Opinions on tankless water heaters

[foxywench]

tankless is great, its the ONLY way to go in the UK where im origioanlly from, BUT the tech is still relitivly new in the US and therefore expensive to instal and expensive to fix if somehting does go wrong.
Id say if your looking at whole hose id wait a few more years for the US to continue its development and lower the cost...
If your dream is simply never ending hot water, might be worth looking into a single point of use tankless unit hooked up to your main shower...all the benefits of a tankless withough as much expense and will give you unlimited hot water for the 1 aplication you need it the most.
there still not "cheap" but it might be an option to explore...
its an option im looking into as my house only has 1 space for a water heater, and thats in a closet between the 2 bedrooms, that water heater is only 30 gallons...needless to say its a good job im the only person living here...
I either need to fgure out a way to piggy back the unit or get some kind of point of use for the shower because sometimes i just NEED an extra 10 mins of hot water! lol.

given my house is under 800sqft, finding space for a secondary or larger tank is tough...

[Coldjensens]

We put our first tankless in around 1998. It has been around quite a while, it is just not that popular yet. It is more popular in some areas than others. In Southern California they are fairly common. In Michigan they are pretty rare.

[ncjeff]

Originally Posted by boudin

Careful when folks make blanket statements like this. Everybody's situation is different. After installing a tankless in spring 2010, our annual LP spending dropped by $450 in winter 2010-11 (back when winter was actually cold!). At the end of winter 2011-12, our LP usage should be nearly $700 less than 2009-10.

Impossible to say for sure what the savings attributable to the tankless is, but the tankless likely is saving us at least $300/year. At a cost of $2000 to install (during the 30% tax credit), that's a max of 7 years to payoff. Probably actually closer to 5 years.

With Propane costs so high compared to Natural Gas it can change the equation considerably. Still, most reviews agree that the conversion rarely pays for itself through energy savings. Some folks see minor savings in their Natural Gas bill eclipsed by a higher water/sewer bill because more hot water = longer showers. Some folks see their Natural Gas savings eaten up by the yearly maintenance call (and some just skip maintenance).

If I were building today I'd definitely install a tankless unit. I looked at converting when replacing my tank last year but didn't like the install location - outside under the kitchen window. Figured I'd stay with a tank and see how the reputation for tankless units sits 8 or so years from now.