Hey everybody, contemplating getting a tankless hot water heater.  My house has a little over 4000 heated sq ft....2000 on top and 2000 in the basement.  It takes about a minute or 2 for my hot water to reach our bathroom.  The heater is located in the garage...its insulated.  And the bathrooms are on opposite end of the house from the water heater.  So, we waste water waiting for it to get warm every day!  I want to stop that waste.

I don't have much knowledge about tankless hot water heater and quite a few are on the market.  I'm wondering if any friends hear have one?  If so, what are the dos and don't about them?  I want to keep my current water heater.  I just want my tankless one to just supply hot water for the bath rooms which are all above and below each other.  Understand?

Any recommendations?

Dennis,

I have yet to install one, but I've been doing some research as well. I have narrowed it down to either a Bosch or a Rheem.  Even with the tankless water heater, if you have the same distance to the bathroom as the tanked water heater it will take just as long and as much water for the heat to arrive. 

I will be installing two, one in place of the old tanked heater and a second in the garage under the master bath. The water lines for the garage unit will rerouted to only supply the master and not affect or be affected by the rest of house. For me this also requires adding a gas line and burner vent to the garage.  With the drastically shortened distance to the master bath with the second heater, I will have hot water nearly instantly.  The water will be traveling 10 feet or less vrs the 50 feet it travels now. 

It's a lot of work but it will be worth it. 

Thanks Scott, I'm thinking of placing the unit in my bedroom bath room right above my toilet.  I met a guy at the parking lot of Lowe's.  He said Rheem was one of the best out there and most folks are just adding them to their current house keeping the old heaters in.  Hammy, I really need to get on of these.

How are you planning to hook up the supply and feed lines?  Take all the drywall off the one wall? 

You need to rerout a supply line into the heater then split the feed line between the the sink and shower.  That's basically impossible without removing the drywall.... in most homes anyway. 

My next door neighbor has one and loves it. He says it saves money because it only heats water when water is being used. Probably pay for itself over time

Our house has a Rheem tankless water heater, installed about 8 years ago.  Our model can produce enough hot water to simultaneously run 2 major source and 1 minor source (for example, 2 showers along with kitchen sink).  I really love it.  But there are definitely pros and cons.

Pros:

• Never runs out of hot water  <-- #1 for me
• Saves energy as there is no water reservoir that needs to be constantly heated.
• Because there is no water reservoir, there is minimal corrosion, so the tankless should last longer than the traditional style.

• It will not take less time for you to get hot water, since there is no reservoir it will take about a min for the water to get hot.
• The computer chip in the waterheater broke on us.  But it was covered by warrenty, so we had it replaced without cost.

Dennis:
Look into one of these recirculating pumps. Our home is 3200SF and when we moved in about ten years ago, found one of these pumps already installed. Ours is located right at the water heater on the line coming out of the heater. It has a timer on it so that you can set what time you need the hot water instantly, like in the mornings when getting ready for work. I kid you not, there is about a one to two second delay before hot water is coming out of your faucet anywhere in the house. It looks easy to install. Check it out

http://ca.grundfos.com/products/find-product/COMFORT%20System.html

Yes, Circulating pump is a must for the water to stay hot and ready for use any minute. You also need (for that kind of sq footage) 2 tankless water heaters.
We changed out WH to Tankless and are very happy. Same as my cousin, the installed 2 Tankless one on each end of the house WITH circulating pump.

I've had a tankless water heater for about 7 years now and do highly recommend it, but, not sure it's going to get you your hot water much quicker.  The tankless heater takes a few seconds after turning on to start providing hot water since, unlike a regular water heater, it's not storing hot water.  However, once the hot water is flowing, unlike a regular water heater, you NEVER run out of hot water.  The reason I love it is because when I had the regular water heater, I could never get my jacuzzi tub filled with hot water.  Before the time the tub was full, the water was running cold.  That problem was SOLVED with the tankless heater.

Just be aware that the more hot water you need at one time, the bigger the unit you'll need.  For example, if you just want to take a hot shower for 12 hours a day, you can use a smaller unit and never run out of hot water.  If you want to take your 12-hour hot shower WHILE doing a load of dishes AND while doing some laundry, etc., then you'll need a bigger unit.

I hope that helps! ;)

My brother had one in his old house. Like MnMsm...said, they do have a lag time to get hot water. It is a recurrent lag time also if intermittently using hot water, like in the kitchen every 5 or so minutes. I'm not sure if they have good electric ones or not, my brothers was gas and for gas you need a really large diameter exhaust vent pipe to handle the heat from the BTUs required by tankless heaters. Which means the tankless heater needs it's own dedicated vent(unless that has changed in the last 5 yrs?).

I have never used a recirculating pump, but if it functioning like I think, wouldn't that sort of make a tankless heater into tank heater of sorts; with the pipes acting as a tank/reservoir?

