Water heater recs please

[paulsharvey]

Didn't read through, but saw the insta-hot talk. I'll share my experience and also what I've heard. I've installed two or three thankless, electric systems; one set in a small charter school; what a joke, complete crap. One we installed 20 years ago at an eye surgery place, and it provided boiling water on demand, I'm guessing to sanitize tools, but it wasn't a customer type install. Generally what I'm told; If you have natural gas available, tankless is a no brainer, cheap, saves money, and works very very well. Electric, won't save money, and won't be happy with performance. Propane, if your already hooked up, they work well, but you won't have the cost savings over piped gas.

Many places also have rebates, tax benefits, cheaper service connections, if your changing a conventional to gas tankless

 

[BlueKnife]

When we did our installation recently, our plumber told us that the new units were all electric start. Maybe there are still a few pilot models, but they aren’t common.

FWIW, I just checked through the installation instructions for 8 different randomly selected gas water heaters at Home Depot. Only one required an electrical connection.

 

[Hay Dude]

Here’s my dynamic duo

 

[ultrarunner]

Current home has original gas fired 1993 water heater...

It also has a return loop with a small pump.

What I noticed is I use more gas with the circulating loop on 24/7

It works well to save water because hot water is at the tap immediately.

Without the circulating pump the water takes s long time to get hot.

Maybe missing something but recirculating loop isn't about saving energy...

 

[etpm]

Whichever way you decide to go, take the initial install charges like larger gas line or running wire with a grain of salt. Those "extra" charges may pay themselves off in a very short time. Unless it's special circumstances like digging and running very long lines. IIRC, the wiring needed to install our HP water heater was 10', so not much $$

I would need to run 60 feet of wire. So wire cost could be substantial. I may need a sub panel too but I'm not sure about that.
Eric

 

[2manyrocks]

Current home has original gas fired 1993 water heater...

It also has a return loop with a small pump.

What I noticed is I use more gas with the circulating loop on 24/7

It works well to save water because hot water is at the tap immediately.

Without the circulating pump the water takes s long time to get hot.

Maybe missing something but recirculating loop isn't about saving energy...

Recirculating loop has always been a premium feature to have hot water nearly instantly available anywhere in the house.

 

[newbury]

Current home has original gas fired 1993 water heater...

It also has a return loop with a small pump.

What I noticed is I use more gas with the circulating loop on 24/7

It works well to save water because hot water is at the tap immediately.

Without the circulating pump the water takes s long time to get hot.

Maybe missing something but recirculating loop isn't about saving energy...

Is it extremely well insulated? Or does it just act like a radiator that has been stretched out?

 

[drumminj]

Recirculating loop has always been a premium feature to have hot water nearly instantly available anywhere in the house.

An alternate approach is to install your water heater in a central location with short runs to the critical areas. This avoids the waste heat/energy of circulating your hot water.

We did both in our build -- plumbed (but didn't connect) for a circulating loop to the master that would trigger the pump based on a motion sensor, but also placed the water heater centrally vs out in the garage. Also insulated all hot water lines.

For showers, it's worked out that there's no need to hook up a recirculation pump. It's about 15s until the water is flowing shower-hot. I do wish the vanity sink warmed up faster, but we also ran dedicated 20A circuits there for an insta-hot if needed.

We hedged our bets as best we could (and probably wasted a decent amount of $$$ in the process), but I'd say that central placement of the WH got us 85% of where we wanted to be.

 

[4570Man]

Is it extremely well insulated? Or does it just act like a radiator that has been stretched out?

They’re typically not insulated at all. The point is the convince of having hot water faster. They waste energy by having to heat water that you’re not using. They also have a small electric pump which the energy draw from that would be insignificant.

 

[Hay Dude]

I would like to have one of mine up on second floor in a overflow pan, to shorten the wait for HW, or I go with circ pump.
I’m selling soon, so it’ll be someone elses baby anyway.