The water heater in my house just bit the dust and needs to be replaced. I currently have a 50 gallon conventional water heater (gas). I like the idea of tankless for a smaller size and better on-demand hot water. Are tankless water heaters worth it? Any idea what kind of price range I’m looking at to have one installed? Or am I better off staying with a conventional tank water heater?

No idea on your questions, but we've had tankless in our last 2 houses.
Love it, apart from no hot water if there's no power.

Also, kind of depends on how populated the area you live in is. I had problems with mine about six months after it was installed and found that my regular plumber and many other plumbers in our area do not work on or install them. Real pain in the butt.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
No idea on your questions, but we've had tankless in our last 2 houses.
Love it, apart from no hot water if there's no power.

Is yours an electric water heater? Or do tankless water heaters run an electric pump, even if they are gas?

Our conventional gas water heater was on its last legs and apparently to replace it the new code required an entirely new vent system at huge expense. It was the impetus to install a tankless water heater.

Looked around and also found a plumber who was experienced with their installation, through a friend.

Went with a Navien with a buffer. We loved it in our previous house. Only maintenance was to flush it every six months. The delay to hot water was no longer than the old one and the worry of running out was gone.

Have a look around on line and you can contact Navien for approved installers.

Tankless is worth it for gas not electric.
Tried to do thankless but we are all electric and cost of new electrical circuits was prohibitive.
Shame as I really wanted to go that way.

I installed my own about 6 years ago, a gas Rinnai. The unit was right around a grand and doing the install myself only cost me around 100 bucks for some black pipe, copper, and PVC for the vent and intake. Trouble free so far and the space saving was much nicer than anticipated.

I just had (2) gas tankless heaters installed a month ago. Because of the layout of my house I have 2 water heaters. 1 for kids bedrooms/showers and laundry and kitchen and one for guest bath/shower and master bath at opposite end of house. I paid $5700 all in. the heaters were about $2300 each. The rest was parts and labor and removal of 2 old tanks. And running gas line the length of the house. They are Rinnai RE199. I regret I never looked into these decades ago. Unlimited hot water. We have had all 4 people showering at once. We have the heat set to 140. Master bath has a soaking tub wife loves it as it’s actually usable now. With the old tank heater it would run cold before the tub filled. And 2 teenagers that can now 20-30 minute showers. God knows what takes so long. You can literally turn it on hot and leave for the day and it will still be running burning hot.

It does need a bit of electricity to kick on when you flip the water. We do have a whole house generator. During last hurricane, my street was out of power for 10 days. Next door neighbors who already had generator and gas tankless installed were letting other neighbors shower and do laundry.

Best Improvement we have done dollar for dollar on any home we have lived in.

I probably shouldn’t talk about it, but I will. My brothers and I completely renovated my house @ 20 years ago. I purchased and installed a Bosch Aquastar tankless gas water heater 18 years ago. I believe I paid around $500.00 for it at the time and have had absolutely no problems since installation. To say the least it’s worked out great for me.

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Originally posted by ElToro:
And 2 teenagers that can now 20-30 minute showers. God knows what takes so long.

Yes, He does.

My gas unit has been in for close to ten years and never a problem. I consume far less gas as well, not having to keep an 80g tank hot all the time. And I have generators, so power outages are no issue. Go for it and don't look back.

We went gas tankless about three years ago. Installed simple battery backup to run the system if we lose power. Would never have another house without it.

Installed a Stiebel electric myself about 14 yrs ago.
Best thing I ever did.
You must keep in mind your water hardness/ condition is critical.

Find a reputable installer of Navien or Rinnai heaters in your area and get a quote.

I have had a Navien NPE-240A since 2014. No issues, dealer installed

I would definitely advise a filter and if your water is hard a softener before any tankless.

Our first house we put in a Navien. Loved it.

This house came with a Triangle. Endless water but outdated and no spare parts.

We replaced that with a IBC 199, and it is even sweeter than the Navien.

quote:

Originally posted by Phred:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
No idea on your questions, but we've had tankless in our last 2 houses.
Love it, apart from no hot water if there's no power.

Is yours an electric water heater? Or do tankless water heaters run an electric pump, even if they are gas?

Both gas, but electric ignition
Rinnai at our old house, don't recall what we have here.

^^^That’s good to know about electric ignition. Probably easy enough to overcome with a battery and small inverter.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Tankless is worth it for gas not electric.
Tried to do thankless but we are all electric and cost of new electrical circuits was prohibitive.
Shame as I really wanted to go that way.

We’re going electric, but it’s new construction and the heater is going to be close to the electrical panel, so short wires.

The only real benefit of electric tankless is space savings, which with no basement is nice. It might save $50 a year in electricity.

With three teenagers, my wife and I have yet to run out of hot water in Florida. We have a hot tub, so we aren’t filling baths. We have run out in Michigan though. The difference is the in coming water in Florida is 75+ degrees while the well water in Michigan is 55 degrees.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:

It does need a bit of electricity to kick on when you flip the water. We do have a whole house generator. During last hurricane, my street was out of power for 10 days. Next door neighbors who already had generator and gas tankless installed were letting other neighbors shower and do laundry.

Best Improvement we have done dollar for dollar on any home we have lived in.

We have LP and did have the 50 gallon water heater, during the hurricane season power out for 4 days with the generator working we had hot water, when it took a hit back in 2015 I installed the Rinnai RU98 condensing tankless heater.

Since we are in Florida I moved it outside the garage since the LP gas was already there, connected a 110 power source and it's been great, unlimited hot water. IT also freed up a lot of space inside the garage as well, we eliminated the tank exhaust when we put on a new roof.

A few things to consider when going tankless, one is power source, NG, LP or Electric, NG is generally least expensive, Electric the most. We saw significant cost decrease over the normal LP 50 gallon storage unit after the tankless was installed, close to 50% less use.

Temp Rise - the colder your base water temp, the further the heater has to go to get it up to the temp you want.

There is a lot of good information at Rinnai's we page.

Link

I love my Rinnai! I'd never own a tank again...unless it had to be electric.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

We’re going electric, but it’s new construction and the heater is going to be close to the electrical panel, so short wires.

The only real benefit of electric tankless is space savings, which with no basement is nice.

It might save $50 a year in electricity.

I wish we could have done it, wish we had new construction ~ would do it in a heartbeat.
It would have required an whole new service upgrade from out 150 AMP service, then run the new circuits plus the cost of the device.
It was going to cost $10 ~ $12K, but even if they were overcharging and it cost half that much ~ still wasn't feasible.
I just put in another 50 gal as I did 20 years ago, the first one I did for $300 or so and this one was around $750.
Still I was dreaming of a tankless but just couldn't make it happen.

gas Rheem owner here... love it. Self-installed which required upgrading the existing gas line from 1/2" to 1". Luckily that was a very simple job given the set up of my house and where the gas enters versus where I needed it to be.

Installing the unit itself wasn't bad... the vents out the attic were the most hassle.