Tankless vs tank water heater question with estimates

Very accessible. In a closet in my mud room but not a lot of room to fit bigger than 50gal tank.

I got a couple estimates. Those were the best prices for each. Not sure if it’s a sign of the times, inflation, holiday f*ckery??

dig deep into the tankless literature. there are charts that will tell you the flow rate / temp rise / necessary BTU etc. a lot depends on the incoming temp and your desired outgoing temp . i.e. temp rise.

$1000 labor to install a tank? I would get more quotes.

FYI
If you get it make sure you document the yearly maintenance.. if not and something happens they may try to void the coverage.

Also you say in a closet. Inside ? That is a good plan.

Here in texas lots of people had them installed on exterior walls outside of house. we lost power across our state for a few days in very cold weather.. if you did not go out and drain them some residual water stayed in a few places and froze damaging the unit. They are not covered if damage due to power failure and not drained.

Also if you lose power they stop working since they run on electric computers stuff..
the gas ones also use a control panel.

They originated as a method in Europe where old old places would distribute small water heaters at point of need.. ie one in kitchen under sink.. one on a floor for bathroom.. another in a different wing…

I was talked out of installing one by the plumber that I was doing either one… I originally was replacing like your plan and he convinced me to just stay with traditional..

I got two bids from two plumbers.. I asked both if they had them at their houses.. they both said no.

General Contractor here.

The Navien NPE-240A2NG at my cost is $1842.64, my plumber charges $750 to install. I buy about 100 of these a year. I build in a high priced market (panhandle of Florida 30A, Destin) and more so on labor costs. My opinion is your quote is high. Which model Navien did they quote you? I’d be happy to get you one at my cost delivered to your door.

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Which model Navien did they quote you?

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NPN199UNG

Just don't get caught up in the hype of tankless. They have their places but when you listen to some people talk about theirs they all but claim they cured cancer. I think it has to do with convincing themselves the extra cost was worth it.

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Sometimes we run out of hot water but not too often

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If running out of hot water isn't a big concern, then the only other advantages of tankless are "standby heating losses" and space savings. I don't remember the standby losses of tankless compared to tank, but it wasn't anything you'd come close to recouping in lower gas bills with the extra cost of the tankless.


Tankless have many more components and because of that I don't see anyway they aren't going to be more of maintenance factor than a tank.

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50 gal gas tank $1600 installed

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Don't forget the fact you could DIY it and buy a tank yourself for $800. If you're not sure you want to tackle a tank then you definitely don't want to DIY a tankless even in the best scenario.


TL;DR tankless is a luxury and luxuries cost money.

Or democrat in the White House.

My 50 gallon electric tank busted in August and I had a gas tankless installed. This included running gas lines throughout my attic and relocating the water heater to the opposite side of the house. I won't tell you what I paid for that. It was outrageous but went with the best of three bids.

If you go tankless I would highly recommend going with the biggest condensing unit you can get with a recirculation system built in. The unit I have is a State (AO Smith makes them I believe?) 10GPM exterior non-condensing. The plumber talked me out of installing it in my attic to avoid popping a hole in my roof to vent, and he talked me out of a condensing unit due to the drain line requirements they would have had to install. The price was already obnoxious, and I didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing since it was an emergency install.

Doing it all over again I would have either went with my original plan of two 40 gallon tanks plumbed in parallel, or an 11 gpm condensing unit in my attic where my original tank was.

I installed a recirculating pump under my sink yesterday and that has made a big difference, especially now that it's cold outside.

Between tank and tankless. It is different. the on and off vs seamless hot water takes some getting used to. Depending on how far your dishwasher is from your tankless, it may finish its cycle before hot water even gets to it. Recirculation pump comes in handy here.

I actually have a call back to the plumber to come look at the tankless unit because lately it has started with a loud vibration noise anytime its flowing above 3-4 gpm. When it's not making that noise it's whisper quiet other than the ignition.

Good luck.

ETA: One important thing to note, and I'd imagine a lot of the reason why you may see houses being built with two tankless units (one on each side the house), is, besides the distance and warm up time issue, is the flow rate issue as someone mentioned above. A tank will provide all the pressure you need at all fixtures at one time, but will run out. A tankless will never run out, but it will drop pressure quickly to maintain temperature, so you can't use more than a few fixtures at one time. At this part of the year our temperature rise is around 55 degrees (65 degree incoming to 120 degree outgoing), which means my "10gpm" unit will max out around 5.9 gpm. If we turn the hot all the way on on our 10 gpm tub filler we get a trickle out of any other fixture. Honestly, with how cold the incoming water is, if my wife washes the dishes and runs the dishwasher while I shower my shower pressure plummets. That would be 1.8gpm faucet, 2.5gpm dish washer, 2gpm shower.

In our experiences outlined above, outside of my wife's massive bathtub needing to be filled, our hot water use is frequent uses across several faucets at the same time. A larger amount of tanked hot water would suit us better probably.