First off. Thanks in advance.

We have a home with 4.5 baths. 5 Kids. Electric hot water heater 50 gal tank. Wife is tired of cold showers. Got a bid for 10k gas tankless. My question is how reasonable is this estimate? Want the largest and best one I can get. Thanks for advice and suggestions in advance.

quote:

Originally posted by 1flynDO:
First off. Thanks in advance.

We have a home with 4.5 baths. 5 Kids. Electric hot water heater 50 gal tank. Wife is tired of cold showers. Got a bid for 10k gas tankless. My question is how reasonable is this estimate? Want the largest and best one I can get. Thanks for advice and suggestions in advance.

Why would you want to heat hot water?

Hey, someone was going to say it!

I checked Lowe's site. seems the one I would choose for your demand level starts at a little better than $1K.

These are pretty common in Germany.

My experience is with smaller ones for lofts and mountain cabins, but I can vouch for the awesome ability to have 'unlimited hot water' (as your power supply and budget allows).

I like long hot showers that can drain a regular tank system with ease. I also like not having to care about whether or not I'm washing clothes at the same time, and so on.

Best thing since sliced bread.

$10,000 for a tankless water heater because your $500, 50 gallon water heater is too small? I'm certain you can get a properly sized high efficiency (uses 1/3 The electricity of a regular electric water heater) installed for around $3,000. I bought a standard 80 gallon water heater from Home Depot for $1,200 with the parts I needed. A plumber gave me a rough estimate of $400 to have it installed.

I installed my own about a year and a half ago, a 199,000 btu Rinnai and have been nothing but happy with it. I paid $1289.00 for the unit and a couple hundred for the misc plumbing and venting I needed. Install for me was pretty involved because of placement but wasn't a big deal. The space savings and improved appearance in the utility room was a huge bonus for me too. 10k sounds on the high side but hard to say not knowing what you'll have involved in getting gas line to the unit.

Everything Mark said.

Our local gas utility gives a $350 rebate for the purchase of the tankless unit. Your's might have one too.

I put the same Rinnai capacity heater in as Mark (RL-94iP) only difference is no NG here, propane only.
With the exhaust, and a few misc. parts I've got about $1500 into it.
My water heating needs are less than yours, but $10K seems a bit high, unless your completely running new water lines also.

$10,000 for the whole job?

The current WH is electric, you say. Is the heat all electric? Do you have gas on the property?

Are they talking about a new NG gas line from the street or setting a propane tank? Ot is there already a gas line in the basement?

You can put two water heaters in series. We had that setup for a while and never had problems with running out of hot water. Now that it’s just my wife and me, one of them is bypassed and off.

quote:

Originally posted by 1flynDO:
First off. Thanks in advance.

We have a 5 bed, 4.5 bath that had two 50 gallon units in the attic. We removed those and installed two gas tankless units (Rinnai model R75LSe, outdoor mount), even though the installer thought one would do, just take longer to get hot due to travel.

Both units installed were $2520 for the heaters plus $1100 for the labor = $3620 installed, back in May of 2012.

I'd say $10k for one is a tad high.

quote:

Got a bid for 10k gas tankless

1) I'd get some additional bids.
2) hard to say if the price is out of whack without the details ~ could be there is a lot of difficult prep work, get another bid and compare.

$10k seems very high, unless you have no gas lines (or large enough lines) to the property. Venting for a gas tankless system is also critical, so that may be some of the bid, but like others have said, I’d get other bids if you’re sold on tankless.

Had tankless in previous house, but not in current house. Prefer immediately hot water at the tap, which is very difficult to do with tankless, as they don’t work well heating recirculated hot water.

Current house has 5 bedrooms, 7.5 baths with two clothes washers and two dishwashers. I run two 50 gallon tanks with recirculating pump. So when you turn on any tap (even furthest from tanks), you have immediate hot water. Have never run out of hot water with this system, which cost $3.5k

In my view, tankless is for smaller properties or usage.

Good luck whichever you choose!
Take care, Steve

Love our tankless water heater (gas), but I think you need to get additional bids

I love my tankless water heater. My wife is queen of the half hour shower. It has drastically reduced my energy costs but I also switched from electric to NG. $10,000 sounds really high.

I bought the biggest one at Home Depot online last year and installed it myself. I have zero plumbing experience. Tgebexusting tank heater was already plumbed for gas but the line was too small to support the new heater. Had to run 1” line from my meter but it was a very easy job as the meter is on an outside walk of the garage and the heater is on a perpendicular inside wall in the garage. About 30’ of pipe and a few turns was all it took. The air intake and exhaust was more difficult due to access but not bad either.

If you can manage an exterior mount one it gets much easier. No intake or exhaust. In hindsight it may have been even easier to use an outdoor unit right at gas meter and run new water lines to the heater. That pex stuff is easy.

It was $1000 for the heater, $50 for a clean out bypass valve kit, and probably $200 in parts between the new gas line and the big ole pvc pipes for intake/exhaust and related stuff.

Dumb question but I have recirculating loops for instant hot water.

Can I use tankless upstream of a 50 galllon (or maybe smaller) tank? Tank is ok for me except when multiple people want to take baths. Wondering if I can use a tank and tankless in series to get instant hot and unlimited hot water.

$10K is obscene. I would have laughed and walked away.

Total price of mine, installed by a licensed plumber, was $1600 which included changing to a larger gas line. I bought the unit and parts on Amazon and saved quite a bit from buying from my local propane company (almost half price).

I started laughing and had to walk away. I told my wife no way.

quote:

Originally posted by CoinRoller:
$10k seems very high, unless you have no gas lines (or large enough lines) to the property. Venting for a gas tankless system is also critical, so that may be some of the bid, but like others have said, I’d get other bids if you’re sold on tankless.

Had tankless in previous house, but not in current house. Prefer immediately hot water at the tap, which is very difficult to do with tankless, as they don’t work well heating recirculated hot water.

Current house has 5 bedrooms, 7.5 baths with two clothes washers and two dishwashers. I run two 50 gallon tanks with recirculating pump. So when you turn on any tap (even furthest from tanks), you have immediate hot water. Have never run out of hot water with this system, which cost $3.5k

In my view, tankless is for smaller properties or usage.

Good luck whichever you choose!
Take care, Steve

Tankless is absolutely designed for what the OP is looking for. It makes endless how water.

That being said, $10k sounds awefully high, but we don't know the specifics of the install. Here in South Florida Rinnae makes an outdoor unit that you simply mount on an exterior wall and no ductwork or any of that needed for it. You simply run gas lines to it, a water supply line and the hot water line ties into your hot water supply to the house. There is one in a vacation rental house I manage and it's worked flawlessly for the past 3 years and never been touched. But without knowing where it's being installed, how far gas lines have to be run to it, and ducting and everything else, it's impossible to say if the estimate is reasonable. I'd say get a few estimates.