# on demand hot water heaters



## farmgal (Nov 12, 2005)

my new home is up. Soo happy! Debating on the type of hot water heater. I have free gas with the line going in to the house in summer, not yet. Would like any info about the "on demand" wall hung hot water heaters. Possibly get en electric and gas type. One that can do both, as there are times our free gas may freeze in winter. I have a wood stove as alternative heat, just in case. 

Also going with hot water baseboard heat, any suggestions on a brand?

Any reviews or recommendations? thanx


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

A gas boiler with a hot water circuit would be my choice. Just less to maintain


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## Bentley (Jul 10, 2008)

Ross is right, especially in light of the free gas. May I ask how you are able to swing "free" gas? Gas wells on your property maybe?

My grandparents had several gas wells on their 80 acres, and part of the row agreement was for free gas to their home. It was an old home built around 1915, so their was no insulation, yet my gramma kept that old house around 80 degrees. She used nat gas for everything, including her fridge. 

This sweet deal ended when they passed on.

Good luck

B


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## Micheal (Jan 28, 2009)

Just a word on "On demand water heaters". While at the NYS fair back in Aug I happened upon a booth pushing them. While the heater was impressive so was the cost - $2800 for a stripped down model but only $5500 for the do everything one....... oh, that was installed and checked to be operational.
Don't know bout you but my electric water heater sure looked a lot better than what they were offering........
But then, if'n I was getting free gas....... hummmm the ideas could really be flowing.


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## Coloneldad5 (Dec 6, 2011)

I have just finished building my new home on my homestead. I went with the tankless water heater. It saves money in that you are not heating and reheating the same water. It is also a lot smaller. You don't have this big thing taking up a lot of space.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Micheal said:


> Just a word on "On demand water heaters". While at the NYS fair back in Aug I happened upon a booth pushing them. While the heater was impressive so was the cost - $2800 for a stripped down model but only $5500 for the do everything one....... oh, that was installed and checked to be operational.
> Don't know bout you but my electric water heater sure looked a lot better than what they were offering........
> But then, if'n I was getting free gas....... hummmm the ideas could really be flowing.


Check home depot and lowes, they sell them for $400-$800. 
My cousin has one and it works well. The only thing is you have to wait a bit for the water to warm up, but that is a small price to pay.


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

You have to wait for the hot water to get through the pipes no matter which type you use so I'd say it's a wash... HA! Get it, a wash!


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

If you have free gas, why worry with fancy nancy complicated systems?

Install a regular natural gas hot water heater, and be done with it... the simplest, most cost effective system there is... If you have the free gas.

I'd be figuring out how to keep the gas lines from freezing up. Put a drip tank in the lowest part of the gas line... have methanol on hand for warming up gas lines (very dangerous)... if you see a 'frozen' spot on the line, there's some sort of constriction... fix that and your troubles are over.

Bentley.... really should read the original gas lease... a lot of companies will 'bluff' folks out of their rights. If it's in the original lease, they can't legally do it.


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## farmgal (Nov 12, 2005)

yes, free gas and royalties came with my property. I had many applications to fill this summer, took 6 months to really get the legal permission to hook in, even tho it was hooked to my other home. Its just all kinds of legal hoops to jump through, its an old lease with the property. 

Texican, I do plan to insulate the problem spots (regulator). Running that line is next years project. Its at least 1600 foot away... the old line was done poorly.

I dont like waiting real long for my hot water, maybe on demand isnt good idea then. I found them online for $300 and up. 

I'm really happy, My DS15 and I did most the electrical and it passed the initial inspection. Altho, we did put all the plugs in and can lights so they work, not supposed to, but he said its ok, he didnt care. Building inspector came today and gave me the thumbs up for the insulator company to come in and insulate.

They start friday, said takes 3 days. They were 1/3 of the price for me to buy the materials, and they do all the work. Pink insulation, baffles and plastic. I get energy star money back later. They leave and its ready for drywall. 

