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Buying a spec home and am asking for changes to water heater. My builder uses AO Gas or State appliances only. I don't get a choice of brand but perhaps any with brand they choose. The home is 3500sf and has 4 bathrooms so could require a good amount of hot water. The unit will use gas. I considered tankless but for a home this large I think I'll need 2 units, which is nowhere near cost effective I think. What should I go for instead? Do you think a hybrid unit makes sense and if so how big does the tank need to be? Presumably I can get away with just one unit then?
Two units placed near the fixtures, or a great circulation system with one large unit will save you in the long run. Tankless are great; just expensive and demanding to install: again best when properly placed or used with a circulation system.
That's an important point, I lived in rental once that was a large house that had two bathrooms on one side and the kitchen and the masterbath on the other side of the house. They only had one water heater on the side with the two bathrooms. You'd have to run gallons of water before it would get hot in the kitchen sink.
I lived in a house with two tankless units but it was designed and plumbed for that... I sure could not make it work in my current home.
We considered one of the new hybrid units (gas, combining the features of tankless and very small tank) a couple of years ago but could not find enough valid experience with them because they were so new.
Eventually installed a 50gal. Vertex gas unit (100K btu) that provides for high usage. My only caution is to make sure the installation is done by an experienced person. It MUST have adequate intake/exhaust airflow and too many problems are caused by improper interpretation of the installation requirements (using too small a vent pipe or too many turns).
Considering you're buying a spec house, i doubt the builder is going to much of anything about the water heater. You're talking about redoing the plumbing system and that's far too expensive to do. He may upgrade the unit to a larger size but that's about all you're going to get. Best of luck with it though.
We have 2 40 gallon water heaters, mainly put in to fill the enormous Jacuzzi tub in the master bath--we did not build the house. It's WONDERFUL. There are 5 of us, and 3 showers and we have never run out of hot water, even when we have company and have had 12 people shower in one morning, the cycle on the tanks takes care of replenishing the hot water. It's a great system. It's gas and in the summer when we aren't using our furnace, our gas bill runs about $30 (with a gas dryer).
You have every right to get what you want even on a spec house. Leave out the builder's unit, get credit, and hire your own installer of the unit you want to buy and install on your own.
I see a lot of posts that people are using them now. Is that for functional reasons? There seems to be a considerable amount of evidence that they'll never pay for themselves. Am I wrong? I'd need two units for maybe $4k, or an additional $3.5k over the tank unit and I'm guessing $3k over the hybrid?
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