Best tankless?

[Melissa2007B]

It's about 80 ft from the gas water heater & electrical feed into the house, to the furthest bathroom, so if Jennifer showers down there, she can use up all the hot water before the shower is done. ( house is PEX, 4 ft sealed crawl space ) What's a good instant tankless water heater that won't break the bank, and the best way to find an affordable electrician?

 

[Breplum]

Your choice should not be the lowest priced WH.
You should have a dedicated recirc system to go with that long hot water run.
I am trained on most of the tankless WHs and choose to ONLY install and service Navien, and exclusively NPE series, which is top of the line and as high priced as anyone. They are the only mfr to have an insulated mini tank built right in and a two line smart display. Only trouble is the check valves need to be serviced often, but it is under a $10. part and anyone can do it without service expertise.
Noritz would be my second choice, but we like having only to carry with one set of parts.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Melissa2007B]

2 things have been keeping us from doing this. What you're saying is prohibitively expensive ( could cost $2000? Would need a plumber and electrician? ) , and we cant find anyone to do it.

 

[Breplum]

You can find Navien listed plumbers on the Navien site. Tankless are not a low budget item at all. The Navien units alone cost approach 2K. Installed prices above 6K

 

[Melissa2007B]

Cant do that then.

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

Do you have an existing Tank water heater? How many gallons? How many Gallons Per Minute does the shower heads use?

There are ways to boost the capacity of the equipment you already have with some much less expensive equipment than a new tankless installation.

Another option is to set up rules for how long a shower lasts.

 

[Melissa2007B]

The problem isn't the gallons. We're in west Denver & get our water from snow melt. ( reservoirs ) It warms up some in the summer but in the winter it's icy. All year around, we can drink cold water without ice.

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

OK.. Good luck.

 

[Hogan]

Don't understand why the distance of the shower makes it that she uses up all the hot water? Or are you saying that the water isn't really hot by the time it makes it all the way down there?

You could turn up the temp on the tank

 

[Melissa2007B]

Don't understand why the distance of the shower makes it that she uses up all the hot water? Or are you saying that the water isn't really hot by the time it makes it all the way down there?

You could turn up the temp on the tank

During the shower, the hot water gets mixed with icy replacement water from snow melt, plus the ~110 ft run from the water heater in the PEX, cools it too. ( house is 80 ft x 30 ft & that shower is on the opposite side from the water heater )

Turning it up too high starts eroding the tank. We start seeing gray clouds in the water & had to replace one water heater already, when it eroded a leak. When the temp isn't up too high, there are no gray clouds.

 

[Melissa2007B]

Your choice should not be the lowest priced WH.
You should have a dedicated recirc system to go with that long hot water run.
I am trained on most of the tankless WHs and choose to ONLY install and service Navien, and exclusively NPE series, which is top of the line and as high priced as anyone. They are the only mfr to have an insulated mini tank built right in and a two line smart display. Only trouble is the check valves need to be serviced often, but it is under a $10. part and anyone can do it without service expertise.
Noritz would be my second choice, but we like having only to carry with one set of parts.

I'm googling & it looks like gas water heaters ( outdoor?) , and yes - crazy expensive ( already got a mortgage LOL.) 199,000 btu?!

 

[Melissa2007B]

As mentioned, we have a sealed 4' crawl space, with plastic sheet on the ground, and PEX. Dark with spider webs. I post on NextDoor for ANYTHING down there & NO ONE answers. Of course NextDoor is mostly whiners anyway.

But I'm wondering if we could get someone to put black insulating pipe foam on all the PEX hot water lines down there?

 

[Gagecalman]

Is there an option to install an electric tank WH on that end of the house?

 

[Hogan]

I'm googling & it looks like gas water heaters ( outdoor?) , and yes - crazy expensive ( already got a mortgage LOL.) 199,000 btu?!

I was close to buying a Navien and then changed direction and glad I did. Yes it is 199,000 btus. You need a lot of fire to try to raise the temps that much in a short amount of time in the heat exchanger. If your cold input is extra cold that just makes it even harder. These units are small and neat looking but they will struggle with gallons per minute flow. For this reason I'm glad I didn't pull the trigger as I have a house that has many bathrooms