Cost of installing tankless water heater

[thetransporter]

I dont mind buying it from the US if needed.

But what should I know before looking for an installer. people in the phone book are asking for over 4000.

Does they all need to be mounted to an exterior concrete wall? (gas of course)


My homes power is about 30 percent green energy from Solar, and considering i paid about 1$/watt Im not looking to spend too much

[TomcoPDR]

If u ask richardchan2002 first, every contractor you quote after would seem like a great deal.

[C_Dave45]

Why are you looking to install a tankless water heater? Hope it's not for economics. The cost differential will take you over 20 years to recoup. And by that time you'll likely need a new system. Not to mention yearly maintenance costs to descale a tankless system.
$4000 is average for Calgary. Supplied and Installed.

[gram]

Don't do it. Complete waste of $. You will also now have to worry about balancing(where you locate the unit) in your house if you don't want to wait 1-2 minutes for hot water at certain tap/faucet locations. To do them properly you really need one unit per floor. A hot water tank is a way better idea and a heck of a lot cheaper.

If you want to be really fancy and don't have a finished basement you can even do a recirc line and pump off of a hot water tank and have almost instantly hot water and still be thousands under the price of one of these units.

You are looking around 4K installed for what you asked.

[thetransporter]

Originally posted by C_Dave45
Why are you looking to install a tankless water heater? Hope it's not for economics. The cost differential will take you over 20 years to recoup. And by that time you'll likely need a new system. Not to mention yearly maintenance costs to descale a tankless system.
$4000 is average for Calgary. Supplied and Installed.

that was with me supplying the heater.

-old tank leaking due not maintaining drain hole from what members tell me
-old tank is not as efficient as newer stuff
-from what I see cost of a tankless from US is about 800-1500
-good for a household of 5 maybe a pending kid in the future.
-i dont mind paying 1500-1800 for the system plus install but really should be straight forward.

-basement not developed

[gram]

If you want efficiency you could look to an Electric hot water tank too. Just an option. The gas ones seem to be a bit more expensive to run at least where I live.

[JRSC00LUDE]

Tankless heaters are junk.

[C_Dave45]

Originally posted by thetransporter


that was with me supplying the heater.

-old tank leaking due not maintaining drain hole from what members tell me
-old tank is not as efficient as newer stuff
-from what I see cost of a tankless from US is about 800-1500
-good for a household of 5 maybe a pending kid in the future.
-i dont mind paying 1500-1800 for the system plus install but really should be straight forward.

-basement not developed

The reason they quote such a high install rate for labour only, is because first of all, they're losing markup on the product. Secondly, they have no idea what unit you're going to supply. Plumbers HATE having customers supply product. You won't save any money, as there's usually twice as much work involved. Plumbers use and know what products work well, and are familiar with their install. I see this all the time. New manufacturers, missing parts, local wholesalers don't have the parts required, plumbers not familiar with the particular model....all adds to more time and labour. The best way is to get a reputable plumber and say "put a system in my house, please". He'll give you the best one for your budget. As I said...most tankless are going in for around the $4k mark.

A good 50 gallon traditional gas powered tank will give you all the hot water you'll need for a family of 5. It will cost you around a grand, installed. Simple.

[thetransporter]

Originally posted by C_Dave45


The reason they quote such a high install rate for labour only, is because first of all, they're losing markup on the product. Secondly, they have no idea what unit you're going to supply. Plumbers HATE having customers supply product. You won't save any money, as there's usually twice as much work involved. Plumbers use and know what products work well, and are familiar with their install. I see this all the time. New manufacturers, missing parts, local wholesalers don't have the parts required, plumbers not familiar with the particular model....all adds to more time and labour. The best way is to get a reputable plumber and say "put a system in my house, please". He'll give you the best one for your budget. As I said...most tankless are going in for around the $4k mark.

A good 50 gallon traditional gas powered tank will give you all the hot water you'll need for a family of 5. It will cost you around a grand, installed. Simple.

So just go with traditional?

The guy said he is dry on tankless heaters they are selling quickly and suggested the model to buy.

But that being said - i spent $6500 with Sears for new furnace system (super quiet) but it is leaking water from the inlets right into it - I did do a call 3 weeks ago and still waiting for a call back - and thats something they supplied.

[JRSC00LUDE]

Transporter, they're better than they used to be but they are still garbage. My good friend owns a large plumbing company here in Saskatoon, they do all the new homes for the two largest builders in the city and they refuse to spec them anymore. They will only install when the customer insists upon it as they were needing to have a full time guy running around doing service calls on them, especially in winter.

They're problematic, temperamental and just not worth it.

Do what Dave says, you'll get a tried and true product that's going to serve all your needs and only ever need an odd thermocoupler or dip tube in the next ten years - if anything.

[Maxt]

Rinnai or Noritz, those brands have been around forever and are as reliable as the sun coming up.

[thetransporter]

Originally posted by gram
Don't do it. Complete waste of $. You will also now have to worry about balancing(where you locate the unit) in your house if you don't want to wait 1-2 minutes for hot water at certain tap/faucet locations. To do them properly you really need one unit per floor. A hot water tank is a way better idea and a heck of a lot cheaper.

If you want to be really fancy and don't have a finished basement you can even do a recirc line and pump off of a hot water tank and have almost instantly hot water and still be thousands under the price of one of these units.

You are looking around 4K installed for what you asked.


thank you very much i will just go with the traditional . Whats the best way for a straight swap?

[CanmoreOrLess]

If you have a large bathtub you might want to get a larger heater than you currently have, my wife is always running short of hot water for her bath. We have a large bathtub with jets, I assume most homes do these days.

