"briz" wrote:

Did you ever consider a tankless water heater? They are not alot ($ up
front) more than a good tank style heater but alot less maintenance as
well as a heck of alot cheeper to run.

Sorry, they are considerably more expensive than a storage tank heater.
Especially in a retrofit situation, but even in new construction.

No tank draining,

How often exactly to you drain your storage heater? Excluding vacation homes
(where all the plumbing would need to be drained) the only time I've ever done
it is when I replaced a 20 year old unit.

No TPR valve,

I've never had to replace one.

No tank to rot out,

Modern storage tank heaters are glass lined and self cleaning. If you don't get
a minimum of 20 years use out of one, you aren't trying.

No anode to change.

WTF???? If you are changing anodes on a residential water heater, you have far
more problems with the rest of your household plumbing that you need to be
worrying about.

All around a better deal.

You don't really have any experience with tankless heaters, do you?

In europe Tank style heaters are considered antque. almost all houses
there are built new with tankless heaters.

No, in Europe they have a lot of older housing stock with construction that
makes it difficult to run insulated hot water lines. There are other factors
that come into play as well.

Most of the new residential housing I've seen in the UK uses storage tanks.
Here's an example:

http://www.primelocation.com/new-homes/browse/all/uk/england/essex/chelmsford/BIca213721/

Go down to the plumbing section and note the words: "Each apartment includes an
insulated hot water cylinder, with electric emersion heater back-up." A Google
search on "hot water cylinder" will yield many other references.

Just something to think about.

And if you would like some factual information, you can download this study:

http://www.stateind.com/new/Tankless_WhitePaper.pdf

State builds both types of heaters, so they have no particular reason to favor
one type over another.

The bottom line is that except for a few specific circumstances, storage tank
heaters are cheaper to install and operate over a given period of time than
tankless.