"Jack" wrote in message
oups.com...
Considering switching to tankless water heater. Busy house, lots of
kids, so the neverending supply seems attractive.

I have always heard that they have trouble really heating the water hot
enough, especially here in the upper midwest when water comes out of
the ground pretty cold (maybe 40 degrees??)

Any experiences out there?

Three years ago when I built a new house, I looked at tankless heaters; but
I opted for the forced-draft high-efficiency tank type. One thought I had
was that in a 2-story house with most of the water use on the first floor
that I would have 50 gallons upstairs to use via gravity feed for flushing,
washing and drinking in the event of a failure of the city system. "Doesn't
happen." the neighbors said.

But, since I've been in the house it has happened -- several times. Pipes
break, there was a regional power failure and then an overworked system for
a while one summer. Last one was a cold winter day 3 weeks ago when the
main down the street started leaking. My little gravity system worked
simply by closing the main house valve and opening a faucet upstair to break
the air lock.

I doubt that there is much of an energy use differential between a tankless
and high-efficiency tank system for the same volume of water (it would be
good to see an unbiased comparison); but, so far, I've found the tank system
to be worth the slight extra cost.

TKM