Quote:these things have been in use in europe for years. I was first exposed to them in 1972 in germany where they had them in their army barracks.
we americans are just slow to accept change sometimes.
Tankless manufactures like to talk about how they have been used in Europe for so long but they don't talk about how differently we live and build. Smaller homes, tankless units are installed in the bathroom, temps set on those units are set so that when they take a shower they just turn the hot valve all the way on and no cold is used. Lower temps set on tankless substantially increase their life span. It is a whole different game.
Quote:They also are not designed for very cold water coming into them. If your cold water is below 60 degrees, they probably won't keep up. They are useless here where winter cold water is about 40 degrees.
Jack you are correct! All of the tables I've seen will give you a temp degree rise & gpm produced at that rise. But they will not give you the lines' shallow burial depth can make incoming water be around 50 degrees or even lower. To put that in perspective, some tankless units that are rated for 2 to 3 bathrooms at 199,999 btu's would only give you around 4.3 gpm at the winter temperature of incoming water at each installation that you're going to encounter. Some water required 77 degrees rise. That's less than 2 flow restricted shower heads.
Tankless water heaters normally dont go trouble free/ maintenance free for 10 years.The COST it takes to repair these units when they fail, control modules and flow switches, compartment etc. Is usually 3 times the cost of a tank type repair.
Consumer reports agrees They don't recommend it as an investment the unit will need to be replaced before you recoup the cost in energy savings. Conceptually it is a good idea.
Consumer Reports
Iam thinking tankless will go the way of solar domestic water heating of the 70's. when the tax credits go south, the heater will also go south.