Water heater advice

[Rob_Roy]

Hard water is tough on appliances, but tankless water heaters REALLY don’t like it. Budget and space permitting, a water softener would be a nice upgrade for the entire house.

Back to the water heater - a mixing valve (sometimes called a tank booster) will help with capacity. I have one on mine, the tank is set at 140F and the tempered water is 120F.

 

[awguy]

How hard is the water in your area? And how often do you have to flush it?

Never. The whole house is on a 14 stage water filter good for about 10 years.

You can flush it or replace heating elements just like a regular water heater because the bottom 3/4 of the tank is a regular water heater.

 

[awguy]

How did you get the gas hooked up? I would need to get a gas fitter involved to handle the gas disconnect/connect, at which point, it's almost the price of just having them install it.

I've done electric hot water heater replacements myself, such as at the cottage (ran all the wiring for it, red 240V), but gas isn't something I'm comfortable touching inside my house.

No gas. It's all 240volt.

Almost always it's in heat pump mode using about 1/4 the electricity of a regular electric water heater. If it ever happened where a bunch of people took a shower one right after the other, then the regular water heater coils (2 of them) would kick in.

Through the touch screen or app on your phone you can make it heat pump mode only or regular water heater mode. The default is both with priority given to heat pump mode.

This water heater is maybe a foot taller than a regular water heater because the top part is kind of like your fridge working backwards.

Warmer air going in is nice for efficiency and can be piped in if you want. Cold air gets pumped out but not enough to cool a room. You could pump it outdoors if you want. It also acts a bit like a dehumidifier. If your air is very humid you may need a small condensation pump too.

 

[PandaBear]

Thanks for all the input so far, so there's no consensus here yet, LMAO!

On the question about the water quality, it's pretty hard, which I suspect is what is crusting up the inside of the current unit. It's leaking from where the drain spigot connects to the tank and I'm afraid to touch it, lest it completely lets go. The tank before this one "let go" and there was a fun water feature in my basement.

On the placement, regarding a hybrid unit, yes, it's in the basement. House is hybrid heated with a heat pump and gas (heat pump is cooling the house as I write this).

Both gas and the electricity are reasonably cheap. Going electric here would not get me away from gas, since I still rely on it for heating when it's below -5C. Electric heaters are considerably less expensive however.

I did look at the electric tankless ones, but they requires 3x 50A breakers and 300A service

The guy that did the assessment, they sell Woods, which are Canadian units. The ones they install for Home Depot are Rheem.

You can't get consensus because depends on location people will have different opinions, as well as what people value other than finance.

I have had Rheem, some lasted 17-20 years, some lasted 5, it almost seems like the locations that last longer keep lasting longer regardless of what brands I buy and those last shorter keep lasting shorter as well. The main factor I see is how close is the dryer vent to the heater and the dryer exhaust seems to be very corrosive. Hard water doesn't really make a huge difference to mine. I have no problem with Rheem and I have no problem with Bradford White (spelling?) either. I'd just whatever I can easily get with the longest warranty.

300A means electric tankless is out of consideration. So it is really tankless gas, heatpump electric, and regular tanked gas. Heatpump electric IMO do take some time in recovery from what I heard, but you probably can use it for dehumidification in the basement as well. You probably can think about that as a bonus. My opinion is tankless gas doesn't really save much in idling a tank of hot water and today's idling during vacation in my home area only cost 0.5 therm / day, and if you use it daily it really is a trade off between lower investment lower risk (with hard water or other uncertainty forcing you to replace it earlier), assuming you have no need to upgrade your flue / exhaust sizing and gas line sizing, and the 0.5 therm a day that "may be heating your house as a side effect so it is not wasted".

You probably can do the math and come to an obvious conclusion which one is better, and if they are about the same just buy the lower cost one and use the savings to invest.

 

[KrisZ]

I’m had a 199k BTU unit in my house in CA.
There are essentially two drawbacks as far as I’m concerned.
1. You and your family will need to learn to open the hot tap fully first and wait until hot water starts flowing.
2. It takes considerably longer to get hot water compared to a tank. Mind you this was California, in Canada, winter time, I’m sure it will be even longer.

Annual descaling is super easy and I don’t consider this a huge deal.

But once these units get going, you truly get an endless supply of hot water.

Also, a 199k BTU unit will not save you on the gas bill because of the wait times and because of its size.

 

[BornSlippy]

We had a new gas fired water heater put in two years ago. Briefly considered tankless but it just doesn't make much sense financially for our use case.

My inlaws had one briefly, and it was not a good experience. They had it a couple months and had it replaced with a tank. The output of water volume would modulate depending on the incoming water temp. It was trying to shoot for a target output water temp, and would modulate the flow of water through the unit. Taking a shower was an interesting experience. Hot then cold hot then cold hot then cold.

