Anyone familiar with tankless water heaters?

Tangwich

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#1
Going to upgrade laundry room at parents house. Getting her new washer and dryer and it's a tiny room so need to get rid of the huge water heater from the 1920's..lol.
Anyone have info or recommendations on smaller or tankless water heaters?
 

Speaker73

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#2
Just wanted to let you know that tankless is great but you must likely will need to redo some gas piping since they require higher flow. I think it was 1" diameter pipe that was required.

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#4
Going to upgrade laundry room at parents house. Getting her new washer and dryer and it's a tiny room so need to get rid of the huge water heater from the 1920's..lol.
Anyone have info or recommendations on smaller or tankless water heaters?
I've done research on them. I can't tell you much but what I can tell you is they don't have tanks!!!!
 
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#6
Installed one at my house about 5 years ago. Ran a 3/4 gas line about 30 ft to the apparatus because it is basically a mini boiler. Longer runs, larger Dow gas pipe. I have heard that is no longer necessary. Don't know. Have never run out of hot water. Can take awhile to get hot water to the opposite side of the house. I've heard the Home Depot ones aren't that good. Don't know. Purchased mine from the plumbing supply. Gas bill went down. It it wasn't that high anyway. Got tired of replacing tank water heaters every five years. If you can do it, I would say go for it
 

dontavo27

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#7
Tankless water heaters are a great choice for always having hot water. But like speaker73 mentioned, you'll have to upgrade the Gas line to 1"-1 1/4" depending on the distance from the Gas meter to the tankless. I suggest going inch& 1/4". You may want to consider placing it near the shower, so that you have instant hot water at the shower, but you can always just get a booster pump if that doesn't work.
I've installed a few my self, let me know if you have any questions, txt me if you still have my number
 

Speaker73

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#8
You may need a back up generator with tankless heather. No electricity=no hot water.
Oh yeah....I forgot that part.sucked when the power was out and had to take cold showers late at night or early mornings.

At least if you have a back up generator you can use it for your aquariums as well.

If you really want something special you can redo the plumbing into something like a closed circuit and place a recirculation pump on the pipes so that at certain times your water will always be hot. need to set up a timer on the pump though.
 
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#9
Check out Noritz EZTR40. It's designed to be an easy replacement for a 40gal tank (also made for 50's & 75's) that still works with 1/2" gas pipe, has water inlets at the top and vents exhaust through a plastic tube similar to a shop-vac hose through the existing flue pipe. Now knowing what is out ther for you, here is my view on tankless water heaters.
Tankless can definitely save space, save space and provide nearly an endless supply of hot water but they require annual de scaling (recommended with tank water heaters but practically mandatory on tankless as So Cal water is so hard) & cleaning (especially if it's installed in a lint filled laundry room) and they can be problematic with low flow shower heads & fixtures as the flow of water is what signals the water heater to turn on.
I personally had to replace my water heater 3yrs ago and could have gotten a tankless for the same price as a tank water heater but went with the tank to avoid the hassle.
 

Tangwich

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#10
Thanks everyone for your advice. It really is appreciated. After talking it over with parents and them being oldschool, we will just go ahead with the new machines and remove the cabinets which have caused many a bump on the head over the 27 years my family has been here.
 
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#11
I built a new home in 2007 and I highly recommend anyone thinking of changing to tankless have a water softener. The burner will turn the hard water to scale and plug up all your fixtures with what looks like sand. Adding a water softener fixes this problem 100%. Before we added it was way too much work, hot water not running out is great, but your water bill will go up.
 

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#12
I built a new home in 2007 and I highly recommend anyone thinking of changing to tankless have a water softener. The burner will turn the hard water to scale and plug up all your fixtures with what looks like sand. Adding a water softener fixes this problem 100%. Before we added it was way too much work, hot water not running out is great, but your water bill will go up.
How does a water softner affect the RODI? Will the rodi filter out the extra salt?

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#13
How does a water softner affect the RODI? Will the rodi filter out the extra salt?

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That's great question. I often have wondered that, myself.

However, you can put the softener right in front of your water heater, and then still have hard cold.
 
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#15
I install water softeners on the water main which will serve hot & cold but non the less, a properly working RODI filtration system takes out EVERYTHING. That's why it's no longer recommended for drinking water.
 
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#16
The water softener actually helps lower TDS and will make your RODI filters last longer. I did ask a few water experts before I purchased a system. My home was not plumbed for a Softener so I put one on the incoming water line going into the house. All water is softened, hot, cold, and even the sprinklers. I do use Potassium because of this which adds to the cost of maintenance over standard rock salt. The shower doors never get spots and I do not ever have a problem with fixtures clogging like before.
 

theMerchant

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#17
The water softener actually helps lower TDS and will make your RODI filters last longer. I did ask a few water experts before I purchased a system. My home was not plumbed for a Softener so I put one on the incoming water line going into the house. All water is softened, hot, cold, and even the sprinklers. I do use Potassium because of this which adds to the cost of maintenance over standard rock salt. The shower doors never get spots and I do not ever have a problem with fixtures clogging like before.
How does potassium compared to salt on your skin?

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#18
Neither Salt based or Potasium Salt based systems actually put salt into your water, they use a heavy brine mix to rinse out the media after so much use, the salt water goes down the drain. I can say that the water does feel funny at first and soap tends to lather up way better with soft water. I go through a couple 40lb bags of media a month, my family does not understand what a drought is:)
 
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