Rinnai Tankless Water Heater Model 2532

When we built our new home we opted for the Rinnai option that the builder offered. It was about a $2,000 option and we didn't install it ourselves, so that's why I left off the price since it can probably be had for less if you contract straight to the vendor.

The system has been great with no complaints. Our gas bill is about $8 in the summer when we are only using the Rinnai (no gas heat in use) and I think that's pretty good. We are a family of 4 running the washing machine at least twice a week as well as dishwasher 2 or 3 times a week. We bathe too.

If I had to find something to complain about (aside from the cost) it would be that it takes a solid 40 - 50 seconds to get hot water coming out of the tap (assuming it had not been in use for a while, like in the morning). I have been told this could be solved with a circulator pump, but that dissolves the efficiency of the Rinnai. I have also been told that it could just be the plumbing layout of our home. Regardless, it still seems a bit longer than is should take.

The system does seem to work as intended, providing endless hot water, there have been several instances of the washing machine running as well as a shower and a bath tub with no flux in hot water (water pressure is a different story, but no fault of the Rinnai).

Our unit is mounted in our garage next to our furnace. It's facing dimension is about that of a microwave door, and only sticks off the wall about 5 inches, so it is tiny, especially compared to a traditional hot water heater.

All in all, it's a great system, works as intended and if you can live with the cost as well as waiting a few seconds for hot water, this is for you.

There is a product that will recirculate water and is for use on tankless applications, it will not void the warranty and will only add a few pennies to the cost of heating water.  It is manufactured by Metlund, can be seen on my website, may be able to contact a local supplier for this product.  go to www.yourtankless.com and look at products-metlund.

keith

Contacted the only authorized local business/plumber for a estimate and he never contacted me with any of the methods I provided him. Email; work, home phone; and residential address.

We installed two of these when we built our house three years ago.  Paid around $1200 each.  Cost savings for use and reliablity are incredible.  No problem yet.  One reviewer wrote about the slow response time.  However, I believe this is a plumbing problem.  The hot water flows out of the water heater almost instantly.  Sure, if you have a long run, there is inherently a delay in getting hot water---however, you would have about the same delay (within a few seconds or so) with a tank-based heater at the same location.  Our house is about 5000 sq ft.  We have multiple faucets turned on at one time and have never had a hot water flow limitation.  The water heater only turns on the flame when hot water is demanded (think about it--you do not pay to continually heat up a tank when no one is using the water heater) and the size of the flame is regulated by the tankless water heater to match the hot water flow rate (no large gas flow for a corresponding small hot water flow).  All of this means that the tankless water heater is incredibly cheap to operate.  We would have needed two tank-based water heaters anyway if we had not installed the tankless water heaters, and we have more than made up for the initial cost difference in the past three years.  The next 17 years (the expected lifetime of a tankless water heater versus 10 years for a tank-based water heater) is gravy.