Tankless water heaters I was at Lowe's yesterday looking at the Bosch AE115. Lowe's won't install them, and the guy at Home Depot said electric tankless water heaters were very difficult to install because of electrical considerations.
The reviews at Amazon.com of the Bosch models, AE115 and AE125, were terrible: don't work well, prone to failure.
I'm told the Renai may be a better choice, but I haven't priced them. I think they may be out of my range.
Any thoughts on tankless water heaters? Will I ever recoup the initial higher cost in energy and water savings (Progress Energy, city of Wilmington water).
Re: Tankless water heaters Do you have well water or city water? Well water tends to scale the lines causeing "suprise cost every 2-3 years" Is your gas line large enough for the Renai another suprise cost may be a larger line. Energystar.gov and Consumer reports has some great stories on tankless. If you need a copy of the Consumer Reports story shoot me an email at Jim@AlternativeEnergyNC.com . Just fyi Progress Energy offers a $1000.00 dollar incentive for solar hot water systems, and you will get packback (about 4 years with the extra $1000 from Progress)
Re: Tankless water heaters Yeah, solar is a better option. The electrical issue with elec. tankless is that you have to have 200 amp service. This could be a problem if you have an old home, but you should be OK if not. The best model I've seen for elec. tankless is (believe it or not)the Skye unit -