NHmaster3015
Master Plumber
Here's my tankless experiance. Last March my 40 gallon gas water heater finally died after almost 25 years. We did a bunch of web research and decided to have a Rinnai tankless installed by a local company. They came out and did a very nice job of installing the new unit. They upsized the gas line and ran the vent properly and did a very neat job of the whole thing. From day one we noticed that there was a long lag time in getting the hot water to the fixtures. running a small amount of water such as rinsing dishes would not be enough to let the heater fire. Running anything other than one fixture in the house at a time either produced not enough hot water or the temperature would fluctuate. We have Symmons temperature pressure balanced valves in both bathrooms and they do not like the temperature of fluctuation at all so we had to resort to planning shower times so that no one else in the house would be running water at the same time. Lastly the unbelieveable gas savings amounted to about 4 bucks a month and was far and away not worth the inconveniance and aggravation. The plumber (nice guy) came out a bunch of times to see if he could make things better. Our piping is 1" copper for the main line with 3/4" branches and 1/2" feeders so he says that is more than enough. The simple fact is that the unit just does not have the capacity to make hot water for anything other than a single bath home with two people living in it. After a very frustrating 9 months we finally had the thing taken out and have gone back to a 40 gallon gas water heater. It sure is nice to be able to take a long hot shower again without having to dance from one end of the tub to the other. Maybe these things would work ok in a camp or a very small house but if you have more than one bathroom and a couple of kids in the house BEWARE.
