Are Tankless water heaters the right choice for a new home?
Answers:
Some like them, and some don't. The important thing seems to be that you get a plumber who has experience in installing these. The wrong size pipes can cause a lag time in getting hot water when you want it. Check out a couple of the links below.
Other answers:
I would pop for a real decent sized tankless heater...its so nice having hot water no matter who showers when. Water pressure change isn't noticeable unless your running your dishwasher, doing laundry taking a shower at the same time which you really cant do with tank heaters anyway.
I would pop for a real decent sized tankless heater...its so nice having hot water no matter who showers when. Water pressure change isn't noticeable unless your running your dishwasher, doing laundry taking a shower at the same time which you really cant do with tank heaters anyway.
I was actually just discussing this with someone. There are pros and cons of both, tanks can get the water much hotter, but you can run out of hot water, where as with tankless, the temperature will not get burning burning hot, but will be consistent, and you will not run out. So, with tanks, I would suggest a very large one, for that many bathrooms, or just go with a good tankless.
Unless you have two tankless water heaters in mind, I would say you should go solar as a back up. You'll save some money in a year or two, and you will always have plenty of hot water, regardless of what people say, tankless doesn't do a great job keeping up with multiple users at the same time, say upstairs and downstairs, as you will certainly have with 3 baths and kitchen users.
With such an enormous house I would recommend a mixture, for any areas that will have water service in a central lovation such as a kitchen right next to a bathroom, that can be supplied with a tank, for rooms that are far away and the cost of running pipe there starts to increase, put a tankless unit there.
You may want to look into a geothermal unit as well to cut the costs of heating the water. With such a large house you may also try and get solar panels installed and you can always sell extra back to hte local utility company.
I haven't seen anyone mention a hot water circulator. I installed the loop when I built and I think it was one of the best things I did. Instant hot water at every outlet. Just make sure the plumbers put the loop "T" as close to the fixture as possible; otherwise you'll wait for that "distance" of line to empty before the hot water arrives. Getting the right size water heater tank is very important.
no
you need tankless for maybe 1 person and a small place