Tankless Hot Water Heaters (specifically gas)

[Ranger Digital]

brian, naw. I am a custom builder as well so we went to see the latest and greatest. CEDIA and other tech associations had a booth there. You would think they would be more active in making SURE the model home was the whiz bang of the industry. Who cares at cedia if they have a model home or not. Its the builders the HA industry must woo over, not CEDIA member. we are already woo'hed.

oops, hijacking thread, SORRY!

 

[beelzerob]

Well, just to bring this to a resolution....

I had been operating under the principle that gas is cheaper than electric, and tankless is cheaper than tanked, in regards to operating costs. Thankfully....I finally found a website that let me test that principle.

Energy.gov heating costs comparison

Just plug in your numbers for EF, $$/kwH, $$/BTU/propane, etc...all readily available stuff.

And what did I discover from this? That at current rates, running a propane water heater would be almost double my yearly operating costs vs. electric. So now the propane tankless fails on installation costs and operating costs. So I'd never "earn back my investment". Even if electric rates double, and propane stays roughly the same, it's still cheaper with electric.

So the only compelling reason now is just the "never run out of hot water" scenario. Well, pfft. We've learned to live with a tank this long, I think we'll be ok. We upped to an 80 gal tank, so we'll have plenty for our dual shower.

 

[Digger]

My experience has been different. My gas bill dropped significantly since I installed the tankless heater. Admittedly my water bill went up slightly as we take longer showers.

I bought a real cheap takless unit and I am fine with it. Had I known how much I would save I would have bought a nicer unit.

I am ahead about $700 or more already (2 years and after cost of materials etc). Maybe I will put a nicer unit in (with more controls and a little more capacity) and leave this as a backup. I can run the shower and one other source (sink or washer) but I cant run the washer, sink, and the shower at the same time. I also have to adjust the unit twice a year. My wife would not know what to do if she had to so an automatic unit might be better.

 

[brotsten]

Well, just to bring this to a resolution....

I had been operating under the principle that gas is cheaper than electric, and tankless is cheaper than tanked, in regards to operating costs. Thankfully....I finally found a website that let me test that principle.

Energy.gov heating costs comparison

Just plug in your numbers for EF, $$/kwH, $$/BTU/propane, etc...all readily available stuff.

And what did I discover from this? That at current rates, running a propane water heater would be almost double my yearly operating costs vs. electric. So now the propane tankless fails on installation costs and operating costs. So I'd never "earn back my investment". Even if electric rates double, and propane stays roughly the same, it's still cheaper with electric.

So the only compelling reason now is just the "never run out of hot water" scenario. Well, pfft. We've learned to live with a tank this long, I think we'll be ok. We upped to an 80 gal tank, so we'll have plenty for our dual shower.

Rob you are a funny guy. I told you all those things on the 2nd post, including the same link you just found!

Quit debugging CQC drivers while you are surfing the web.

Brian

 

[beelzerob]

Rob you are a funny guy. I told you all those things on the 2nd post, including the same link you just found!

Quit debugging CQC drivers while you are surfing the web.

Brian

Doh! Well, to be fair, it was the same website, but a different page, so there! That's weird. I was looking for that information for the past week.

I'm actually GLAD the agonizing is over with and I can get back to my drivers! Ahhh...no hard decisions to make there!

I think what killed this for us is the very thing we love so much about here...small towns and rural. So the market here is too tiny for cheap propane, and being rural makes it even more expensive, and no chance for natural gas pipeline where we are. That made the propane just too expensive to be viable. too bad, really. We're still getting a few 100lb tanks just for the kitchen stove and BBQ, but that's as far as it'll go.