<p>The last few evenings when everyone is asleep, I have heard noises…went outdoors and the noises weren’t there. Thought it might be my icemaker…but finally went in laundry room where we have our hot water heater, and the thing is popping/knocking sounds going on while running. </p>
<p>So, online I am reading about how gas heaters can have sediment etc. So…I will be calling a plumber, at least on Monday. </p>
<p>If my water heater can’t be repaired, what do you fellows know about tankless heaters? Our water heater is stupidly far away from the baths in the bedroom area…so we improved the quick delivery of hot water to the bedroom wing by installing a pump that brings hot water from the tank to the more distant region of the house quickly…</p>
<p>If I get bad news on my tank, and sediment etc, flushing draining is not the solution, should we consider tankless? hanks in advance for your thoughts and experiences…I will have to look up and see how old my water tank really is…less than ten years is my guess.</p>
<p>DH installed a tankless heater last summer and although I don’t know a lot about them I do know that it saved us $$$ on our gas bills. Since it’s only the two of us and we don’t use alot of hot water, it’s been great not having to worry about running out of hot water when everyone is taking showers and doing dishes and laundry.</p>
<p>Why call a plumber just to drain the sediment? You should be able to just hook a hose up to it and drain a few gallons plus some sediment out. You can repeat this every few days for a bit to get more sediment out.</p>
<p>I wonder if McCain thinks licensure for plumbers is important. We already know he thinks it should be easy to get into the teaching profession and teacher certification requirements should be decreased.</p>
<p>I have had the Rinnai recommended to me. Our water heater has made all kinds of popping noises for years and my plumber told me when it started not to replace it just due to the noise. He explained something about how the sediment was eroding a tube inside the tank, etc. and said it wasn’t a danger, just a noise nuisance. However, I’m considering replacing because of energy savings and the fact that it would be nice if we didn’t have to stagger showers when the kids are home.</p>
<p>We’ve had a oil burner with a tankless water heater system since our house was built in 1993. We’ve only had one “major” repair, not bad for 15 years with very hard water. We have hot-water baseboard heat in the house, and this tankless heater supplies the hot water for everything - domestic and heating system. We live in Massachusetts, and the house stays as warm as we want it to all winter with this system.</p>
<p>Plusses & Minuses -
Plus: we never run out of hot water. A bunch of people can take showers in a row, then run the dishwasher and then the washing machine with no worries. </p>
<p>Minus: in the winter, if the heat is on and more than one person showers at the same time, both people end up with tepid showers. It’s not an issue in the summer.</p>
<p>We’ve just addressed this issue, as we need to replace our furnace as well.
Our resolution was to forego the tankless in favor of an gas fueled indirect water heater system. The water heater acts as an additional zone in our baseboard hot water heat system, there is only 1 pilot. Check it out. Our system is by Triangletube . com.</p>
<p>I appreciate these responses. Thank you! We probably will need to extend some heat to an unheated sector of our basement…and so, I should find out if we should consider water/baseboard there…and using this time to extend heat via tank perhaps as an option. </p>
<p>we will be going to only two people in the household as my last son is a senior in high school so the comment that the tankless has less issues with fewer people in the house is of interest.</p>
<p>we will look into the draining it ourselves route…I have seen all sorts of odd things online re sediment and or damage to inner things from sediment…I thought Consumer Reports just dissed tankless–must look that up…but will examine further for our purposes…our actual water tank may still be in good shape…but we have some renovations ahead that is we DID have some renovations ahead until the financial crisis…goodbye to so much of our retirement, home equity is now doubtful in our depressed city, and hello to losses to second son’s college account…</p>
<p>There are two kinds of tankless hot water heaters. We have the kind that was installed in 1994 when we built this house and is actually part of our oil hot water heating system…no separate hot water heater. </p>
<p>However, there is another kind that is very energy efficient, but more expensive to install. It is a stand alone kind that is “on demand”, has a reserve tank and is typically run by natural gas or propane. DH says that they are not oil run.</p>
<p>My husband says that since you have gas, it will be more energy efficient in the long term to get the new tankless type. It will be more expensive to install, but it is an “on demand” system. Some of them do have a smaller reserve tank. It is not a large storage tank like your current one. They also don’t burn out the way your current one might at some point (happened to us at a previous house).</p>
<p>Thumper,
Is your tankless system the type where the hot water coils run inside the furnace? Do you have a delay for hot water in the summer, when your heat system is not being used?</p>