Tankless vs Tank water heater. Whats will last longer? I already have a high powered solar water heater.

My nephew was making a similar choice 3 or 4 years ago he went with tanked then realized what he really needed was a larger hot water storage tank for his solar heater. The new water heater sufficed. Except in the coldest part of the winter it stays turned OFF. Im not sure he really needs it then.

Jimmie

Reply to
JIMMIE
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Well, yes, no, absolutely, maybe, and I don't know.

We live in rural Utah. No natural gas lines within miles. We do have a propane tank for our stove, and an electric oven. We have two 40 gallon electric water heaters.

Heating water with propane would be prohibitive cost wise.

At the cabin, we have a gas hot water heater, bought in 1986, and still going, as we use it about three months a year, and drain it the rest of the time.

Sometimes, it is not just as easy as you make it sound. The cabin was total propane for the first six years, with propane lights, stove, hot water heater and refrigerator. Then we brought in electricity @ $22,000 split 7 ways. I don't know if I could have natural gas brought in to this property if I wanted it, and I'm sure I would have to live about 700 years to amortize the cost.

One size does not fit all, just like your advice.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

DON'T BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY!

There IS intelligent life here!

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

I have a propane tank, but am not going to use propane to heat and maintain

80 gallons of water. We bought one over a year ago (114 gal.), and it still has like 85%. The tank is an odd size, because the regs say anything over 115 gals. (or whatever it is) must be located XX feet from the house. We needed it as we got a big propane gas top Bosch. I sure like that cooktop.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

bob haller, Robert Green and rishi khanna wrote

plus a tankless in a area where incoming water temp gets low in winter can cause cool showers in winter when a hot shower is the most valuable.......

======================================================= While I suspect tankless heaters are becoming simpler and more reliable and tank heaters are becoming more complex (efficiency add-ons), my bet is still on the tank, if only for the 50 gallons of "spare water" available. We've been able to bump the setting on our tank heater to maximum during real cold spells, but it's a little dangerous because the hot comes out hot enough to scald. Still, the hotter it is, the longer the supply lasts for things like showers where you're tempering it with cold water anyway. My wife likes to wash our bed linens and towels in near boiling water ever since some friends of mine from my hippy days visited last year and appeared to have picked up bedbugs and brought them to us. Fortunately we caught the little bastards in time. So we're OK with the bumped to maximum heat setting. We try to remember to turn it down for guests. I was surprised that the monthly gas bill didn't seem to increase much at all.

Still I am sure that tankless heaters have their uses. I just don't seem to have any. I might consider it if I still did my own color printing but a tank is good enough and usually runs until it's dead and you just get a new one every 20 years or so. I remember working in a photofinishing plant where they had two long rows of tank heaters running 24 x 7 installed because Kodak had just introduced high temperature color developing chemicals that cut process time enormously. Enough to justify adding 20 new heaters and their corresponding gas bills.

From the little I've seen of tankless heaters, they are a much more complicated device and in my mind, that's not a good thing with gas appliances. I've seen gas explosions knock down buildings so I kind of like the long, long safety record of tank heaters. They've really studied the causes of water heater-caused fires and tried to eliminate them with a number of safety features.

Tankless spooks me just because the volume of gas fed to them is usually higher than to a tank heater. The larger the pipe, the more gas can leak per second. Maybe in another 10 or 20 years. I think they're inherently more efficient, but that at their current cost and frequency of repair, that efficiency is lost. I expect that will change as the designs "harden" and the best materials are found for the job. IIRC, fellow furnace makers still haven't gotten it right concerning heat exchanger material selection, at least based on some of the burn-throughs I've seen.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

I would like to see a study where they measure the amount of gas used by a conventional tank WH just sitting in a typical residential basement for a month or 2 or 3 with no water used. Just sitting there on standby. Any gas used during that time can obviously be attributed to the overhead cost of that style of design that a tankless WH wouldn't have.

And then give that number in terms of $ per month or per year based on average national NG price.