Dave would know more about these things.

[Weapon_R]

Originally posted by thetransporter



thank you very much i will just go with the traditional . Whats the best way for a straight swap?

Home depot + a plumber. Or Pete the Plumber has a deal for $715 installed (40gal) or $905 for a 50 gal. I priced out a tankless as well but I can't justify spending even $3k for one because, as Dave and others have said, it'll take decades to recoup and I can't run my hot water tank dry right now anyway.

[gram]

OP: If you do go the Home Depot route make sure that your hot water tank has the pressure relief valve on the side and not on the bottom. Some of the ones that they sell has the valve at the bottom and they are not as good as the older more tested side mounted ones.

It will be something that does not matter to 90% of people but it is nice that if your hot water tank does decide to flake on you that you have control of where the water blows out from(just a FYI) and personal preference.

If you can find the brand John Wood in Calgary they are awesome. I'm not sure if they have them there but they are very good with warranty. We just had one replaced at 7.5 yrs old (they have an 8 yr warranty) and they simply replace it with a brand new unit instead of throwing parts at it.

[Maxt]

You can still do a recirc line with a tankless FYI. Whoever is charging 4k for a residential tankless install is burning people.

[codetrap]

The tankless systems aren't worth it from a purely economic standpoint. They're easily 3 times a tank system in cost, and at best they'll save you 30% on your water heating bill. In real numbers? My water heating bill in the summer, with using my NG BBQ 4 times a week? $9.83 in NG. So you're saving $3/month, for something that's going to cost you $2000+ to install. Plus that extra heat that's lost? It's going into my house, so it's not really lost...

Unless you have a specific need, or you just like the "cool" factor.... it doesn't make sense. I put in a 50G tank when I had to replace mine, high recovery, and I haven't run out of hot water yet, even filling our big ass soaker tub.

[C_Dave45]

Originally posted by Maxt
You can still do a recirc line with a tankless FYI. Whoever is charging 4k for a residential tankless install is burning people.

That's "installed"...meaning both the system as well as labour. What kind of prices are you getting? I'm getting my prices from the last half a dozen reno jobs I've been on. Direct from the contractor and my plumber buddy.

[Grogador]

I don't know anything about tank vs. tankless but I am curious... why does the rest of the planet, especially Europe and Asia, run on-demand water heating systems? Usually see electric in Europe (no gas?) and gas in Asia (expensive power, limited/bottled gas??)

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by Grogador
I don't know anything about tank vs. tankless but I am curious... why does the rest of the planet, especially Europe and Asia, run on-demand water heating systems? Usually see electric in Europe (no gas?) and gas in Asia (expensive power, limited/bottled gas??)

You basically covered it, plus an even bigger issue; space!

[Maxt]

Originally posted by C_Dave45


That's "installed"...meaning both the system as well as labour. What kind of prices are you getting? I'm getting my prices from the last half a dozen reno jobs I've been on. Direct from the contractor and my plumber buddy.
If I was doing a lot of residential plumbing, I would take advantage of the promo deals on the tankless heaters and buy 20 at a time. One wholesaler had Noritz nrc98's with the valve kit on for 1K with one remote panel, allow 8 hours for install and minor materials, 2500.00 should do the average install. Last one I did, I was in and out in 5 hours, using a propress tool. I think a lot of people bill extra labour into the install to cover the call backs, because they are unsure of how the install is supposed to be done.
The best conventional tank warranty I know of is 8 year, where as the tankless are usually 12 on the heat exchanger. From experience, a tankless is going to last twice as long minumum as a conventional tank heat. I never had to use Rinnai or Noritz warranty to date, I have tried AO smiths warranty, and getting warranty is like pulling teeth, even for defective gas controls, speaking of which I have yet to see a newer conventional tank that has not eaten at least one gas control in its life span, and the newer gas controls are $$$.
I hear all the stories about reliability, I am not a plumber, but I have a gasfitter B ticket and troubleshooting is my thing, honestly all the problems I have seen with tankless are installer error. People not setting the dipswitches right, the connecting piping to small, the venting done wrong, the machine hooked up backwards.



Originally posted by Grogador
I don't know anything about tank vs. tankless but I am curious... why does the rest of the planet, especially Europe and Asia, run on-demand water heating systems? Usually see electric in Europe (no gas?) and gas in Asia (expensive power, limited/bottled gas??)
Yah you got most of it. They don't like to do big central mechanical rooms in Japan. Here we run 2 large lines of copper through a building, one hot , one cold and then 1 smaller copper line for recirc. Most apartment buildings in Japan have a small outdoor mounted tankless at each apartment. This eliminates a lot of piping, and the need for recirc. Recirc lines are a total headache, they don't last very long. They have to run a gas line which is steel ,and cheaper. Being that they lots of buildings are on bottle gas, efficiency is paramount, heat only the small amount you need when you actually need it, the way they do heating and air conditioning follows the same directive as well.

[thetransporter]

Originally posted by Grogador
I don't know anything about tank vs. tankless but I am curious... why does the rest of the planet, especially Europe and Asia, run on-demand water heating systems? Usually see electric in Europe (no gas?) and gas in Asia (expensive power, limited/bottled gas??)


i was thinking the same thing... we have on the demand heater in lebanon - always hot water., without issue ...

I think it has to do with locals wanting us to support their business - which i am more than 100 percent willing to, as long as they are not gouging, i support them making a profit but reasonable..

I think it was the case of the muffler, while in Salt lake city - picked up a HKS exhaust (back in the day) they were happy to install it in Calgary - but they asked me where I got it as they could "sell it for thousands"



but What im going to install at my shower is a Electric point-of-use system for now.