Gardenerd's Profile

The one negative I didn't see mentioned with tankless is the loss of emergency water storage. After going tankless, we got two 55 gal. emergency water barrels. But that isn't a big deal.

I live in Los Angeles County in a small, 1200 sqft. 1940's house. Our old 40 gal. tank water heater took up some of our limited square footage indoors, so we wanted to move the water heater outdoors. Since we were moving the WH anyways, we had a tankless installed. After living with it for two years, I would do it again. We did hire an experienced plumber that had installed dozens just like ours, and he sized the new gas line and unit correctly for our house and usage. The tankless supplies enough hot water to run at least three hot water sources at once, which is generally the most we ever use at one time. It does have a cold water "sandwich" sometimes, but that isn't enough for me to say I don't like it. It has to be flushed once a year, but that wasn't that big of deal. I would compare that to having to do regular maintenance on a car.

Ours in stalled outside so there wasn't additional costs to update venting. Our climate isn't extreme here, so it was feasible. The total cost with upgrading the gas line, adding an electrical connection to it, new plumbing, the actual unit, the skirt to hide the pipes, but not subtracting a city rebate and a tax credit at the time, came to $2800. It wasn't cheap, but we gained 4 sq. ft in a 1/2 bath and it freed up enough room for us to be able to add a tub in the bathroom, rather than adding on a whole other bathroom. It was a real space saver.

The only real downside has been power outages. Our gas tankless water heater has a electric ignition. We have had 4 power outages in the two years, and we had no hot water for showers during each outage. It was a bummer, but I would not call it a deal breaker.

If you want to see pictures of our tankless, search for "hanbury house tankless," and there are some on my blog.