[katkat]

Hi,
I just want to offer my experiences with one of these and it has not been good. My home is 4 years old and my builder recommended and installed a Navien tankless hot water heater. It used propane gas. (we have just replaced it with an electric model with a tank) There was nothing but trouble with this item since the day I moved in. Navien actually replaced the entire unit one time; the computerized panel on that unit was replaced as well as some other parts. For one thing, no one could get it to burn in such a way that the odor outside could not be smelled from the street - and my technician(s) always called and did work while talking with Navien directly.

Aside from these issues, I wonder how much energy savings there really is. My home is small (55' x 42') so the hot water didn't have that far to travel to any faucet. But before the heater even turned on 1/2 gallon of water had to run through it. Then it would start to heat. Now it still had to push cool/cold water through the line before you got warm water to wash your hands etc. So we put water restrictors on our shower heads and in our faucets then we install a product like this that wastes all of this water every time we open a faucet??

I also wonder if my laundry was EVER washed with warm water. The way my front loader works seems to be to draw a little water, stop, agitate and repeat. I really don't think any of those draws asking for warm water was long enough to actually GET warm water. This also would seem to be an issue with the dishwasher.

This particular model had other issues but I don't know if they were particular to this model or all tankless models in general. In theory, they sound great. Maybe this one is just over engineered.

Hope this information helps someone.
Katkat