Posted by stig on December 14, 2003, 2:53 pm
Robert J Rolleston brought up a good subject: Tankless water heaters..
I have had TWO good plumbers tell me that these were too "new" on the scene,
and that they were not recommended.
Anyone have any insight on these things? They seem like a great idea, but I
was told that the gas demands (when using gas tankless) were heavy, and that
other problems concerning heat were some of the problems. c
Posted by Always More Questions on December 14, 2003, 3:38 pm
stig wrote:
> Robert J Rolleston brought up a good subject: Tankless water heaters..
> I have had TWO good plumbers tell me that these were too "new" on the
> scene,
> and that they were not recommended.
> Anyone have any insight on these things? They seem like a great idea,
> but I
> was told that the gas demands (when using gas tankless) were heavy,
> and that
> other problems concerning heat were some of the problems. c
They've been used in Europe forever. They are generally about 5% more
efficient in the heating of water due to their design plus there are no
standby losses so you can save lots of money. Downside is they cost more
upfront and may create an unacceptable load on your utilities (more so
the gas ones). Additional upside is that you generally don't have to
plumb hot water.
I've always seen them as a potentially beautiful fit with a solar
domestic hot water system. Let the system crank in the btu's with no
neating element and then run it to the tankless.
For a more technical reply I suggest googling alt.energy.homepower,
alt.solar.thermal or alt.energy.renewable
Posted by v on December 15, 2003, 12:09 pm
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 12:38:05 -0800, someone wrote:
>I've always seen them as a potentially beautiful fit with a solar
>domestic hot water system. Let the system crank in the btu's with no
>neating element and then run it to the tankless.
But you could also run the solar pre-heated water over to a regular
tank. (The concept of solar preheat is independent of the concept of
tankless heaters.)
-v.
Posted by Clark W. Griswold, Jr. on December 14, 2003, 4:17 pm
>Robert J Rolleston brought up a good subject: Tankless water heaters..
>I have had TWO good plumbers tell me that these were too "new" on the scene,
>and that they were not recommended.
>Anyone have any insight on these things? They seem like a great idea, but I
>was told that the gas demands (when using gas tankless) were heavy, and that
>other problems concerning heat were some of the problems.
Tankless heaters are not new and they get brought up here about every 3 months.
The bottom line is that they cost more to install and more to operate than a
storage heater. With a couple of very small exceptions, storage heating is
cheaper.
Google is your friend: Try http://groups.google.com and search on tankless
water.
Posted by Ben K. on December 16, 2003, 9:26 pm
Wrong! Both the plumbers quoted and this guy below don't have their facts.
The europeans don't use tankless systems because they look pretty! They DO
cost more to buy (probably because they aren't common here), but save
significantly in use. There are worksheets you can use to plot your own
usage, but here is a typical set of numbers and a FAQ that dispells the
myths: http://www.eeba.org/conference/2003/presentations/Hammon_Robert.pdf
P.S. If you've ever paid the costs of having a heater leak, energy savings
are the least of your concerns.
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 14:17:02 -0700, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
<73115%2e1041%40compuserve%2ecom> wrote:
>>Robert J Rolleston brought up a good subject: Tankless water heaters..
>>I have had TWO good plumbers tell me that these were too "new" on the scene,
>>and that they were not recommended.
>>Anyone have any insight on these things? They seem like a great idea, but I
>>was told that the gas demands (when using gas tankless) were heavy, and that
>>other problems concerning heat were some of the problems.
>Tankless heaters are not new and they get brought up here about every 3 months.
>The bottom line is that they cost more to install and more to operate than a
>storage heater. With a couple of very small exceptions, storage heating is
>cheaper.
>Google is your friend: Try http://groups.google.com and search on tankless
>water.
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> I have had TWO good plumbers tell me that these were too "new" on the
> scene,
> and that they were not recommended.
> Anyone have any insight on these things? They seem like a great idea,
> but I
> was told that the gas demands (when using gas tankless) were heavy,
> and that
> other problems concerning heat were some of the problems. c