Water Heaters

[Fatter than Joey]

My electric water heater is on its deathbed. I will need a new one -- Here are my options as I see it -- Any input?

 

1.) Gas Tank -- My basement has a problem with ventilation -- I got a quote from a local Lennox guy and they said it would cost a lot of money to get the gas properly vented up to code -- plus I am not very comfortable working with gas, as I would be with electric.

 

2.) Gas Tankless -- They cost 1000$ and same ventilation problems.

 

3.) Electric Tank -- This option I am most comfortable with, but I am not looking forward to lugging tanks in and out of our basement by myself (I live in a rural area so installation will be costlty). Plus, if possible I would like to find something a bit more efficient.

 

4.) Electric Tankless -- I hear a lot of bad things about the stability of these machines... plus I think that they require 40 amp breakers, which I assume (in my old house) would require me to put a new panel in.

 

5.) Point of use -- Currently we have 2 places in our house that use hot water -- the shower/bathroom (just one in the house), and the kitchen sink. This is the most intriguing option to me, I was thinking of buying perhaps 2 units (one for kitchen, one for bathroom), the units cost about $150 or so -- does anyone have experience with these?

[brucrustu]

when we replaced our old 100 gal gas heater at our farm with three gas tankless we saved alot of propane.

So much that our propane guy accused me of having someone else top off the tank between his trips.

 

In home the tankless take time to get hot water. They advertise instant hot but it's not. The flow has to turn the burner on, then the burner has to get hot, then your water gets hot. It can take sometimes ten seconds before water at the sink is full on hot, even longer if your a long way from the heater. The advantage is you'll never run out of hot because it can keep up to big flow rates.

 

We have rinia(sp?) at the farm and Noritz at my folks house.

 

The Noritz is supposed to have a higher quality copper in the heat exchanger, according to the guy selling the Noritz

 

That being said I like tankless.

[Fatter than Joey]

are the three tanks in the same place? or placed throughout the building -- how are they vented?

 

Thanks!

[JimH5]

We had a Rinnai tankless gas (propane) heater installed in our house when we lived in Jacksonville, FL.

 

It was mounted on the outside, so venting wasn't an issue. Not sure if you can do that in Wisconsin--though temps in Jacksonville did get down to +15 F on some winter evenings.

 

Loved it, except that it required extra piping, and it took awhile (and water down the drain) for the hot water to get to the furthest taps.

[Fatter than Joey]

I have another question --

 

I can buy a gas WH tank for ~$400

 

I can buy a power-vented one for about ~$800

 

I understand the power-vent ones you can vent out with PVC pipe which is pretty easy.

 

How do you vent the non-power vented ones out of an old home?

[whizkid]

Normally up the chimney. How is your furnace vented and how old is the house? Here are some considerations.

 

Edit: Here's a good thread.

[brucrustu]

The three are together at the farm in an almost industrial setting. We need to fill an 80 gal tank with 172 degree water three times in an hour, three times a day. This is for washing the pipeline that carries milk from the cow to storage.

 

At my folks home they have a big ranch with an exposed basement. They chose to have 1 tankless heater on each end of the house. Total of two heaters.

It's a 5 bedroom 5 bathroom home, so family can all come home for occasions. They wanted to have plenty of water flow even at highest use times.

 

A normal home with normal use will only need one heater.

 

Companies use differnt vent-intake combos. The rinia uses a setup that is basically a pipe inside a pipe. intake on the outside and vent inside.

It's basically pvc.

 

In an old house I would want a good plumber to set it up. I know a good Noritz guy if your interested. I can pm you his digits.