Friday I go pick out my siding color. Roof is 29 gauge steel with charcoal color. 

Even tho we have codes here, every inspector was so lenient. they really didnt give 2 cares about anything I did there. Building enforcer said its over kill and looks great. Then invited us to see their home. Electrical inspector barely looked at anything, just wanted hard wired smoke detectors. No big deal. He came a few weeks ago for nothing and gave me advise I needed, which they arent suppose to do. I like small town hospitality. Any time I call the inspectors, they are there immediately so the next job can begin. And no inspections here for inside plumbing, just septic and leach field. 

Thanks for the replys


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## gobug (Dec 10, 2003)

Cheap tankless water heaters are available, as mentioned. (~$200 for small versions on Ebay just now) 

I am no expert, but this topic has been a long time interest to me. 

My lady bought a high end version for $2500. It takes 90 seconds for the hot water to go from the basement to the 2nd floor. Once the cold water is gone from the pipes, the hot water supply is endless. Our prior gas 50gal tank heater had faster hot water delivery at the start.

The variation in price has an impact on the hot water supply rate. In other words, if you have several hot water demands, the low price versions may not be adequate for your needs.

In our house, the old washing machine is the major hot water consumption. Although we like long showers, there are only 2 of us. The kitchen uses small volumes in comparison. The dish washer, although run daily, is also a small user.

Consider: 
(1)multiple low-$end tankless water heaters may be placed near the points of your consumption, like one in the laundry room, one near the bathroom, and one under the kitchen sink. That eliminates hot water piping if not already present.

(2)with free gas supply either hydronic heating or water baseboard heating could heat your house as well as the water. Most of those systems, though, use large water tanks, so maybe the tankless water heaters are not plausible. Still, if it were possible, individual tankless water heaters could be placed for individual rooms.

good luck
gary


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## rancher1913 (Dec 5, 2008)

if you have hard water stick with tank heater---if you have naturaly soft water go with the tankless heater.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

We have a $500 Takagi propane 'on demand' unit, and in my opinion, it is not all its cracked up to be. I suppose we are saving some money on propane, but there are some issues with it that make it a bit of a hassle...

It is a combination gas/electric unit, meaning it uses propane for the fire and a small amount of electricity to run the 'computer brain'. Like others have said, it takes a good amount of time for the thing to actually start producing hot water, and the computer seems to have a difficult time dealing with the changes in pressure, depending whether the water pump is kicked on or not... End result is a very uneven temperature range, its either too hot or too cold... Pretty annoying when youre trying to take a shower and it goes from too hot to lukewarm, back to hot, etc. I am going to install a small electric water heater in line, AFTER the on-demand unit, therefore there will always be a small tank of hot water ready to go, any water taken out of the electric tank can be replaced by the on-demand unit. (oh, and I will install a switch in a convenient spot so I can turn off the electric unit when we are going to be gone for long periods of time.) 
All in all, its more complicated than it needs to be, and installing a standard hot water heater probably would have saved me needless aggravation and expense. Now if you all have a gas well, by all means the simplest solution would be a standard gas fired tank water heater.
Good luck! And congratulations on getting your home closed in! I've been working on my place since 03 and STILL aint finished 100%!.


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## andyd2023 (Jan 13, 2012)

When we built the new house in 2007 we installed a Rinnai tankless water heater. 
So far it is working great and last year in North East Texas we used 75 Gal of propane for the year!
But I agree with the others here that say go for the simple solution.
You have free gas ( Wow) 
I would install a standard 30 Gal gas water heater and be done with it. 
Andrew


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

For the life of me, I could never understand the logic of hardwired smoke detectors! What good are they if the grid is down for a couple days, due to a blizzard/storm?

Last time I lived in Park Service housing, they had hardwired smoke detectors... and my 'style' of cooking included lots of smoke (roasting chilis on the stove top, cooking homemade tortillas, etc...) after the third ear splitting alarm, I jumped up, grabbed the blankety blank thing, and tried to pull it down... reckon the maintenance guy remembered me from the previous year, and screwed it down solid... got a chair and pryed it off the ceiling.


