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I'm considering pulling out a small tank water heater and replacing it with a tankless one. There's some electric cost benefits and I'm having wiring work done anyways, so I thought I would consider it. Does anyone have any success with this. Ground water i don't think gets crazy cold here. Most of the year it's above freezing. If so, any ideas of how this could get mounted in a small utility closet? I was hoping for an out of the way location to not eat up limited storage space.
The small tanks do their job but often if you want to grab a shower after you've throw a load in the washer it typically doesn't work so well. That's my motivation for making the change. I also will have to pull the heater out anyways and add a drip pan and the heater, while not old, is not new. A decent tankless one on Amazon is only 5 or 6 hundred and I have a master electrician coming anyways.
I purchased and had a tankless hot water heater installed at least 5 years ago and love it. It was previously residing in the crawlspace of the house and I moved it to the garage since I was tired of opening up the crawlspace to turn the unit back on after a power outage. It has worked great and I have no regrets in having it installed. The traditional hot water heaters were literally drowning in the crawlspace when the power would go out and the sump pump stopped working too.
I agree. I'd only go tankless if it was a gas unit anyway.
Gas tankless water heaters work a little better than the electric units but there are some good ones out there. Rinnai is the Cadillac of tankless water heaters but I'm not sure if Rinnai manufactures electric tankless units . I had an (exterior) Rinnai gas unit installed on the exterior wall of my garage under the eaves. The vent is at the top of the tank. The whole tank is about the size of a small suitcase. The old water heater was in the garage and I got more floor space. I also removed the concrete filled steel bollard that I used to hit my knee on that was in front of the water heater . I installed a mop sink in its place! Here's some info on Rinnai:
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My sister has one and hates it. Probably because it's a whole-house model and the house is 4 bedrooms 3 baths. The unit has to be close to the shower(s) and kitchen sink. What happens with a tank is the water gets warmer and warmer until it's hot enough. With tankless if too far away it comes out stone cold for a while then totally hot, and they got burned a lot until they got used to it.
You need to be aware that some of the cheaper models do not give you a set temperature water. They work on how much temperature rise. An example would be if the incoming water temp is 70F and the unit is rated at a temp rise of 40F, you'll get 110F temp hot water coming out of the unit. But let the incoming water temp in the winter be 50F, all you'll get is 90F water. I've installed numerous tankless W/Hs over the years and none worked like the H/O expected. Electrical usage was tremendous. Make sure to do the research on the unit you're buying. Frankly, I'd stay with the current type of heater.
Good idea. I'll make sure of both. Neither of the ones at which I'm looking are cheap models. I'll verify that feature though.
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. I had an (exterior) Rinnai gas unit installed on the exterior wall of my garage under the eaves. The vent is at the top of the tank. The whole tank is about the size of a small suitcase. The old water heater was in the garage and I got more floor space. I also removed the concrete filled steel bollard that I used to hit my knee on that was in front of the water heater 
. I installed a mop sink in its place! Here's some info on Rinnai:
