ampsucker
Platinum Member
two more thoughts on the recent posts.
in europe, my experience is primariy in france and germany. france is 80% nuclear with a much more up to date electric grid. their utility costs are actually cheaper than in the USA. i believe the main driver for tankless units in most of europe is the space saving feature. they can be mounted high up on the wall with no loss of floor space in the typically small apartments and converted houses. any apartment in a major city in europe is going to be very small by american standards and they do everything they can to save space.
in europe, they also use tankless water heaters to heat their radiant room heaters. this is a nice system if installed all at once, but very expensive to retrofit. and when it doesn't work, you lose room heat AND can't take a hot shower or bath. bummer.
in short, i don't believe the european model is a good comparison to the US and you shouldn't base your decision on that without considering the motivation. if you are building a small house and need to economize space, then tankless may make more sense.
on the point of having unlimited hot water, i can almost guarantee this will be abused in a home with teenagers. having a finite hot water supply is the best way to limit infinity showers. ;-) a tankless unit may (and most likely will) RAISE your utility bill.
of course, they do make tankless water heaters with remote controls, so you could just cut them off in mid squirt so to speak....
but then YOU are the bad guy, not some faceless, nameless hot water heater sitting in a dark closet that just runs out of hot water without malice...
on the point about a tanked system using small amounts of energy all day long, i just don't see it. our new tank heater does not come on at all during the day when no one is using hot water. i pay attention and you can hear the gas kick on. it takes several days of no water use before the well insulated tank loses enough heat for the burner to engage if no one is using it. it is a 12 year warranty, 50 gallon, 40,000 btu unit from lowes. GE is the brand.
if you go tank, get the nicest one available. it will have the heavy duty tank and burner system, two anodes and the thickest insulation.
i know tankless is the current trend. i just think you should carefully think through the pros and cons. i couldn't make the numbers work for anything else in our application. high initial investments and long payback times terminated all other options.
of course, i think the CFL bulbs are also a misguided fad that will do more damage to the environment in the long run and don't have the claimed payback and so i do not favor them over LEDs and plain old incandescent.
but, alas, that is another rant for another post. ;-)
amp
in europe, my experience is primariy in france and germany. france is 80% nuclear with a much more up to date electric grid. their utility costs are actually cheaper than in the USA. i believe the main driver for tankless units in most of europe is the space saving feature. they can be mounted high up on the wall with no loss of floor space in the typically small apartments and converted houses. any apartment in a major city in europe is going to be very small by american standards and they do everything they can to save space.
in europe, they also use tankless water heaters to heat their radiant room heaters. this is a nice system if installed all at once, but very expensive to retrofit. and when it doesn't work, you lose room heat AND can't take a hot shower or bath. bummer.
in short, i don't believe the european model is a good comparison to the US and you shouldn't base your decision on that without considering the motivation. if you are building a small house and need to economize space, then tankless may make more sense.
on the point of having unlimited hot water, i can almost guarantee this will be abused in a home with teenagers. having a finite hot water supply is the best way to limit infinity showers. ;-) a tankless unit may (and most likely will) RAISE your utility bill.
of course, they do make tankless water heaters with remote controls, so you could just cut them off in mid squirt so to speak....
but then YOU are the bad guy, not some faceless, nameless hot water heater sitting in a dark closet that just runs out of hot water without malice...
on the point about a tanked system using small amounts of energy all day long, i just don't see it. our new tank heater does not come on at all during the day when no one is using hot water. i pay attention and you can hear the gas kick on. it takes several days of no water use before the well insulated tank loses enough heat for the burner to engage if no one is using it. it is a 12 year warranty, 50 gallon, 40,000 btu unit from lowes. GE is the brand.
if you go tank, get the nicest one available. it will have the heavy duty tank and burner system, two anodes and the thickest insulation.
i know tankless is the current trend. i just think you should carefully think through the pros and cons. i couldn't make the numbers work for anything else in our application. high initial investments and long payback times terminated all other options.
of course, i think the CFL bulbs are also a misguided fad that will do more damage to the environment in the long run and don't have the claimed payback and so i do not favor them over LEDs and plain old incandescent.
but, alas, that is another rant for another post. ;-)
amp
Oh well, hindsight's 20/20 eh! 