We live in TV south of 44, and we have a tankless hot water heater (all of the houses in our neighborhood have them). All of my houses prior to TV had tanked hot water heaters. Other than the space savings in the garage you gain with a tankless hot water heater, I prefer the tanked system. My experience is that you get hot water to the faucet faster with a tanked system. With a tankless system, the water has to be running for the system to activate, and then the heater takes time to fire up and start heating the water. In a tanked system, the water is already hot and ready to go. Both systems have to clear the cold water already in the lines before the hot water reaches the faucet (it is inaccurate to state that either system has instant hot water). You can install a circulation pump on a tanked system to help address this, but my understanding is there is not a comparable solution for a tankless system. And that is my biggest issue with a tankless system; we have found that it takes about twice as long to get hot water to the faucet compared to a tanked system (with no circulation pump). It takes almost two minutes for hot water to reach the faucets in our master bath (furthest away from the heater). So we are wasting more water with a tanked system, or just as often, wasting gas because I will turn on the hot water to wash my hands and finish before any hot water reaches the faucet. It is only my wife and I, and we have never ran out of hot water with a tanked hot water heater, so the endless supply of hot water with a tankless system isn’t a material benefit. We have spoken with several of our neighbors, and most have similar feedback with their tankless system as well.
|