Some Cons about tankless here :

. Few suppliers keep parts because technology in them change too fast
. Not popular but gaining. Many regretted as they are not size correctly for their needs.
. Most makes states they have to be service by a professional yearly otherwise warranties voided.
. They leak just like any other Hot water Tank.
. Generally Need a larger BTU intake. Hence new gas line needed.
. Fewer tech's are trained to handle them.
. New vent line if it is a high efficiency unit.


The Pro's :

. Going green
. Savings on long term especially if price of natural gas goes up. This is not likely as price of oil keeps dropping.
. Save space.
. Likely a rebate incentive from utility company -- they have this scheme here. Attracts few due to high cost.

I have a tankless water heater in my 1000 +/- sq ft townhouse. It's great but I don't think that is what you are looking for. I think you are looking for an electric unit that is mounted under the bathroom sink.

(point already made! :) )

I installed one in my house a about ten years ago.  the technology of them has been changing.  If you have a well or spring water I suggest you don't get one.  The minerals in the water harden to the inside of the pipes.  So every couple of months I had to pull it apart and put it on a closed loop and run vinegar through it for about 12 hours to demineralize it.  Also the one I bought was activated by water pressure to turn on the flame, so every time the water pressure dropped below forty pounds of pressure it would spit cold water out till the pressure built back up.  so this is not ideal when taking a shower.  Also like someone else mentioned after four years things started breaking and had problems getting parts for it.  It was name brand bosch.  I finally gave up after eight years and installed the new hot water tanks that are compressors. There are devices that you can put on your hot water supply, that put cold water back into the cold water pipes until the water gets warm

wow, man you guys rock! Man, y'all got me thinking!

Dr Leon, I purchased a an auto cir about 10 yrs ago but never installed it because I don't have a power source under my sink but I can solve that problem. Here are 2 photos of the one I got. For those who have the auto cir, why did you opt for tt plus a tankless heater?

Dennis,
make sure your circ is not a loud type otherwise you might want to install  (preferably outside) somewhere that the noise won'y reach you.

Greenguy. I was wanting to get one till you made your post about well water. Whick we have. Our water heTer need replaced because all the mineral deposits. The get filled up in 10 years. Get real heavy. So little pipes .. not good

Hi Dennis:
There you go. That should work! Different make than mine but it also has a timer on it. Trust me, instant hot water anywhere in the house. In our home, we have our timer to go down at about 10:00 pm and back on at 5 am when the house wakes up. You will still get hot water when the timer is off but it will take the usual 2-3 minutes to feel hot water come through the line. It is very efficient. The only thing you need to remember is if ever there is a power outage, you would need to reset the timer again.

Dennis,
  The circulator pump doesn't have to go under the bathroom sink.  It can be placed near the hot water source (tankless or otherwise).  You would just need to run a small return line from some point in the plumbing near the bathroom that is farthest away from the heater, and then back to the circulator pump.  If you have a 1-story house with a basement (which sounds like what you described), then it might not be too hard for you.
  Another option is a "point of use" water heater...which is like a whole-house tankless water heater but is much smaller and is typically installed under the sink where you need it.  However, if you want it for a bathroom sink and shower/bath, perhaps you can get a beefier one and install it in the basement underneath the bathroom floor...inline with the hot water supply to that bathroom.
Cheers,
Jim

The posters above pretty much covered what I was gonna say.  I have had a Rheem electric for two years, I love it.  I got mine off Amazon for about same price as traditional hot water heater.  Was an very easy install, But I did need to get a 60 amp breaker for the small RTE 13 unit, our house is about 1400 sqft.

I can not run dishwasher at same time as shower, but small price to pay and you get use to it.

Don't expect hot H2O faster unless you mount it in the bathroom, kitchen, where ever you need it.  Endless hot water, but the longer you run it, the more electricity it consumes.  

See post #17. That is why many makes specify "annual service" -- blockage is a real issue. My friend 
replaced 2 commercial rated 3/4" Bosch tankless for a restaurant that was supposedly sized by Bosch
for their commercial dishwasher. Unable to cope volume needs. Small elec tankless are popular in Singapore,
Malaysia.

Look for "On Demand hot water recirculator pump". This type system uses your existing plumbing lines. It takes the cool water from your hot water line and puts it back into the cold water line. The pump runs for just a minute or two instead of for hours like standard recirculating systems.

here is more explanation    http://www.jamescitycountyva.gov/bewatersmart/RebatePrograms/OnDemanHotWaterRecirc/WaterRecircFAQ.html

here is one company http://www.chilipepperapp.com/

This is Tank and as far as he's concerned all heaters are Tankless
 

Dennis, I went tankless about 13 years ago and will never go back.  My house is piped up so that the water takes a bit of time to arrive at the furthest tap from the water heater, but I also have flow restrictors.  Mine is a whole house sized Bosch.  Depending how how your house is piped, it might work out better to get two smaller ones, e.g., one for each area, or each floor of the house to minimize the distance the water has to travel to get to the tap.  They do this in Europe -- small sized tankless water heaters right in the bathrooms and the kitchen.