My Tankless Experience

Called my water company and got my water consumption usage for the past year or so. As you can see there was no change between the bill I just got and the same time last year. The past few bills prior compared to last year however, they have gone up. I was only on a tankless really for the last bill however. Due to the fact that my water usage was the same this year as last year, I can safely conclude that for my 25% reduction in natural gas usage for last month (when compared to last year) was completely due to the tankless.

1970 Sep 08
1790 Jul
1690 May
1530 Mar
1610 Jan
1600 Nov 07
1970 Sep
1720 Jul
1410 May

Just got my October natural gas bill. Last year was 24 therms. This year was 14. That gives me a 42% savings.

October is a little dicey though because I could have turned the heat on last year. I did not need to this year until what ended up being the last day of my bill.

Combined savings to date is 35%.

Edit:

Now that the heat is on though, I basically have to stop the comparisons as I can not determine the natural gas consumption of my tankless and my furnace individually.

Great post Oak, enjoyed the read. I installed the same unit 4 months ago and have loved it.

We did put a UPS battery backup on ours and actually put it to test when we lost power after Hurricane Ike. Just go out to garage and turn on UPS when one of us wanted a hot shower, then turn the UPS off afterwards! UPS charge lasted the duration of the 2 day power outage!

Greg

gregsauls said:

Great post Oak, enjoyed the read. I installed the same unit 4 months ago and have loved it.

We did put a UPS battery backup on ours and actually put it to test when we lost power after Hurricane Ike. Just go out to garage and turn on UPS when one of us wanted a hot shower, then turn the UPS off afterwards! UPS charge lasted the duration of the 2 day power outage!

Greg

Click to expand...

This is great input!

UPS units are not that expensive, I was half thinking about getting one myself, but when it comes down to it, thankfully, power outages where I live are rare and when they do happen last maybe an hour tops. With this economy I have other items higher on my list right now

Again though, I have always wondered about how well the Rinnai worked with a UPS. Yes, you can read the PDF that Rinnai gives out and what they claim, but you always are left wondering. It is nice to have a real world experience.

A further update.

Thus far at the meter I have used 49 therms. Last year I used 59 with all the billing factors. I have a feeling with all the billing factors that might get me up to 53 or 55 or around a 10% savings.

This is a huge drop from my prior savings.

However ... in September I added a few rooms on to my house, or about 15% more heated/conditioned square feet. It makes sense that my furnace is going to work longer; hence, it is going to use more fuel too.

And so with that being said any future therm comparisons are going to be skewed simply due to the fact that my house is not the same this year as it was last year.

If I can break even I will be happy. The fact that I am still coming out ahead ... is icing on the cake ...