The Saving Advice Forums - A classic personal finance community.

Any tips for a new hot water heater?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    hot water heater

    Tankless water heaters are great but for maximum effectiveness they have to be relatively close to the appliances your supplying. If you have a large house this may require more than one. They are also not d.i.y friendly. If you have some basic skills it is relatively easy to install one yourself with sharktooth fittings that do not need to be soldered. I recently swapped mine out in an hour.

    Comment


    • #17
      We had to replace ours last year. We looked at tankless but the bottom line was the ROI was far longer than we anticipate being in the house, particularly if you have an older home/plumbing because we would have needed to run new pipes to accommodate it. We opted for an energy star qualified (not all are) model and right sized it for our house (didn't need as big as the previous owners installed). Also look and see which models qualify for federal and local rebates. That was a huge factor in which model we chose because we ended up replacing it for just over $200 including installation. We had a friend of a friend install it and he also hauled away the old one. He was about half cost compared to Lowes installation.

      Comment


      • #18
        We replaced our water heater last fall. We got an A.O. Smith 40 gallon...it was well rated. Our other one was 14 years old and it sprung a leak. What a mess!

        Comment


        • #19
          I wouldn't do the tank less water heater. Like was already mentioned, most people believe that tank less instant water heaters give you instant hot water at the faucet. Most people are not happy after they are installed because it still takes the same amount of time to get hot water to the faucet. Unless, every faucet has its on small instant W/H.

          The wiring may be different for an instant W/H. Typically a 50 gallon w/h will have a 30 amp circuit. I think they require more than a 30 amp circuit.

          I just replaced my 38gal with a G.E. 80gal from Home Depot. It took me about an hour. It's definitely something you could do yourself but it shouldn't cost much to have it swapped. I paid $472 for the water heater. I believe they had a 50 for $279.

          Comment


          • #20
            Me too

            Disney Steve--I think ours is almost 20 years old, and I'm worried about it too. I've had the bottoms fall out of two in other houses and it was a real mess. I was all geared up for a tankless but did a lot of research about a year ago, and as everyone said, it seems to be a long payback depending on your gas prices. When we lived in the UK, everyone had a tankless and we never had a problem with it, but it seems to be a different story here. Post what you find out, ok? We can all learn from the experience!

            Comment


            • #21
              If we had to get a new one we'd go tankless. Not so much for the energy savings but for the utility. We have a big soaker tub that I'd love to use once in a while, but I can barely get it full of hot water even once before I run out -- forget topping it off after 10 minutes to avoid a lukewarm tub. But other than that, our tank serves our needs perfectly. We never run out of hot water for showers, so having a bigger tank for the damn tub would be a waste.

              I've heard good things about tankless water heaters.

              Comment

              Working...
              X