This was a number of years ago I would imagine they have been improved.

 

[Hohn]

What's your water like? People here claim tankless water heaters don't last long here due to the minerals making deposits inside. There are cleaning procedures that apparently can be quite involved. Might check that.

This is a critical question.
Your local water quality will be hugely consequential to your experience.

Tankless can be quite effective. Or it can be disaster. Your local water quality and the presences of upstream conditioning (softeners/filter) etc will often decide which it is.

In my part of Indiana, we have quite high mineral content so I went with a Rheem tank-style heater that uses natural gas. It's been a very nice upgrade from the prior unit and seems pretty efficient overall.

I really like the "hybrid" units that allow smaller tank sizes by using a slightly oversized heating element closer to what a tankless might use.

The spec you want to look for is the "FHR" and pick the highest ratio of FHR to tank size. So if you have a 50 gallon tank with a 150 gallon FHR rating, that's 3:1 and quite good.

The higher the FHR/tank ratio, the higher performance the heater (IMO) because it delivers the necessary water quantity without relying upon massive tank size to do it.

Obviously, a tankless has the "perfect" ratio of FHR to tank size (infinite), but a smaller tank with a good FHR can be a very effective middle ground between tankless and traditional tank.

The "traditional tank" has gotten a lot of upgrades as it occupies the shadows of its tankless cousin getting all the attention.

 

[Sequoiasoon]

What is the heat source the gas is doing? Forced air or hot water baseboard?

I have hot water baseboard as many around me do. I have a SuperStor indirect water heater that is basically a heating zone. Tank is very well insulated and I do not run out of hot water. 4-6 people in house depending school, lots of wash, long showers.

 

[OVERKILL]

What is the heat source the gas is doing? Forced air or hot water baseboard?

I have hot water baseboard as many around me do. I have a SuperStor indirect water heater that is basically a heating zone. Tank is very well insulated and I do not run out of hot water. 4-6 people in house depending school, lots of wash, long showers.

Forced air gas.

 

[Geekhead]

So, my (not a rental) 15 year old hot water tank is weeping. I've suspected it was on its way out for a while now, since, despite being 50 gallons, it runs out of hot water pretty quickly. I got a consult from a well known installer (handles the Home Depot contracts) and he recommended a huge (199K BTU) tankless unit, which is about 3x the price of a high efficiency power vented gas tanked unit (what I have currently).

HOWEVER

I also, due to the storm damage, now have 200A service in the old Century home and the electrician put in a 240V breaker for an electric hot water tank on the chance I went that route in the future.

House is ~100 years old, one kitchen, one bath, though we plan on adding a second bath at some point. We do lots of laundry, dishwasher runs daily.

Anybody have experience with this, and which way did you end up going? My wife is keen on the tankless option, but I'm less keen about spending that much money without there being a very clear advantage to doing so.

Since I use the same Lake Ontario harder water as you I tend to get the longest (9-12year) warranty old school tank water heater I can buy. Hopefully quality of build is there but who knows these days. You will get 15-20 years out of it and overall running costs are about as inexpensive as you can get. As you know only about 1/3 of the gas bill is actual gas used so don't think you will save much gas by chasing efficiency of operation. It is all about initial purchase/install and lack of maintenance costs till it leaks again.

 

[CarLuver]

seeing i just helped a friend change from a tank to tankless, i would say it depends on if you are diy or paying someone . a gas wh and gas tankless are almost the same price these days if sized for the same use. I have installed plenty of electric and gas tanked and its not too hard . i have installed 5 tankless with freinds and as long as there is big enough gas its just plumbling and venting . these days venting is 2 or 3 inch pvc for the high effeicncy ones.

he bought the tank for $1000 and misc parts for $250 . this job probably be charged $5k to $6k . took us 7 hours

i put a tankless paloma in my home in 2007 . still working to this day . we have good water in our area though .

 

[OVERKILL]

seeing i just helped a friend change from a tank to tankless, i would say it depends on if you are diy or paying someone . a gas wh and gas tankless are almost the same price these days if sized for the same use. I have installed plenty of electric and gas tanked and its not too hard . i have installed 5 tankless with freinds and as long as there is big enough gas its just plumbling and venting . these days venting is 2 or 3 inch pvc for the high effeicncy ones.

he bought the tank for $1000 and misc parts for $250 . this job probably be charged $5k to $6k . took us 7 hours

i put a tankless paloma in my home in 2007 . still working to this day . we have good water in our area though .

I'm not a licensed gas fitter, so I'm having to pay somebody to handle the gas component, regardless of what direction I go here. I can, and have, done electric tanks myself, and I'm comfortable doing electrical work, but not gas.

