On Jul 30, 12:26*pm, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 29, 5:17*pm, JIMMIE wrote:

I was thinking of replacing my NG water heater with one of the new
tankless ones until I saw the price, about 2K bucks installed. I took
a look at my gas bill for the summer months and figure my current
water heater is costing me about $220 a year to operated and from the
manufacturere info I could save 10 to 20 per cent if I got with the
tankless unit or 22 to 44 dollars a year. Am I missing something here?
This doesnt seem worthwhile at all. The thing would probably need
replacing before I ever reached a break even point.

Jimmie

Tankless work best in situations where there is little usage. *One or
two people that travel a lot for example.
*If you use hot water
everyday and have a number of people living in your house then the
regular tank is the way to go.

Why would that be? The main energy savings of a tankless comes from
the elimination of the heat loss from the tank which is going on 24/7
regardless of how much water is used or how frequently.


*Sort of a middle ground is a timer
switch that turns off your hot water tank during part of the day.

The energy savings are going to be very small, not enough to justify
the cost and trouble of installing a timer. The tank is well
insulated and the temp will only decline by a small amount if it's
shut off during part of the day. Maybe not even enough to have it
fire up again. Even during power outages, tank water heaters stay hot
for a long time, unless you are using the water. The only time a
timer on a water heater makes sense is if you can take advantage of a
seperate meter and lower off-peak electric costs for an electric water
heater.



*My
wife and I had one of those in our twonhouse in dc when we were both
dinks. *Lots of days we hardly used the hot water except in the
morning.