Water Heater

[SHADOWFOX]

Well, I was in the basement last night and notice water on the basement floor going to the drain . It looks like it is coming from the water tank heater. Is this normal?

If I need a new water heater, I might go with a tankless unit. Anybody have experience in any of the tankless water heater? I heard that the up front cost is high but you get your money back with the energy savings.

Any recommendation in case I indeed neet to replace the water heater?

[bigsteel15]

Well, I was in the basement last night and notice water on the basement floor going to the drain . It looks like it is coming from the water tank heater. Is this normal?

If I need a new water heater, I might go with a tankless unit. Anybody have experience in any of the tankless water heater? I heard that the up front cost is high but you get your money back with the energy savings.

Any recommendation in case I indeed neet to replace the water heater?

No that's not normal.
There was a thread quite awhile ago about the tankless units. Opinions were quite mixed from what I remember.

[thiggy]

Isn't a tankless heater a "point of use" water heater? I think you have to have a unit at each location. I know that was the case when we lived in Mexico years ago. We had a tankless water heater in each bathroom and the kitchen. This requires gas plumbing and exhaust vent at each location. This might not be easily accomplished after a house is built.

[SHADOWFOX]

Isn't there a tankless unit that can replace the old water tank? I did not realize that you have to have a unit pre-fawcet.

[LCHIEN]

Hot water heaters should not be bleeding water!
Sounds like you need a new one.

As someone said, tankless heaters need to be installed at each location where you would use hot water, just a few feet away. Installation costs might be prohibitive. The idea is, much heat is applied to the water just before you use it, not keeping a central tank hot all the time and having to wait for it to propgate to the point of use.

[bigsteel15]

Here is one of the older threads

http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=16282&highlight=tankless+water

[greencat]

I would watch your current unit. The little leak could turn large in short notice. The tankless are no longer for point of use. There are large ones that can do a whole house. A friend at work installed 2 that will output 9.5 gallons per minute total. The local code was 10 for the number of baths he had. It didn't matter that a 50 gallon tank would be empty in 5 minutes. He had to add an electric hot water tank to pass the inspection. Venting can also be problem with the tankless in old construction.

[Russianwolf]

Guys there is a BIG difference between a "tankless waterheater" and a "point-of-use waterheater".

Tankless units replace your existing water heater in the same remote location. Depending on incoming water temp and how big the house is a "booster" may be needed to get the temp right, but they do not need to be located in each bathroom/kitchen.

Point-Of-Use units are small (some have 2-3 gallon tanks) that usually go inside the vanity. They work well when retrofitting an old (preplumbing) home as you only need to run one water line to each location.

There are electric units available in each version, so no, a gas line and vent is NOT needed in each bathroom even if you wanted to use point-of-use units. You can look at them at the home centers and on-line.

The Tankless variety are gaining popularity as it greatly reduces the amount of energy consumed as it doesn't require keeping 40-50 gallons of water warm all the time IN CASE someone uses it.

[BearPipes-1]

I love my Takagi tankless unit.
* It replaced a conventional water heater located inside the house, so I've got a coat closet now that I didn't before. The unit is now mounted outside, near the incoming NG line.
* The unit I have has good throughput: Shower, dishwasher, and washing machine have all been running happily at the same time...and there was still hot water for someone to wash their hands with.
* We never run short of hot water.
* The water heater, cooktop, and furnace use natural gas. During the summer, when the furnace is not in use, our gas bill (family of 4) ranges from $5-$8 per month. The prior owner was paying quite a bit more than that to keep her water hot while she was at work.
I think it's our favorite home improvement.

[jAngiel]

As mentioned there are whole house tankless units available. When we added on to our house I opted for a tankless unit to cover the water needs of the new half of the house. So now we have both, a 50 gallon natural gas tank on one side and a natural gas tankless on the other side.

The tankless has good points and bad points. The main plus is that you never run out of hot water. That was the whole reason I went tankless to begin with, I couldn't care less about the debate whether it was more efficient and cheaper to operate.

I can understand both sides of the argument, on one hand you don't have to keep 50 gallons of water hot. They argue about the insulation qualities of the newer tanks, blah blah blah, they argue that the tankless burns more gas when you actually need hot water in order to heat up the water that quickly, blah blah blah.

The awesome thing is with LOML and myself and 5 soon to be six kids, never running out of hot water is AWESOME!! I have even hooked it up to a water slide in early spring when the weather was nice and warm but the water from the tap was still freezing cold. The kids loved it, yeah it wasted some hot water but who cares, the kids had fun.

There are some plumbing things that I will change eventually to make it better to control the temperature of the showers and baths. There are things that I can do different but there are work-arounds to get the same effect, which is what I do now. So all in all I am very happy with my purchase of the tankless unit. People will argue the pros and cons till they are blue in the face and neither side will budge in their argument.

The fact is there are pluses and minuses to everything we do, do some research online and go with whatever you are comfortable with. There will always be those that agree with what you do and those that disagree, as long as you are happy with your decision, who cares what they think...

[Chris_B]

Great resource

Chris -

A great resource for info on water heaters (tank & tankless) is Water Heater Rescue.

I was surprised to learn that with proper maintenance (correct flushing and anode replacement), water heaters can last indefinitely.

Cheers,

Chris

[Kristofor]

Are you sure it's the tank that's leaking? If it is you're probably going to have to replace it sooner than later, and may have a mess to deal with.

However I've mentioned this before, but I made my overheat/explosion prevention valve dealie leak by "testing" it at one point. $12 to replace. Much cheaper than a new water heater if that's your problem.

Kristofor.

[billwmeyer]

As I replied in the old thread, I have a Bosch tankless water heater and I love it. I installed it just before my daughters house burned to the ground, and I suddenly had 3 more people living with me. With my old 40 gallon gas heater, we would have taken all night to get throught the 5 baths. With the tankless, we could start another bath as soon as the bathroom emptied out. It was one of the best things that I ever did. The only problem I had was that some of the baths went so long, that I considered using a tree outside at night, since the bathroom was tied up! I will never go back to a tank-type heater.

Bill

[SHADOWFOX]

I have a plumber coming out on Friday.. I am sure it is the water tank because I don't know of any other thing around it that would be leaking.. I know nothing when it comes to these stuff. I am a new homeowner and scared that I might worsen things up be fooling around with it and not knowing what I'm doing. I am going have a couple of plumbers look at it. Also get a quote on how much to install a tankless water heater with me having all the materials ready and all he needs to do is hook up the unit.. If it is too expensive, I might have to put off going to tankless and might just stay with the traditional.

If any BT3 members in Chicagoland area who have experience with these (plumbing) stuff and would like to help a fellow member out, it is certainly most welcome

I'll keep everybody posted with the quotes I get.

Thanks!

[mleichtle]

I had a tank go bad, lucky for me I was living in a mobile home, the water fell harmlessly to the ground, gallons and gallons of expensive hot water. The problem was changing out the heater, almost required a can opener to peel the roof back. A sure sign of the tank going bad is chunks of rust in your fauset screens.