Tankless water heaters
 

Do any of you have experience with tankless water heaters? My water heater is on it's last leg and I'm thinking of going tankless. Here are my questions:

#1 - How long does it take hot water to get to the faucet?
#2 - Can the average person install it?
#3 - How much does installation cost if you pay someone?
#4 - Do they work as well as advertised?

I do not know much about them besides the energy efficiency aspect of it. Here is a website that walks you thru it all, so hopefully it will help answer some of your questions: http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/.../mytopic=12820

Here is another site: http://www.gotankless.com/

Let us know what you find out and if you put one in, lets know what you think of it.

yes do the research and then post a full report.

Longer than your tank heater since there is no resevoir holding hot water. It heats as you turn on the water.

If you can install a typical water heater you should be able to install a tankless water heater. Most are designed as replacements for typical water heaters.

Not sure but tankless systems are more money than your typical water heater.

Most are advertised as the end all be all and that is not the case or else you would see them more often. While you do save on gas and electric (these percentages are inflated though it seems and if you have a large home, they're even less advantageous as advertised - you also save more on an electric set up versus gas), you consume more water waiting for hot water. Where water is a premium this could be a huge offset with the gas and electric you save. You can buy pumps that advertise to help this, though I am not sure of their efficiency. For optimum efficiency they suggest adding one near each hot water faucet, though this is hardly cost effective.

But if you decide to go that route let us know how it goes as everyone else suggested.

We researched this pretty heavilyl when building our house and decided not to go with tankless for a couple of reasons:

1. Cost. The ROI on the energy savings was longer than the expected life of the unit.
2. We heard from several sources, including our plumber, that repairs can be a bitch due to the electronics, parts not stocked, etc.

That really undermines one of their selling points, now doesn't it.

It sounds like there are more cons than pros. I spoke with a few plumbers today and they thought they were a waste of money unless you have a huge demand for hot water. If you have a big family, whirpool tubs, etc...
We use very little hot water, so we're going to go with the standard tank. My thinking was that since we don't use very much hot water, it would make sense to not keep a 40 gallon tank hot at all times. It turns out the ROI would be about 15 years. Had it been 5 years or less, I would have given it a shot.

the aspect I like about tankless or other electric water heaters in general is that when solar or wind power becomes more economical for your house (I think it wil in the next 5-10 years). you can be self sufficient in heating your water.

I had one at my old house.
 

Answers:

#1 - Depends on how far your water heater is from your location. At my furthest bathroom (small house only 1600 sq feet) it took around a minute.
#2 - Our's was a Takagi and they required that a professional plumber install it for warranty purposes. That being said, there was only one plumber listed in our area on Takagi's website that they recommended, so after we got our unit in, we called them. My husband had already looked at the schematics and figured out what needed to be done for installation (a. he's very handy b. he's an engineer). They told him that they had never done one, he sounded like he knew what he was doing, and that they would sign off on it.
#3 - No idea
#4 - We have a large family and use a lot of hot water, so for us it was wonderful! I loved being able to run the dishwasher while somebody was in the shower (yes, we paid more for the really high output one). For us, because we do use so much hot water, the ROI was fabulous. Our propane bill plummeted. I'd say we paid it off in under 2 years. As soon as the hot water heater starts going bad in this house we will be ordering another tankless. I hate filling up my whirlpool tub and running out of hot water. (And I'm not fond of $800 propane bills every 3 months either!)

Running on propane would give you a higher ROI than natural gas.