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Tankless Concerns

Here is an interesting post that I spotted on RedFlagDeals – that’s a popular Canadian site offering deals and helpful info to people. I recommend you check it out if you’re interested.  Anyways this user had some questions regarding tankless water heaters and was looking for responses from current owners.  Here is their inquiry.

I’ll be moving into a brand new town-home in downtown Toronto next year, and we need to decide on which option to go for the water heater:

  1. Rent the tank system from Direct Energy (installed by builder…)
  2. Buy a tank system and replace the rental
  3. Rent a tankless system
  4. Buy a tankless system

Our priorities are, in order of most important first:

  1. Space
  2. Hot Temperature
  3. Continuous hot water
  4. Noise
  5. Multiple appliances
  6. Up-front costs
  7. Operating & Maintenance costs

I know the tankless system wins for 1 and 3… but what about 2, 4, and 5? After reading through this thread, I only read a few things about the noise issue. We want to mount this on a wall to save space and use that area as storage, but if it’s going to rattle our small townhome’s walls, that’s a serious concern.

Thoughts?

Here Is Our Take

Right off the bat I would instantly recommend a tankless if your number one concern is space.  A tankless wins hands down.  I will go though the issues this user brought up briefly.

  1. Space – tankless saves a lot, it wins.
  2. Temperature – Toss up, but I would probably give it to the tankless because of its precision
  3. Continuous supply – obviously the tankless takes this category
  4.  Noise – depends on which type of conventional tank you could install, but I call it a draw – both would probably be power vented units so the blower makes the most noise.
  5. Tank wins but only for a short period as it will run out of water as more appliances demand hot water.
  6. Tank is cheaper for sure – a tankless does have much higher upfront costs.
  7. Tank – a tank will be cheaper on maintenance as there really isn’t any, but that tank has a lifespan of 8 years where as the tankless is 20.  Yep you will pay a little more on maintenance but it more than makes up for it over time.