lose power for days at a time, that’s something to consider.</p>
<p>We will be getting tankless when we replace our hot water heater. Since we have a well, we lose water when we lose power so that is a non-issue (and why we have a generator). </p>
<p>I have no familiarity with this brand, but my husband says these tankless are great!</p>
<p>I spec’ed Rinnai for a house years ago because the owner was a big fan. Haven’t heard any complaints from him!</p>
<p>We have a tankless water heater at our beach cabin. </p>
<p>Pros: The hot water comes on quickly and is plentiful.
Cons: The hot water only goes to one function appliance at a time, so two people cannot take hot showers simultaneously. This is a big downside for us as I’d like to be able to have the washer and dishwasher going at the same time.</p>
<p>That said, it’s been a good choice for the cabin.</p>
<p>I recently had to replace my water heater and very reluctantly went tankless. (I basically had to for reasons too complicated to explain.). I was very worried about the capacity limits, but so far that hasn’t been a problem; hot water is plentiful enough for multiple showers to be running at the same time. What I wasn’t expecting is how long it takes for the hot water to reach the master bathroom; the water has to run for several minutes before it gets hot. </p>
<p>Having unlimited hot water is a real luxury. But It’s doubly hard to get my daughter to limit her showers to reasonable lengths!</p>
<p>All in all, I wouldn’t have incurred the extra cost for a tankless if I could have avoided it, but I’m generally satisfied with its performance. I’ve only had it for a couple of months, however.</p>
<p>Thank you all for responding. The issues you raise are all of concern to us so it’s good to know about them. Mathmom, your no-news is helpful, too. </p>
<p>I always hate embarking upon these major household decisions!</p>
<p>You might want to refer this - </p>
<p>[Are</a> Tankless Water Heaters a Waste of Money? | GreenBuildingAdvisor.com](<a href=“http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/are-tankless-water-heaters-waste-money]Are”>Are Tankless Water Heaters a Waste of Money? - GreenBuildingAdvisor)</p>
<p>When you look at reviews, consider whether the reviewer is talking about an electric tankless, or a gas tankless. I understand that owners with gas tankless are much happier than electric ones. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC</p>
<p>GladGradDad, very good article. Thank you.</p>
<p>We have a gas tankless. I’m wondering if ours isn’t hooked up correctly. Nottelling: What brand is yours?</p>
<p>Oy. Owing a home is a PITA.</p>
<p>We have a gas tankless heater.</p>
<p>Pros: we never run out of hot water, no matter how many showers are going at the same time. I have a large garden tub that I use daily and it’s great not to have to wait for the water to reheat.</p>
<p>Cons: It is not an ‘instant’ hot water device. It can take the hot water quite a while to reach our sink (or other faucets) first thing in the morning.</p>
<p>And, yes, it doesn’t work if power is out. Something I didn’t realize until after my husband had it installed.</p>
<p>Overall, I like it much better than our previous gas tank heater.</p>
<p>Another option might be solar. I’ve explored this option because it has - still? - gets tax credits (some from the state). They use extremely efficient tanks from Germany and an auxiliary heater.</p>
<p>There are also now heat pump water heaters.</p>
<p>I wish I could do geothermal. I know someone who did it for a small development. It was expensive but he sold the units at a premium. They had to drill, couldn’t lay a pipe loop in a field.</p>
<p>We looked into this last year when we needed a new water heater.
Tankless was enough more expensive that the energy savings would never cover the cost.
Tankless offerings from our plumber didn’t solve the two minute delay in getting hot water to my bathroom sink, since it’s a long way from the water heating source.
Tankless offerings at the time all had the “cold sandwich” problem, where when the instant capacity rn out and water switched to the backup tank, cold water was sandwiched between hot water sources.</p>
<p>To Op: I can say we considered it. For us, the cost to install elec and exhaust plus cost of system VS. savings was a ROI in about 16 yrs.
For us, not worth the changeover.</p>
<p>There’s also a point of use tankless that’s fits under the sink. [Point</a> of Use Water Heaters](<a href=“http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/catalog/servlet/ContentView?pn=KH_BG_AP_WH_Point_of_Use&storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053]Point”>http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/catalog/servlet/ContentView?pn=KH_BG_AP_WH_Point_of_Use&storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053)</p>
<p>Last time we installed a new gas water heater (several years ago) - we explored getting a tankless one (gas) - there was some issue with installing the necessary exhaust which was either not going to work or was going to be prohibitively expensive. As it was, the new water heater being installed in the identical location to an existing one, needed a chimney liner and an overflow pressure thing to meet code that the old heater had not needed.</p>
<p>We installed a Rinnai tankless in a vacation home a couple of years ago and it has been wonderful for that application. I’m not sure it would be worth it for our primary home. The payback on these water heaters is long and if your usage patterns call for hot water on a regular basis throughout the day the savings may not be that great.</p>
<p>The reason it works so well for a vacation home is the pattern of usage: long periods where it would be inefficient to heat a big tank of water punctuated by spikes of usage where we might have 10 people all taking showers within an hour. While it does take the system a while to heat up with the first call for hot water, not having to stress about leaving the next person to a cold shower is a nice luxury.</p>
<p>OP here. It’s very kind of you all to note your experiences. I hadn’t heard of tankless water heaters before yesterday. With your input I now have a pretty good grasp of their pros and cons. Thanks again.</p>