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## Ed Norman (Jun 8, 2002)

texican said:


> For the life of me, I could never understand the logic of hardwired smoke detectors!


Maybe it will work when the battery is dead in the other one, and versie vicie. Have one of each, or more.


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## wharton (Oct 9, 2011)

texican said:


> For the life of me, I could never understand the logic of hardwired smoke detectors! What good are they if the grid is down for a couple days, due to a blizzard/storm?
> 
> Last time I lived in Park Service housing, they had hardwired smoke detectors... and my 'style' of cooking included lots of smoke (roasting chilis on the stove top, cooking homemade tortillas, etc...) after the third ear splitting alarm, I jumped up, grabbed the blankety blank thing, and tried to pull it down... reckon the maintenance guy remembered me from the previous year, and screwed it down solid... got a chair and pryed it off the ceiling.


 Current codes covering the majority of the country call for combination 120 volt/ battery back-up, hard wired, interconnected units in new construction. This covers your question about power outages. The larger point is that it radically reduces the incidences of people dying in fires, where the investigators later determine that the home had smoke alarms but they had dead batteries, or none at all. Here in the northeast, there are millions of older homes, and dying in a house with non-fuctional smoke alarms is unfortunately far too common. A defective hardwired unit will beep every minute until you replace the battery, or the unit. This obviously provides more incentive to deal with the issue that removing a 9Volt battery from a battery only unit, and forgetting to replace it. The same code also requires a 120v/9v. interconnected smoke/CO2 detector if the home has fuel fired appliances or heating. A complete system costs a few hundred bucks to install in new construction, well worth it even if you are luck enough to live in a code free area.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

Last year I bought 10 electric tankless water heaters.
Planned on putting several in my home.
They are still setting in my barn.
I bought them from a construction company that had installed them before the owner realized they each would need a seperate circuit.
I paid $20 each.


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## Osiris (Jun 9, 2010)

Free gas would sure be a no-brainer for me. I'd have an n/g tank 75 gal!!!. You might consider a cheapie electric on-demand just in case, but heck why pay for the elect when yer heating the water for free? I'm near ----cago and our gas lines never freeze.


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## Fae (Mar 9, 2005)

I have not read all the replies and am not an expert on them but, I do have one and love it. Mine is outside on the house so not in my way like the old kind was. I use less gas and my shower never gets cold. My DS insalled mine and if memory serves it cost about $1200. It is gas with electric ignition.


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## Qhorseman (Jul 9, 2010)

I have an electric I bought on eBay for about $300. I saw no apreciable increase in my electric bill, its smaller than a phone book and sits nicely in a cabinet above the toilet. I like it.


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## Graham (Jul 24, 2011)

Since I moved from the UK, I have noticed everyone has showers fed directly from the hot water tank. In the UK most people had electric shower units fitted to the wall of the shower cubicle. These were just small on demand water heaters. I was wondering why I never see them here. Is it a code thing? If you had a small cabin, these would be sufficient to have in the kitchen as well.


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## Bentley (Jul 10, 2008)

Given the free gas, it seems to me that, by far the most cost effective way to heat your water would be with a conventional gas water heater sized for the number of bathrooms in the house.

As I've posted before, DW and I built our retirement home 2 years ago. For just the 2 of us, I did the calculations, and the payback for the "on demand" systems exceeded the anticipated life of the unit. Plus, I found a "slightly damaged" conventional gas water heater at Lowes for $100. The damage was purely cosmetic, and I didn't care one iota about a small dent in the outer shell. 

It will last us 10 to 12 years, and then I'll replace it with another just like it, although I will certainly revisit my calculations at that time. If natgas is $7, and the on-demand WH's are under $300, I may come to a different conclusion.

I based the payback calculations on $3.70 natgas. Today it's $2.45 per mmbtu, so the payback would just be longer. 


