Home owners of GFY; have any of you gone tankless?
 

For hot water.

I've been considering it lately. My old water heater is still working great after more than 10 years. Average life of them is 5-6 years so I'm way ahead of the game with it, I take the time to do the "drain off some water" trick every 2-3 months. Got a lot of extra life out of it.

But these tankless water heaters look intriguing. There would be no more worries about running out of hot water in the morning when my tenants are showering. On days when I need to shower in the morning the tank can run out pretty quick.

There are places that will only rent them. They install, then you pay a monthly fee. Other places sell them but don't specify up front just how much they cost.

Rent or buy? Anything to share about it as far as how tankless has been for you? Tips?

Anyone?

--------

I saw an article about them not too long ago that seemed to indicate a lot of people have been dissatisfied, but that the newer ones are much better than the first gen.

I'm more curious about the average life you provided above. I think that might be for the elements and not the unit itself. I've had the same hot water heater for over 20 years now and have only had to replace the elements twice, and I have very hard well water.

Florida condos have used them for years as a space saving product. I had one in a condo I rented for a couple of years worked great. No idea what the contractor charged/paid.

One of the issues you may run into is having to install a much higher KW (if electric) or BTU (if NG) Unit which will drive up the price. From your sig. it says that you live in Winterpig, so the temperature of the ground water has to be taken into account since it will have to overcome that difference (especially in winter) and still maintain adequate flow. What is nice about the tank water heaters is that you really dont have to worry about that factor since it has time to recuperate in-between. Do you have a blanket installed on your current heater? It can make a world of difference in your energy costs.

i have one. it was installed in 2010 so i don't know if they are better now but i find it takes far too long for the water to get hot. washing your hands with hot water suddenly takes forever. not running out of hot water is great though.

I didn't think about ground water. I have one in my place in Brazil and I think it is the bomb.

Great for one shower after another.
Sucks for 2 showers at the same time.

In brazil they store the water on the roof and drop it into the house so the water is pre warmed. Thus I noticed I saved a ton of $$$ versus the tank one I had. Not so sure what happens if the water is at 55 degrees. You might need a bigger unit.

Trouble is tenants will take longer showers, using more water and power.

There is a good guide here, we are one province over from him but it shows the flow rate difference from summer to winter. The flow rate drops by half.

Ground Water Temperature and Tankless Flow Rates In Ontario

My water heater is more than 20 years old and working fine so far (famous last words lol)

When I have to replace mine, I will definitely go tankless. I suffer from severe migraines and I spend a lot of time in the hot shower when I am sick. Often til it runs cold, and I just needed another 20 minutes....

Have them in a condo that gets used a few times a year. One has gone bad, was fixed and on the next trip was bad again... O well.. It's always hot in that area so a cold shower is bearable.

I have a gas tankless at my studio. Had it for 7 years.


No pilot light no more wasting gas always keeping the water warm.

Works just as good as a regular water heater with a fraction of the cost.


If you have a choice, I would always opt for tankless. save a lot on your gas bill.


Just Dave

Make sure it is installed on a well insulated wall, should be on an interior wall really, if you live in a cold climate. It was below zero for some time here and a friend's wall unit was recessed into the exterior wall, LMAO-- froze solid -- FAIL!

One little item I've heard can solve this issue is something called an autocirc. It's basically a little pump that is installed at the furthest sink from your hot water tank. It then constantly circulates hot water from itself back to the tank, so that anytime you turn on a hot water tap in your home you instantly get hot water. And they are also compatible with tankless water heaters.

By the specs the autocirc will save thousands of gallons of water per year. I can see it, because it eliminates the need to run the water waiting for it to get hot.

There's an autocirc at Home Depot for around $240, common price is around $300 from what I've been able to tell.

I've had the same tenant for over 10 years now. She and her boyfriend (when he's there) are very mindful that if the utilities start going up too much so does the rent. So they shower accordingly. They also tend to shut lights off when they're not at home, turn off fans, etc.

