Hot water heater help?

[CityGirlintheCountry]

My hot water heater blew up tonight. Actually, less blowing up and more spewing water everywhere. At any rate, I'm going to need a new one tomorrow. I'm thinking about putting in one of those tankless "heat as you go" versions. Does anyone have any experience with one of these? The house has one bathroom, laundry and a dishwasher.

They cost more initially, but are supposed to recoup the initial cost pretty quickly. Do y'all know any horror stories I should consider?

Thanks,
CG

 

[brettnreno]

I do commercial heating and airconditioning for a living and I will tell you that the energy savings from a tankless hot water heater is great. I've put two in on each of the houses I've had and they were well worth the money. I never run out of hot water and my gas bills were cut by half at the least. If you have to get someone else to install it, just don't let them sell you any extra bells and whistles. You don't need them and it will take you longer to get a payback from the water heater.

Good luck.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Gosh, thanks, Brett!
What bells and whistles will they want to sell me exactly?

 

[MiniDriver]

I'm getting a tankless water heater on Friday, and hoping the old tank won't blow before then. A lot more expensive, but the energy savings will be terrific.

I think the important thing to consider is your water usage. We're a couple with morning-and-evening hot water needs.

Instead of being measured by gallons like in tank water heaters, tankless capacity is measured in gallons per minute. The higher your demand needs, the higher the gallons per minute you'll need.

Good luck, and let me know how it works out.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Well, hot water heater man is currently sawing away at stuff. The old hot water heater for some unexplained reason was put under an attic staircase with a tiny little door for access. There has been a great deal of cussing involved. Well... not out loud where I can hear it, but I'm sure he's thinking it on the inside. I certainly am.
The new plan is to move the hot water heater over about three feet into an accessible space. Sadly this means I am giving up half of one of two closets in the house. The plus side is that I will be able to access it without crawling through a hole not much bigger than my hips. The other plus is that if ever I am rolling in cash and redo the kitchen the way I want, I'll be able to put in two HUGE drawers where the old heater was. That will be a ways down the road though.

So, the tankless deal was going to run about $3000. A new electric job witha new pressure regulator and all the rearranging will run about $1100. Sadly, the electric one will have to win. Perhaps by the time it blows up I will be able to get the tankless version. Sad that being enviromental is so dang expensive.

I also discovered that the water wasn't all draining into the crawl space like I thought. A lot of it drained into the hall closet as well. Soaked a box of linens that hadn't found a home yet. I also get to spend this weekend pulling up vinyl floor so I can bleach under it and hopefully dry it out without mold becoming a problem. The guy said my floorboards are soaked. Yay for me.

I love my old house... I love my old house... I love my old house...
I'm going to keep saying it until everything magically repairs itself.

 

[MiniDriver]

Old Houses are a treat, aren't they?

I'll give you a report on my tankless when it's installed. It's going to cost about as much as your estimate, but as long as I'm going into debt, I might as well go whole hog.

Get a fan going to help air out/dry out soaked areas. Works better than a dehumidifier.

 

[EweSheep]

We were thinking about getting one but hubby said that he talked to some of the guys at Lowe's and they said we need a different chimney (we got a brick one) and all the other stuff I didnt think we need. We are going city gas, not electric. We only got one bathroom, gallery kitchen and washer and dryer and thats it for three of us living in the house.

Our house was built in 1939. And our gas water heater sits next to the chimney and the guy at Lowe's said we would have to rebuilt chimney, line it with metal (due to high heat coming out of the tankless heater) and make the metal chimney from the tank to wall of chimney ...totally rebuilt, you can not re use any of the pipings. So it would be too cost prohibitive for us to line the chimney and replace all metal ins and outs of chimeny and plumbings. We use PVC pipings for our water lines, which we replaced the old copper lines.

So whats the scoop on that and what kind of pipes needed for the tankless water heaters. We like Bosch tanks.

 

[Bawkadoodledoo]

maybe that hole was designed for small children to crawl through to repair stuff

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
Lowe's doesn't always know what they're doing, and I find Lowe's is expensive in the installation dept.
I don't understand why a tankless water heater would be throwing that much heat up the chimney. Sounds cost inefficient to me if this is so,

 

[Nichole77]

I have a rinai brand gas tankless water heater. It's mounted on the outside of the house so we don't need a chimney. I love it. In AZ we have really hard water that can cause sever calcium deposits inside a tank. This new heater doesn't store water and it only turns on when hot water is being used. We love it.