Tank or tankless water heater

[Permanent Temp]

Hi all,

We are about to purchase a home and it needs a new water heater. My husband and I were thinking tankless as a friend of the family is a plumber and recommends it but I have been reading about tankless and I'm not sure.

Also we are at altitude (about a mile high) so I'm not sure if that contributes to which would be better.

There is also the installation, the guy at the Lowe's says the pipes will probably have to be retrofitted to 4 inch and he has never seen one installed for less than 3K but the seller got an estimate based on a tankless and they only quoted the cost as being $950 and that is what we are going to be credited for the install.

Also the friend of the family said that 4 inch pipe should not be necessary in a home but they weren't sure about the statutes in our state. I tried to look it up but I couldn't find anything statewide, but I did see something about 4 inch pipe in the ordinances for the city that the Lowe's is in but that is not the city we live in. Also the four inch pipe ordinance didn't seem to have anything to do with the water heater.

I'm all dazed and confused now. Any one who put in a water heater have any advice?

[Drake3287]

Tankless is certainly the way most new homes (at least in my area) are going. For many people replacing water heaters, it all comes down to available money for the project. In the long run tankless will save you money and is more convenient vs shelling out the added cost.

If you have a family and using a lot of hot water, tankless is another cost savings simply by the shear amount of water your using.

To be honest, with most of my kids out of the house and having a traditional hot water heater, I'd just replace the one I have and live with it for another 15 years!

[Fishindude77]

A tank type will be a cheaper install. Just hook up to existing utilities and lines. Switching to tankless will require a new 30 amp or larger electrical supply, plus the water heater itself is considerably more costly.

Good reasons to use tankless include; when space is limited, when it would require a very long run from the main water heater to fixture, or for a fixture that doesn't see lots of daily use but needs plenty of hot water when it is in use.

Allegedly, tankless style are more efficient, as they only heat when hot water is being used, however the new tank style hot water heaters are pretty efficient, particularly if placed in a conditioned space.

[bjl584]

Tankless are a great option for saving money, but they can be a bit of a pain and expensive to install especially on older homes.

It may take a while to recoup the upfront costs with one of these units.

[autoxer]

I wanted to convert to a tankless when my tank failed, but I found out the tankless style needed a direct exhaust vent to the outside, so it couldn't use the existing chimney. I didn't have much room to relocate it to the outside wall, so I just went with another tank style.

Did you get an estimate from your plumber? I wouldn't trust the sellers estimate.

[disneysteve]

We had to replace our hot water heater last year. I briefly thought about switching to tankless but just couldn't justify the cost. I'm sure the tankless would be more efficient but our gas bill last month (which includes our heat, hot water, and clothes dryer) was under $100 so how much could we possibly save? We went with a new efficient tank model.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Tankless the problem we had installing was the venting for the unit where it would go. Depends on the house and situation. we were in a condo and shared walls and space so replacement of a tankless was impossible.

[SavingSteve]

3 years ago we moved to a newer building and our water heater is tankless but frankly I miss the old tank style water heater. Yes the gas bill is lower than it was before at the old house but the water does not get as hot as we would like and we notice the temperature drops sooner than it did with the tank water heater. That being said I think it's possible that the hot water system in this townhouse was poorly designed. A lot of things here seem kind of cheaply done and it was built to be a rental.

If you can just replace the water heater I'd recommend doing that since it's simple and inexpensive, vs redesigning your whole hot water supply system.

I think tankless is a better option from a cost perspective when it's going into new construction. Not replacing a traditional water heater in an older home.

[Permanent Temp]

Thank you everyone for the input. The tank died a few days later. I had someone come look at it when I noticed it was leaking pretty badly from the bottom. They shut off the valve but it kept leaking so they had to cut off the water at the main supply line.

The plumber informed that in the shape it was in if we had used the water to do even one hot shower the thing would have blown which means that the owners were not using it before they moved out probably for quite a bit of time. They were in the house so that is kind of an icky thought. We were still cleaning and doing repairs before we could move into the place so we hadn't been using the water at all.

Luckily it was caught just in time. I opted to go with the tank, they did the install and updated the plumbing so it is now up to code.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yeah you caught the leak early!