VS Tanked?

Brand?

Propane or electric?

Experience…

This is outdoors related because the water comes from the ground.

If the water is hot, it doesn't need a heater....

Moved into a new home a few years ago. Tankless is great. Have one on each side of the house both on propane. Don't know the brand. It takes maybe two minutes max to heat water so it saves a lot for showers, baths, and rinsing dishes.

Capt. Augustus McCrae said:

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If the water is hot, it doesn't need a heater....

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Capt. Augustus McCrae said:

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If the water is hot, it doesn't need a heater....

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If it's sitting in the tank and it cools off from scalding hot to just hot the thermostat kicks the heater on to keep it up at a temperature where it's useful. Otherwise it takes too long to heat up to hot when you need it. Ergo, hot water heater.

If it's sitting in the tankless heater at ambient temperature that's fine because you're not using it. When you run water through the tankless it heats that water for immediate use. Ergo, water heater.

You tell me which is better. Water heater or hot water heater.

We have a Rinai burning natural gas. It's great but does require a certain amount of throughput to continue heating. If it's hot out and you want a lukewarm shower, or a younger kid is taking a shower with limited water volume/pressure, you may have to run the hot water side of a sink to keep it fully engaged. When my oldest was transitioning from baths to showers it was tough to get her to use enough water not to get blasted with cold water.

We had in our plans to install 2 traditional 50 gallon water heaters. The plumber screwed up and installed one tankless.

So far, so good. It's been able to keep up so far and from the literature consumes half of the propane that one of the 50 gallon traditional water heaters.

I have a Rinnai running on propane. Happy with it. You are limited on how hot you can set the temp (120 F), but there is an internal override switch to bump it up (140 F). I have mine set at 130 F.

I also have a Rinnai, and set it at 140. The only issue I have is that my master shower has the swing handle (right cold, left hot) and at full hot setting, it's barely warm. Plumber said that the faucet lets in cold to prevent scalding, and that type is now out of code. They want $800 to install the single handle dial type. My work around is to barely turn on the cold in the tub…just enough to get flow. That lets the shower get very hot.

The tankless still has to push cold water out of the lines, so warm up time to the faucet is the same as a tank. It does save a lot of coin on gas.

Rexter said:

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I also have a Rinnai, and set it at 140. The only issue I have is that my master shower has the swing handle (right cold, left hot) and at full hot setting, it's barely warm. Plumber said that the faucet lets in cold to prevent scalding, and that type is now out of code. They want $800 to install the single handle dial type. My work around is to barely turn on the cold in the tub…just enough to get flow. That lets the shower get very hot.

The tankless still has to push cold water out of the lines, so warm up time to the faucet is the same as a tank. It does save a lot of coin on gas.

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We had an issue with the hot not being hot enough in my son's shower when we got it replaced. My son googled up the model of the faucet and found there is an adjustment you can make to it using an Allen wrench that determines how much hot water is getting blended through.

It's much better now.

You might look into that.

Tankless water heaters only work if you have electricity back up.

Their nature doesn't lend its self to being fail safe. Sno-vid showed that. The internal 'printed circuit board' heat exchanger style of the tankless freezes pretty quick.

Dual 50 gallons work just as good and are 1/7 of the costs

If you have a generator already then this argument is moot but buying a genarator to power your water heater will blow the economic model real quick.

But do what you like.

maroon barchetta said:

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Rexter said:

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I also have a Rinnai, and set it at 140. The only issue I have is that my master shower has the swing handle (right cold, left hot) and at full hot setting, it's barely warm. Plumber said that the faucet lets in cold to prevent scalding, and that type is now out of code. They want $800 to install the single handle dial type. My work around is to barely turn on the cold in the tub…just enough to get flow. That lets the shower get very hot.

The tankless still has to push cold water out of the lines, so warm up time to the faucet is the same as a tank. It does save a lot of coin on gas.

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We had an issue with the hot not being hot enough in my son's shower when we got it replaced. My son googled up the model of the faucet and found there is an adjustment you can make to it using an Allen wrench that determines how much hot water is getting blended through.

It's much better now.

You might look into that.

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I'll second this. I made this adjustment in my master shower, and it gets plenty hot now. No issue at any of the other shower/bath fixtures.

I have a Navien tankless system in my house we built 7.5 years ago. Can't imagine not having it now that we've been spoiled by it. It is set to 140F and has a recirc pump built into it so I have hot water to the faucet/shower within 10-15 seconds.

We live out past Wellborn, so I can't speak to cold weather issues noted in above posts (other than the hard winter blast in 2020, which it never had an issue).

If you have hard water. Which most of us do. You would be well advised to install a water softener also. It will extend the life of your water heater.

skinny2001 said:

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Tankless water heaters only work if you have electricity back up.

Their nature doesn't lend its self to being fail safe. Sno-vid showed that. The internal 'printed circuit board' heat exchanger style of the tankless freezes pretty quick.

Dual 50 gallons work just as good and are 1/7 of the costs

If you have a generator already then this argument is moot but buying a genarator to power your water heater will blow the economic model real quick.

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Meh, I'm generally not basing these types of decisions around such rare events. If a tankless will save me money 99% of the time, and I'll have to go without showering 1% of the rest of the time, I can live with that.

Why not both? I have a tankless that's supplemented by a small tank. I have hot water to my master shower in about 3 seconds while the kitchen sink is furthest away and gets hot in about 5-7 seconds. It's an amazing system

Rule of thumb: I used to work in plumbing sales

If you are building a new house go with tankless

If you are an existing house and replacing tank type. Stick with tank type. (Due to costs associated with switching over)

If you are in existing house replacing tankless. Stick with tankless.

Always go gas over electric for tankless. Electric is very inefficient, unreliable, and just not up to par with gas units yet.