Very good tenants all things considered. I've been blessed.

Then again they have a very good landlord. :D

I'm mostly just parroting what the technician said who installed my present tank years ago. He's the guy who asked me if I knew about "the trick" to lengthening the maximum life of a water heater. That being to drain off a jug or bucketful of water out of the bottom of the tank every few months, which takes a lot of the sediment out of the tank to prevent buildup. I've been doing that for decades, and as I said my present tank has lasted over 10 years, closer to twelve actually.



Thanks everyone for all the great replies. Very informative. I will keep it all in mind when/if I make a move on this.

Here's a good article about some of the issues faced with the Tankless systems and some of the solutions used

http://www.chandlerdesignbuild.com/f...hbDecJan08.pdf

We just had a new water heater installed last week. The old one was 10 years old when we bought the house 14 years ago. So the tank was close to 25 years old.

We briefly considered a tankless system - but got a good deal on the new 40gal. tank, and since we're considering selling the house in the spring...we didn't want to put too much investment into it.

I have a buddy who has a tankless and he loves it.

24 years. That's awesome.

There's really nothing wrong with my existing one, I've just been thinking that I'm on borrowed time with it is all. But after your post perhaps mine has more life in it than I think it does.

Still... tankless does have certain inherent advantages.

Will check that out, thanks.

Do it.

I procrastinated for ages, I wished Id done it sooner :)

I thought you were rich CDSmith?

Tenants? Worrying about a couple dollars here and there? logging when your tenants are turning lights and fans off?

How do you even need tenants in Winnepeg? Isn't the cost of an average home there like 50,000 ?

I remember when you used to talk down to me like you were a big shot... This is hilarious

I'm probably going to change over when the heater I have goes, but my buddy just looked it over and said it has years to go.

24 years was quite good I guess - we'd gotten to the point of having less than 5mins of hot water for showers before it went cold. Good for conserving water...bad when you want to take a nice, long relaxing shower. :1orglaugh

And I'm sure it wasn't very energy efficient, either.

If we weren't selling the house - I'd have given serious consideration to going tankless.

We had a propane tankless water heater installed in our new home in 2004. It was a Bosch (I believe), around $2000. Worked great, always had domestic hot water. And, as a bonus, it also heater the floors (via radiant hot water) in the bathrooms.

But, since it was propane, the yearly maintenance costs were relatively high (couple hundred bucks per year). I'd assume the same goes for natural gas. And, if it's propane or NG powered, it HAS to go on an outside wall, for venting.

As far as the hot water circ goes: do it, if your furthest fixture is more than about 30 feet from the hot water appliance. Our kitchen sink was about 50 feet away, and it took 1-2 minutes for nice hot water to arrive.

I think here we can get them for about 350 each.

The two upstairs bedrooms could share one as the bathrooms are back to back and the downstairs bathroom and kitchen could share as they are back to back.

New house I am buliding I would need errrr. 5 of them.

I have a gas one I love it! only problem is when it breaks you have no hot water nothing not even luke warm

Its only stopped working once or twice when we first got it silly stuff, been solid for years now I think its a rinah

I am tankless with propane. Never ran out of hot water before :thumbsup

It is all they have over here. They seem to work great. Some have a power saving option so you just hit a button before you step in the shower and it cranks it up a notch.

We have had on demand water heaters in the UK for more than 30 years now. When i moved to San Diego i had a Takagi wall heater installed and cut my utility bill in half the very next month.

The size of the unit will dictate how many showers you can run at the same time, But the unit i purchased for around a grand would supply more than enough hot water for two showers running concurrently. The downside was that few plumbers in San Diego 20 years ago had the expertise to install them correctly, so if i remember correctly it cost me around $1500 to have them fit the gas unit.

Ran 16 years without a single issue. I would have one in my new house but my solar system supplies all the hot water i need for free even in -5F temperatures, as long as the sun shines :)

That's definitely something I will look at when I'm ready to make the switch.


Lots of great advice and input so far, thanks all.