My 2&#8364;

B


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## TNHermit (Jul 14, 2005)

What ever you do find a good plumber and put in a re-circ line. You'll have hot water at the faucet or dang close. can't figure out why people don do this. They do it all the time in commercial installs


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## Tirzah (May 19, 2006)

We love ours! It is one of the best investments we have ever made. Installed it costs us about 800-1000 but it has already saved us so much money with gas and will pay for itself in no time. As far as waiting for the hot water, it is only a couple of minutes, no biggie!


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## Capt Quirk (Sep 24, 2011)

Being totally off grid has been a challenge. We are just getting a start on out battery and solar banks, and have a genny to take the largest part of the work load. We also have 2 very small, 40lb propane tanks from the airstream. The airstream needs to be gutted, all plumbing and grey/black water tanks yanked out. Thinking about pulling the small water tank and gas heater out, and hooking it up next to the water barrels and pump that feed the camp. I am very unhappy with the small gas water heater setup, and am curious about the on demand systems. How much power would be needed for it?


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## unregistered168043 (Sep 9, 2011)

I love my 'on demand' hot water heater from Bosch. I never needed to perform any kind of maintenance on it accept when my pipe burst and drowned it. At that time my boiler ( for radiant heat ) went too and was more expensive to fix. 

It doesn't seem like a complicated system to me, seems actually alot simpler than a boiler ( which I don't know too much about anyway, LOL ). I like it because it saves me lots of money on gas too. IDK with free gas maybe there's a better alternative but why waste any more gas than you have to, even if it is free?


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

A gas boiler with a triangle tube (brand name sidearm) to heat water. the side arm runs 900 dollars. There is no maintance. Benifits over on demand--
You have hot water stored to use during a power outage--at the tank itself but every drop of water hot or cold is nice to have on hand during an outage.

In a very cold place --New York gets cold (and outages--I grew up in there- I remember it well) I would have a small point of use installed at the bath room and kit. Remember that if the water is already hot the point of use is not triggered to heat water but if you used up the hot water or it started to get cold then it would go on.


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## citilivin (Mar 21, 2006)

We are on our second one. If you have hard water you need a water filter. Also, a recirculating pump works well and brings hot water instantly.


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## Steve in PA (Nov 25, 2011)

kasilofhome said:


> A gas boiler with a triangle tube (brand name sidearm) to heat water. the side arm runs 900 dollars. There is no maintance. Benifits over on demand--
> You have hot water stored to use during a power outage--at the tank itself but every drop of water hot or cold is nice to have on hand during an outage.


That's the exact setup I'm installing this spring. Already have a TT boiler that paid for itself in savings within 2 years. I plan to T in an evacuated tube panel on the roof so that the boiler will only run when the panel can't provide enough BTU's.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Capt Quirk said:


> Being totally off grid has been a challenge. We are just getting a start on out battery and solar banks, and have a genny to take the largest part of the work load. We also have 2 very small, 40lb propane tanks from the airstream. The airstream needs to be gutted, all plumbing and grey/black water tanks yanked out. Thinking about pulling the small water tank and gas heater out, and hooking it up next to the water barrels and pump that feed the camp. I am very unhappy with the small gas water heater setup, and am curious about the on demand systems. How much power would be needed for it?


Some solar controllers will shunt excess power (when the battery bank is full) to hot water heating elements... If your making more power than your using, it might be something to look into!


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## Capt Quirk (Sep 24, 2011)

Funny you should mention that Texican! Last year, I found an ad for a fella selling windmills for around $300 or less. Called them up, and got the catalog. Inside was the heating element you spoke of, but it is meant (according to them), to sit in a full barrel. I thought it might be possible to set it in a pipe, and submerge the unit closer to the bottom. Either way, the small panel array we have, barely charges the battery bank. Would need to get a windmill and more panels... which means we also need a better charge controller.

I did say that we were just getting started on it, right?


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