Water Heaters: Tankless vs Traditional

[CatDaddy]

Either way....homeownership = $$$

 

[Maddog]

"So the final system sent my hot water usage from something around $17/month to maybe $27 or so. I can live with that - especially in winter when heat is heat - it doesn't get wasted. Summer is a different animal."


I beg to differ.

Personally I would rather have the heat "upstairs" vs somewhere in the basement. Thinking the small amount of heat lost in the basement doesn't do a whole lot to increase the comfort level in my dwelling space upstairs.

Or to look at it differently, I have separate heating zones in the basement and upstairs. It sure would take a large amount of energy to get the upstairs to a comfortable level by solely heating the lower level. My wife wouldn't like this scenario. : )

Thinking a small in line heater at the remote faucet is perhaps the way a person should go. ?

 

[ktm450]

Just found this thread and thought i would share my data for those that have a hot water recirc and the cost with it. I dont know what it would be like if i didnt have the recirc and just ran water for 5 min to get hot water. i do know rural water is expensive. lol

specs- house is 1836 sq ft up and 1872 sq ft down with unfinished basement.

A little back story to how this came around to this. I had my propane tanks (2 -1000 gal) filled back in july and just so happen to take a look at the level here a few weeks ago. i was shocked with how fast the level was dropping and immediately thought i had possibly a leak (had the tanks repositioned this summer). Trying to figure out where it was all going ( could only be the hotwater heater at this present time). I decided to put a wifi smart plug on the power vent blower and see how much the hot water heater was running. Now i knew it ran more then the the household that doesnt have the recirc but to my surprise it was way more then I thought. I have a power vented 75,000btu propane hot water heater with the hot water recirc pump. After the first 4 days on the plug my hot water heater ran for 17 hours total and i knew i needed to do something different as it costed me aprox. $18.39 in propane and $1.98 in electricity for the power vent and recirc pump in those 4 days.

The next 4 days I put the hot water recirc pump on another wifi smart plug with a schedule and kept the power vent with power all the time to see how much it would run. (only having power to the recirc pump when we were home and would need hot water instantly ( 8 hours a total run time during the week and 16 hours on weekend). To my surprise the hot water heater in the next 4 days only ran a total of 7 hours costing me $7.57 in propane and $0.54 for electricity to the power vent and pump.

wish i would have done this little experiment years ago. wasted a lot of money on propane and power the past 7 years.

 

[guywhofishes]

I set up an oddball system (gravity loop, a water heater zone control valve, and a terrarium temp controller ) that works like an absolute charm if anyone is interested. One can choose the return temperature and what hours of the day it runs. Relatively cheap and easy.

Insulated the entire return run too with exception of the last 15 feet, so the gravity loop would functional well.

Efficiency is no big deal in winter of course - you’re just heating the house with your water heater. Summer time is a whole nother matter!