 

[CarLuver]

I'm not a licensed gas fitter, so I'm having to pay somebody to handle the gas component, regardless of what direction I go here. I can, and have, done electric tanks myself, and I'm comfortable doing electrical work, but not gas.

on a gas tankless there is jsut one connection for gas. if you already had a gas water heater , and don't really need to move the location too far, the connection is already there. Just need to vent it out with the correct tubing and water plumbing.

This is the one we did. there are a couple of details that i need to correct, but it works as it should

 

[CarLuver]

This is it

 

[OVERKILL]

This is it

View attachment 285480

How many BTU is that? the one that was recommended was 199K and needed an upgraded gas line from the wall (it's 1" at the wall, but necks down for the hot water tank feed).

I'm currently leaning toward just direct swapping what I have for a Bradford White with a 10/10 warranty (parts/labour), as it's about half the price of a tankless, at least from the outfits I've looked at here locally.

 

[CarLuver]

199

Most of my experience is that many companies charge twice the price for a tankless swap , even though unless its moving across a room or something , most of the stuff is right there .

$6 to 10K USD is not unheard of in my area for a conversion .

 

[KrisZ]

on a gas tankless there is jsut one connection for gas. if you already had a gas water heater , and don't really need to move the location too far, the connection is already there. Just need to vent it out with the correct tubing and water plumbing.

This is the one we did. there are a couple of details that i need to correct, but it works as it should

A 199k BTU unit will need the supply gas pipe upgrade to a larger one, so you can’t just use the existing gas connection from the tank.

 

[OVERKILL]

199

Most of my experience is that many companies charge twice the price for a tankless swap , even though unless its moving across a room or something , most of the stuff is right there .

$6 to 10K USD is not unheard of in my area for a conversion .

Yeah, he quoted me $6K. Tank replacement with the 10/10 warranty is $3100.

 

[SOUNDMAN5000]

My story...
A few years back my old (1996) 80 gal electric hot water heater started doing whats yours is doing so I called to get some quotes. I was given many suggestions from the tankless ( My Main Panel box is limited so $$$ to upgrade power ) I considered tankless Natural Gas ( my house does not have gas but its at the street ) Lots of trouble and time involved.
A few contractors suggested smaller 50 gal, one guy suggest (2) 50 gal (was a time 80 gal was hard to find or the only option was a big 80 gal hot water heater that had a heat pump on top but lots of space like a garage is required for that , My existing heater is under the stairs in a closet, Is 80 gal as I have a garden tube and at the time a big family so I had to have 80 gal and one that would fit in the closet!

After some research I decided on the ( it was a 75, 80 or 85 gal I can't remember ) Marathon Brand Hot Water Heater!
It has a (poly tank) and a great warranty so less chance of leaking and NO RUSTING!

A few years back it was $2,400 installed ( More now i'm sure )
I did not originally go through Home Depot as I called the install Company direct but when I asked do you offer any 0% he asked if I had a Home Depot Card ( I did ) He was able to do 24 months at 0% so I paid $100 a month and it was paid off in 2 years! PERFECT!!!! Still working great and I noticed my old 80 gal was warn to the touch this Marathon is cool to the touch!

I was very happy with my choice and is still working PERFECT!
Look into the Marathon!

 

[walterjay]

My story...
A few years back my old (1996) 80 gal electric hot water heater started doing whats yours is doing so I called to get some quotes. I was given many suggestions from the tankless ( My Main Panel box is limited so $$$ to upgrade power ) I considered tankless Natural Gas ( my house does not have gas but its at the street ) Lots of trouble and time involved.
A few contractors suggested smaller 50 gal, one guy suggest (2) 50 gal (was a time 80 gal was hard to find or the only option was a big 80 gal hot water heater that had a heat pump on top but lots of space like a garage is required for that , My existing heater is under the stairs in a closet, Is 80 gal as I have a garden tube and at the time a big family so I had to have 80 gal and one that would fit in the closet!

After some research I decided on the ( it was a 75, 80 or 85 gal I can't remember ) Marathon Brand Hot Water Heater!
It has a (poly tank) and a great warranty so less chance of leaking and NO RUSTING!

A few years back it was $2,400 installed ( More now i'm sure )
I did not originally go through Home Depot as I called the install Company direct but when I asked do you offer any 0% he asked if I had a Home Depot Card ( I did ) He was able to do 24 months at 0% so I paid $100 a month and it was paid off in 2 years! PERFECT!!!! Still working great and I noticed my old 80 gal was warn to the touch this Marathon is cool to the touch!

I was very happy with my choice and is still working PERFECT!
Look into the Marathon!

View attachment 285485

This is what I have in my house. Ours is electric. It is tied into my geothermal system which produces the hot water.