I've had a Jacuzzi tankless water heater for almost 10 years now and absolutely love it! Can run dishwasher, washer, and have both showers running and never run out of hot water. Changed from conventional water heater when we did a remodel and have never regretted!

New house, less than 3 years old, 2 Rinnai tankless, propane……..love them.

Natural Gas by Rheem
Loved mine until the Midland, Texas hard water kept me working on cleaning it too much.

Same here Rheem Natural Gas.

Have had both Navien and Rinnai propane / natural gas tankless heaters for a family of 6 at the last two places we've lived and both worked great. Heat water quicker and it doesn't run out.

On the Rinnai I had to read the instruction manual to figure out how to bypass the default heat limit, but aside from that no hassle.

Our Navien one has a couple circulator sensors in the bathrooms that charges the lines with hot water every hour or something like that so that we get instant hot water from the bathrooms and it also keeps the kitchen charged with hot water due to where the bathrooms are in the plumbing circuit. Those sensors install under the bathroom sinks and after having this unit installed I'd never pick anything else. Tanked heaters are for old men who yell at clouds. Though the several plumbers I talked with all warned against electric ones for performance reasons.

213 Grove said:

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Rule of thumb: I used to work in plumbing sales

If you are building a new house go with tankless

If you are an existing house and replacing tank type. Stick with tank type. (Due to costs associated with switching over)

If you are in existing house replacing tankless. Stick with tankless.

Always go gas over electric for tankless. Electric is very inefficient, unreliable, and just not up to par with gas units yet.

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So if I currently have an electric tank heater, you would not advise replacing it with a tankless when it goes out?

Tankless. If you have the $ put in two especially if you have a large distance across the house.

Make sure to Mount on the side of the house with outside access so if there is a catastrophic failure the water exists out of the house, not in. Learned from a buddy. His froze and busted and flooded the inside of his house.

normaleagle05 said:

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Capt. Augustus McCrae said:

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If the water is hot, it doesn't need a heater....

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If it's sitting in the tank and it cools off from scalding hot to just hot the thermostat kicks the heater on to keep it up at a temperature where it's useful. Otherwise it takes too long to heat up to hot when you need it. Ergo, hot water heater.

If it's sitting in the tankless heater at ambient temperature that's fine because you're not using it. When you run water through the tankless it heats that water for immediate use. Ergo, water heater.

You tell me which is better. Water heater or hot water heater.

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malenurse said:

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If you have hard water. Which most of us do. You would be well advised to install a water softener also. It will extend the life of your water heater.

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I flush mine yearly.
You can hire someone to do it, but there are plenty of videos out there on how to go about it.
It takes a little submersible pond pump, couple of hoses, a bucket, something to dissolve the mineralization and about an hour of time. No sweat.

Thanks for the responses except for the smart a$$es.

Here's my setup.

Structure- Barndominium with foam insulation.
Location- in garage away from the house
Heating source- Propane
Brand- Navien (recommended by contractor)
Culligan water softener for longevity.

How often should you get your tankless water heater looked at amd/or cleaned out? We have had ours for 10 years and not done anything, and it seems to be working ok...any experts out there?

I've had propane Rheem and Rennai with no problems from either one. Much better than the old tanks. Definitely get the stuff to flush it and watch a YouTube video. Easy and helps it run better/ longer.

JR Ewing said:

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How often should you get your tankless water heater looked at amd/or cleaned out? We have had ours for 10 years and not done anything, and it seems to be working ok...any experts out there?

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I think most say to flush with vinegar once a year. At my old house, I didn't do anything in 6 years. New house has worse water quality so I'd paid more attention.

We have had a Rinnai whole home propane unit for ten years now in a 5 person home. I flush once a year with vinegar and have not had any problems. You couldn't get me to go back to a tank after having a tankless this long. Always have hot water and never run out. Chalk it up to caring more about comfort than the financial investment side. I think people screw up by looking at their home as an investment at every corner. A home is a consumable product. If you want endless hot water get tankless. If you want a lot of hot water for a lot cheaper get a tank.

We have a Rinnai tankless and it works great. Regarding what happens if the electricity goes out for a long time during heavy freeze, I'm sure we're SOL but it works great so far.

Rinnai tankless. Two bathrooms share one, two other bathrooms share another, and the laundry/kitchen/half bath share a third. Chose the redundancy for the bathrooms in case one breaks we can still get a hot shower in the others.

Absolutely love them. Never run out of hot water. Won't go back to a tank.

Fishing Fools said:

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VS Tanked?

Brand?

Propane or electric?

Experience…

This is outdoors related because the water comes from the ground.

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If you don't already have electric, then you will most likely not have the electric capacity. I had 4 tankless electrics at my house in Houston. Each one required two 50A circuits to run. It serve 4800 square feet, including 3 full baths. I had 400A service. They were great in terms of never running out of hot water, but we were on a well, so, your temperature could fluctuate a bit. Also, in the winter, sometimes the water wasn't as hot as you would like. They have a limited capacity in terms of temperature rise vs. flow rate.

If you have gas, and you want tankless, then that's the way I would go. Not as efficient as electric, but good enough. With gas, if you lose electricity, you may still have hot water. With electric, no chance. I was on a generator so not a huge deal, but still.

I think the standard tank style is still superior. You can heat water at any time to exactly the temp you want, no temp fluctuations in short term, and if you have 4 water heaters, you are pretty much endless hot water for all intents and purposes. Plus, parts are easier to find for tank style, and if they go out, I can go to the box store, pick it up, install it, and be done in half a day max. With tank style, you arent going to get parts locally and you aren't going to find one at the box store if you have to replace it. All of them have different formats and the stub outs are probably not going to match the old one.