LP Ondemand Unit Water Heater

[zendiagrams]

I am going to take everyones advice and sell the electric unit and get a LP ondemand water heater unit.
Any suggestions on a brand and model?

We are a 3 person house hold, however, outside of my wife and I doing back to back showers in the morning before work, and our kid at night, 70% of the day there is no use out side of the sink. We never plan to do laundry at the same time as say taking a shower, but we do like to run the sink here and there during those times. But when we do laundry it's and all day event. Our houise by design has the location of the water heater in walkout basement which is central to most locations. 2ft to the second bathroom, 2 feet through the floor to the main, and 15 feet to the kitchen sink/diswasher, and the laundry is in the same room.

 

[stovehugger]

I have the aquastar bosch 125lp unit and have been very happy with it for 7 years. I recently looked an there website and they offer a similar unit that comes in a kit with the vent hood and has the blower as an integral part of the unit. Direct vent. www.cpotanklesswaterheaters.com We are a family of 4 and use LP gas for cooking and heating water and we go through a 100 lb tank every 1.5 to 2 months Good choice.

 

[stovehugger]

(broken link removed to http://www.cpotanklesswaterheaters.com/gas_products/whole_house_tankless/liquid_propane/125fxkit-lp.html)

 

[pdboilermaker]

I have a Noritz and have had it for 3 years now, it does great. I have the 6.2 gpm unit because there is my wife and 4 kids so there may always be a couple of people taking a shower at anytime. You could probably be just fine with a 4gpm unit. Ours was purchased from www.irawood.com. I dont thing they sell Noritz any longer but I dont know why.

The service was excellent, they are in Kentucky (I am in northern Indiana), ordered it one day and the next day it was here.

If you are going to wall mount and use a short exhaust, be sure to get a backflow preventer, standard on the Noritz it will keep the wind from getting in and freezing the unit up when it's not being used. One point to help save some $ If you are going to buy a Bocsh, get a Takagi. Takagi makes the Bosch, puts on a different sticker then Bosch gets a little kickback for selling it as their brand.

You will love this type of unit, saves money, saves space, unlimited hot water. Dont forget to get the $300.00 tax credit when you buy it.

 

[zendiagrams]

If you are going to wall mount and use a short exhaust, be sure to get a backflow preventer, standard on the Noritz it will keep the wind from getting in and freezing the unit up when it's not being used. One point to help save some $ If you are going to buy a Bocsh, get a Takagi. Takagi makes the Bosch, puts on a different sticker then Bosch gets a little kickback for selling it as their brand.

Wow a few hundred difference with the Takagi units alone; plus the vent kits are a lot cheaper too then on the bosch. Is this irawood company someone worth supporting? The prices seem reasonable, but how is service with them?

 

[pdboilermaker]

I found them to be friendly and knowledgeable. As I said, I ordered it on say a Tuesday and my unit arrived on Wednesday. I found that my experience with them was as good as it gets.

 

[pdboilermaker]

I have well water, it runs through a filter and then through a water softner. No problems to date with the tankless after 3 years

 

[zendiagrams]

beware of wellwater minerals which can plug heater & check air requirements for heater as per code & possible CO issues.

I have water softener in place so I will be fine. Actually one of the problems with the current electric tank is the people before us didn't have a softener and our water was at the high point on the hardness test.

 

[downeast]

Check out online reviews of each brand and manufacturer by customers.
We changed one model that had serious reliability problems, although the distributor and their tech were exceptional trying to solve the problems, we decidied to return the unit after the second one failed.
The brand most recommended and reliable was Rinnai. It has been in place for over a year now with no problems.
Be sure to add the Isolator for flushing the unit.

 

[Gooserider]

How much difference is there between the LP units and ones that run Natural Gas? We currently have an NG tank heater that may be approaching end of life - its about 10 years old, and I'm thinking that it may be worth going tankless when we replace it - I've also been thinking somewhat about the possibility of adding some solar heating, and if so, that might make a tankless even more appealing...

Gooserider