Yep, the autocirc is definitely in the works here. I'll be having my new plumber do some other work for me next month and will discuss it with him at that time. It's the same for me, it takes a while for the furthest taps in the house to start running hot. That means tons of water wasted per year. Time for that to change.

good tankless water heaters cost 1200$ and 400$ to install or you can rent for 40$ a month for 10 yrs contract with some company and if you decided to cancel contract they will charge you 1200$.

We use one of these

http://www.metrohotwater.com.au/publ..._Hot_Water.jpg

It's super efficient, has cut the gas bill by half. No more heating up a full tank that's not going to be used for hours.

I have a tank/boiler and I literally never go out of hot water, I mean it can run for hours non stop. It gets heated faster than it goes out. Is your set up not optimal or something? Or is it just a case of bigger tank?

We have two of them...they are great

I rent but tankless is awesome, if its the kind that has hot water running 24/7 your electric will go way up, the one I have heats it only on use and the electric is still higher but it is way worth it bc the hot water never runs out. down side to any one is they have to be completely replaced every 10-15 years mines 6 and has had 2 leaks fixed. still worth it but other huge thing is you have to have good water pressure or you will never have hot water anyways :)

Yes, but in Florida.

For my Quebec properties, it is not cost efficient

Those are not " tenants " but roommates .....

I have many tenants, none lives with me ,,,

great thread....thanks...

I bought a brand new house last summer and they insisted on putting in a 140L water tank, unfortunately I didn't get much of a say in the matter. I'm thinking about switching to tankless tho, it's pretty weird that it's a new thing in North America, I've had it in my 65 year old house in Scotland since I bought it in 2004. It's great and does save quite a bit of money. I need to call about it this weekend to get all the info but I really do want to get it. My bathtub is pretty big and I can't really have a long bath as the water won't be enough to keep topping it up.

didn't know about that, i'll have to look into the autocirc. thanks!

Incorrect.

I have my own section of this house (I own an upper and lower duplex), she has her own self-contained apartment with a separate entrance.

Roommates share things. Like a bathroom, or a kitchen, laundry, etc.

You own rental property and don't know the difference between a tenant and a roommate?

Plenty of multi-dwelling homes and small apartment complexes have a central water heating system.

140L tank, for those that don't know, is roughly a 30 imperical gallon tank. Yes, that's not very big. I can see it struggling to fill a tub, especially if others in the house are using hot water.

And yes, I haven't heard about tankless until just recently, as in the past few years. I'll be taking a lot of what I've learned here from you guys and applying it to make a decision about this.

I see several websites that have them for under $300 bucks. That's a lot cheaper than I first thought they'd be. I was expecting more like $1k or more.



As for the tankless using more electricity, I don't really see that as a factor for me. Manitoba is a hydro-producer and exporter, our electricity bills aren't all that high. That part of my energy bill has always been in a credit mode every year, meanning I pay more than my property actually uses and end up getting a credit at the end of every year. I pay $74 a month for electricity currently. A tankless sys might eat into the credit but I'd be surprised if it put me in a deficit mode.


And yes, that's right. I live in a sub-zero climate five+ months of the year and I only pay $74 a month in electricity. That includes the tenant. It's not a typo.

I should of
 

I should of bought one instead of buying a new tank. Right after we moved in the tank needed replacing. A month after installing had a big rain storm and the power was out for several hours. Seems this old farm house was built over a spring and the sump pump always HAS to work. By the time we realized the problem the water had flooded the pilot light.
In dry weather I don't hear the pump every couple of hours I begin to worry. Don't to hear it each time, just some times. In a downpour I better hear it every 10 minutes, or it's a trip outside to the basement

Next time I definitely going tankless

Not here .... Each unit, aside from a separate entrance, have their own electrical entrance ( Hydro meter ) and by the fact their own water tank ....

I would not buy a property where one " tenant " can take all the hot water and where he is depriving the others of such a commodity ,,, aside from not being billed for it .

strange ....