As for efficiency at heating incoming water, are tankless WH's high efficiency? As in multi-stage heat exchangers? As in condensing (ie - their exhaust gas stream is cold enough to duct out of the house with a plastic pipe) ?

Reply to
Home Guy

Except for the part about low-flush toilets reducing hot water usage... I've never flushed with hot water. The only people I know of who might flush with hot water are the ultra-eccentric, ultra-rich, and they really don't give a damn about saving energy.

Reply to
mkirsch1

Why are you asking him? You were making claims here that tankless were very inefficient compared to tank type.

Reply to
trader4

Some of the measurements done on homes that have replaced conventional hot-water heaters with on-demand (tankless) heaters have also measured the changes in total water usage. The theory being that some water savings can be attributed to placing on-demand heaters closer to sinks and kitchens where you won't waste as much water waiting for hot water to come out of the fawcet.

Those measurements of water savings can be confounded by other changes performed at the same time, such as replacing conventional toilets with low-flush versions (which of course has nothing to do with hot water usage or the type of water heater).

Reply to
Home Guy

I'm asking anyone who can answer that particular question, which apparently isin't you.

I said cost-ineffective. As in negligable cost-of-operation savings when compared to a egular heater, but with a much higher up-front purchase and installation cost, combined with higher service costs and higher rate of malfunction.

Reply to
Home Guy

One would think that those that did the study would have kept other things constant. Seems mighty strange that installing a tankless would drive people to replace toilets. You have a link to that study?

Reply to
trader4

No, you said they were inefficient period. You seem to have an inability to remember what you've posted. Here, let me help you out:

"In other words, perhaps 50% of the combustion heat of an on-demand heater is actually being transfered to the incoming cold water and the other 50% is being lost in the exhaust, while 80% of the combustion heat is absorbed by the water in a conventional tank. The difference is that an on-demand heater is on perhaps 30 to 90 minutes per day, while a conventional tank might be on for 4 hours a day. But remember that when a conventional tank is on, it's burners are using a much smaller amount of gas compared to the on-demand heater. "

Got that now? That is NOT saying that tankless is ineffective. It is saying that they are flat out energy inefficient. And of course it's wrong. And it's also why I asked why you are now asking someone else about efficiency when you're here telling us you already know that tankless are inefficient.

Reply to
trader4

The roof is yet to be finished, mainly because of sunlight and heat, it being 110 here yesterday. Yes, ideally, a solar collector would work just fine, and I could put it on top of the water drip cooling system I'm putting on the roof. But for the money, I'd rather spend a couple of months in Kauai.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Until something goes wrong with the propane truck - - - -

And in many areas, propane and electricity are a "toss-up"

Reply to
clare

i believe i could wait until the truck was fixed. i only need a refill once/year (its a big tank, and i have low usage), and there are at least

6 companies that deliver to my area. i usually call each of them to get the lowest price (why can't they just post the daily cost somewhere and save everyone some time?) because there's usually at least a $1.50/gallon spread between highest to lowest.
Reply to
chaniarts

But that's a fairly unrealistic test that doesn't mirror the usage pattern of very many homeowners. So what if it's cheaper to operate if you're not operating it? The point of owning a water heater is to heat water. I discovered when boosting the temperature setting of my tank heater that the average bill did not increase very much. In the real world, one service call for a tankless heater out of warranty can neutralize any savings attained by buying it. Tankless heaters are relatively new and my experience has been that relatively new technologies have bugs that still need to be worked out.

Don't forget that tankless heaters cost more, often require an expensive supply pipe upgrade and usually come with a much shorter warranty (that usually indicates the manufacturer's own belief - or lack of - in their product's longevity). Start stacking those costs against the fuel cost and the equation tilts in favor of tank heaters, at least from what I've seen.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

water use may go up espically if you have teenagers who may camp out in the shower, some cell phones are now waterproof.........

Reply to
bob haller

It's the mindset that's driving them.

They also bought Chevrolet Volts and eat free-range eggs (they're also vegetarians but DO eat egss because they believe in a woman's right to choose).

Reply to
HeyBub

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