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Post by luckymama on Apr 22, 2021 10:32:50 GMT -5
Has anyone here replaced their standard water heater with a tankless? If so, what were the pros and cons? Is there a particular model you can recommend?
Thanks for any input!
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Post by navylcdr on Apr 24, 2021 22:02:21 GMT -5
One of the cons is that it takes a little bit longer to get hot water out of whatever faucet you have open. So you will want to install something like a shower miser valve that recirculates water back into the fresh water tank until you have hot water available vice dumping a couple of gallons of cold water into your waste tanks while waiting for hot water.
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Post by WrkrBee on Apr 25, 2021 13:22:56 GMT -5
One of the cons is that it takes a little bit longer to get hot water out of whatever faucet you have open. So you will want to install something like a shower miser valve that recirculates water back into the fresh water tank until you have hot water available vice dumping a couple of gallons of cold water into your waste tanks while waiting for hot water. A 30 foot run of 1/2" PEX, contains less than 1/2 gallon of water.
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Post by navylcdr on Apr 26, 2021 14:59:02 GMT -5
One of the cons is that it takes a little bit longer to get hot water out of whatever faucet you have open. So you will want to install something like a shower miser valve that recirculates water back into the fresh water tank until you have hot water available vice dumping a couple of gallons of cold water into your waste tanks while waiting for hot water. A 30 foot run of 1/2" PEX, contains less than 1/2 gallon of water. OK. So you add 1/2 gallon of water to the quantity of the cold water that must flow through the tankless water heater before the water coming out of the water heater is hot. Just curious, have you ever actually used a tankless water heater? There is an amount of cold water that comes out of a tankless heater first as the sensing circuit first detects flow, then turns on the gas and ignites it, and then the heat exchanger finally heats up enough to produce hot water. So the amount of cold water you get out of the hot water faucet before getting hot water is considerably more with a tankless heater than it is with a hot water tank that has hot water immediately available in it. With an electric tankless water heater that delay would be even longer because of the added time the electric element takes to come up to temperature. I don't have a tankless water heater in my trailer, but I did upgrade my hot water tank in my house to a tankless water heater. The amount of piping between the water heaters stayed the same, but now instead of cold water flowing into the hot water tank and hot water immediately flowing out of the tank, cold water flows into the tankless heater and cold water flows out of the tankless heater until the unit has had time to come up to temperature.
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Post by luckymama on Apr 27, 2021 9:12:31 GMT -5
We did have a tankless water heater in our last house, and I loved it. Hot showers for everyone. (We have a family of 5, so the last couple showers were frequently cold with a standard hot water heater.) That's really interesting about recirculating the initial cold water - I didn't even know that was a possibility. Thank you!
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Post by navylcdr on Apr 27, 2021 17:18:45 GMT -5
We did have a tankless water heater in our last house, and I loved it. Hot showers for everyone. (We have a family of 5, so the last couple showers were frequently cold with a standard hot water heater.) That's really interesting about recirculating the initial cold water - I didn't even know that was a possibility. Thank you! aquaviewinc.com/rv/You can accomplish the same thing by just installing a three way valve in a hot water line with the extra "bypass" port piped back to the suction of the water pump. Put the three way valve in the "bypass" position and water from the hot side will flow back to the inlet of the water pump where it will either get recirculated by the water pump, or just flow backwards into the fresh water tank. When the water gets hot, put the three way valve back into the "normal" position and hot water will get directed to whatever the original destination (faucet) was, thus wasting no cold water into a waste tank waiting for hot water.
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Post by luckymama on Jun 2, 2021 10:32:57 GMT -5
So we got the tankless water heater and used it for the first time over Memorial Day weekend. We love it! Due to apparent supply issues, the only model available to us was a Furrion FWH09A. It's very affordable, but not the best you can get. We did experience some variability in temperature, but so much preferable to running out of hot water and taking a cold shower. Just wanted to give a follow-up in case anyone was curious. :-)
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Post by earlelaine on Jun 6, 2022 10:50:03 GMT -5
I don't see much of a gain switching from a tank water heater to a tankless water heater. With a tank water heater you can heat it using propane and electric at the same time to have cold water turn to hot water in 10 minutes. I always wait 5 minutes before I just in the shower after my wife gets out and always have plenty of hot water. I turn the water heater off after shower and the water is still hot several hours later. You still have to wait for both system to push the cold water thru the pipes before getting hot water. We have a gas tankless water heater in our house that was just the way the builder did the houses. I still have to wait for the shower to warm up. With just 2 of us we don't use that much hot water so their isn't a big electricity saving either way for us. Beside I hate gas in a house, Boom!
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