in shower tankless water heater

I am very dis-heartened by the amount of tankless "bashing" that seems to go on here.

People need to understand that Tankless is NOT good for every situation just like a standard tank heater is also NOT good for every situation.

CASE IN POINT:

I am a bachelor. I DON'T COOK. I DON'T TAKE BATHS. I shower once maybe twice a day if I need to.

I have not had a tank water heater for 3 years!!!! I have used a marey.com tankless in-line shower water heater all that time. It is a 2400 watt 110volt 23 amp unit, they have a 2900 watt 220volt 14 amp unit that I will be buying whenever my unit dies.

They both cost less than a $100!!!!

I have saved TONS!!! I paid for the unit in less than 5 months by not having to pay the customer fees our natural gas company charges.

I use a low flow shower head with a flow adjuster on it. In winter I simply adjust the flow down a little to feel warmer.

My electric bills have not been noticeably higher either...

So in my situation, since I didn't mind not having hot water at every tap -- tankless works great for me and saves me money!!!

You want tankless? Make sure it will work for what you want and BE SURE TO UNDERSTAND YOU WILL HAVE TO ADAPT TO USING IT! Expect it to work like a tank heater and you will be disappointed.

I see that the company is in PR. Does that unit have UL listing? Our electric rates are pretty high, so electric tankless is usually not popular. And what gallon per minute can you get at a 70º rise? I didn't see any specs on the website.

Tankless has its advocates. It does have certain advantages over tank type....but cost/benefit still does not pencil out in my calculations.

jimbo said:

I see that the company is in PR. Does that unit have UL listing? Our electric rates are pretty high, so electric tankless is usually not popular. And what gallon per minute can you get at a 70º rise? I didn't see any specs on the website.

Tankless has its advocates. It does have certain advantages over tank type....but cost/benefit still does not pencil out in my calculations.

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Here in Lincoln NE, we have some of the lowest electric rates in the country. LES is public owned and run.

Not having hot water available to all taps might get the dwelling condemmed in some locales. There are lots of ways to make do. Most Americans are spoiled (I'm one of them). Whatever floats your boat.

jadnashua said:

Not having hot water available to all taps might get the dwelling condemmed in some locales. There are lots of ways to make do. Most Americans are spoiled (I'm one of them). Whatever floats your boat.

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Oh there is hot water at all taps -- its just not hot.

The li'l Marey showerhead heaters probably work fine for warmer-water areas and at low/moderate flow, but they'd never keep up mid-winter in Vermont or North Dakota. (They're probably on the edge in Lincoln Nebraska, eh?).

There is a certification-deficit that keeps them (and their small gas-fired tankless units) from being legal near me. They can skate the issue in some states by making it a plug-in device rather than hard-wired, exempting it from electric-codes issues (hardly a confidence-inspiring feature for a showerhead heater.) A hard-wired fully safety tested & certified unit is going to be considerably more expensive, but worth it IMHO.

Marey has quite a bit of market penetration in the Caribbean and in Mexico, particularly their smaller gas & propane fired units that require no electricity to run. Most (all?) of the goods are Chinese designs, and I'm told similar units sell all over southeast Asia. Most are a bit underpowered for the northern half of North America, but the bigger forced-draft (condensing?) ones would keep up with single-shower flows comfortably even in cool-water states. I haven't seen one up close or under the hood- can't comment on the look & feel of the manufacturing & design qualities, but let's just say I'd be skeptical of an allegedly 0.92EF condensing tankless heater that can be had online for $375 when the competition's units are closer to 2 grand. Something has to be missing...

Tankless water heaters

Hello to eveyone , I'm new and absolutely clueless to all that has beeen said so far on this forum about tankless water heaters . but like "bbsux" I would like to share my real life ....hands on experience.
I live in the Muskoka region in Ontario, Canada and I use a Bosch point-of-use "PowerStar AE9.5" to heat the water coming out of my well all year round.
I took a chance and bought the unit brand new for $100 thinking at best it would only do one fawcett like it's supposed to , but I hooked up the little guy (220 volt) to do 2 bathrooms and a kitchen sink on the premise that if only one fawcett or the shower is used at any one time it might heat the water sufficiently. And it does!
Plenty of hot water for showers , dishes. laundry etc. as long as only one source (fawcett) is used at the time .
Mine is not your everyday household scenario with a family of 3 kids etc. so this quick cheap fix definitely won't work for most people, but in my case $100 has gone a long way , especially since it took little time to install as I was able to use the existing 8/3 (40 amp ) wire that used to feed my stove which was moved to a different area. The wire happened to be right above my well pump so it was easy to integrate this small heater into the system.
Luck would also have it that my well (450 foot deep) is drilled into Canadian shield rock so I don't need a water softener or anything else , just the pump that draws the water which is constant temperature all year round.
Trial and error worked in my favour and I would like others to know about it.