The last disaster, was our hot water heater. We found a small leak shortly before we left for a trip. So, my husband turned it off. This was during a very cold snap. When we came back, a week later, he went downstairs to relight it. Instead he found a flood. It was the original hot water tank from when my husband built the house, back in the early 90's. So, it lasted well beyond its expected life span. It went out with a fight however. Evidently when she went, she sent water sprays every direction, including up along the vent through the wall. That water, then ran back down, and onto the office ceiling. So, now we will need to replace sheet rock in the office and repaint.
We started doing our research on hot water heaters and decided to go tankless. We settled on a Westinghouse 11.5 gpm propane unit. So far, we love it. It hangs on the wall, takes up much less space than the old monster tank did. We had a local plumber install it for us. According to the information provided by Westinghouse and our propane dealer , it is an energy saver unit and should cut our operating costs in about in half. It was slightly more expensive, in the $900 range before taxes and shipping. It went on sale, bringing it down to $800. The Missouri Propane Association has a rebate plan and we will get $200 back on that. After all that is said and done, the price came out to the same price as buying another tank.
It would take the water less time to reach the faucets if we had put it on the main floor (we are in a 3 story house), but we decided to put it in the basement. Per code, it has to be mounted against an exterior wall. It was a lot less work to put it in this unfinished part of the basement than it would be had we put it elsewhere. We chose an area right below the path of the gas line and waterlines.
It takes the hot water about 90 seconds to reach the main floor, and around 2 minutes to reach the top floor. But, once you use it the first time of the day, it seems to take less time thereafter. It is louder, but we only noticed the noise the first couple of weeks. Now, we don't. We are planning on building a cabinet around it, and we will insulate the cabinet, then the noise will not be noticeable. The noise only runs when the burners are on, and the burners only kick on when we run more than 3/4 of a gallon of water from the hot faucet.
It has a digital display screen on it, and is easy to change the temperature on--with the old one, we had to get on the floor and turn a hard to read knob.
It will need to be flushed once a year. Some people complain about that--but if you read on a regular tank hot water heater, they are also supposed to be flushed once a year. Our plumber said next year, he will come flush it and teach us how. After that, we can do it.
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