On Fri, 10 Jul 2015 11:01:04 -0700 (PDT), TimR
wrote:

On Friday, July 10, 2015 at 1:24:11 PM UTC-4, wrote:
In normal use a tankless will NEVER pay for itself in energy savings -
not even close.

Probably true.

But it might pay for itself in energy savings plus water savings. Water is cheap in the US but that isn't true everywhere. We had a tankless in Germany for the kitchen, based on not wasting water (kitchen was a long way from the boiler).
Water isn't cheap here either - but unless it is a big house and the
heater is at the wrong end, unless it is a very high quality unit it
will still not last long enought to pay for itself - and even then, a
unit of high enough quality to last that long will cost so much it
STILL won't pay for itself.

It's just about the APPEARANCE of being "green"