You are dead on again sir...recently I had diminished waterflow in my sink in the master bath as well as no hot water for a day only in the sink. When I checked the filter under the faucet it was full of old metal rust particles that impeded the water flow and did not allow the register of enough significant water flow to heat the water to that spigot. I cleaned it out and everything was back to normal right away. I replaced all the faucets and shower heads when I had the tankless installed but probably need to check them all again while still with the galvanized. Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this!

Is Greenville in your operational territory? TIA.

man all of that is easy especially the gas. when you hook it up, take a mapp gas torch and check the gas lines for leaks. if you have a leak it will burn. no need to pay someone when you can do it yourself. J/K hire someone. but that is the way i check for leaks. crazy huh. not really gas beyond the regulator doesn't have that much pressure on it. NOTE THAT IS NATURAL GAS NOT LP

This is basically the exact samething my friend said. What brand did you buy?

Got a buddy who said the exact same thing. So he started turning the thing off after a certain amount of time when his teenagers were in the shower. Funny.

By the way, this thread has been great. I've been considering one since we moved last April. Already had to replace an element in the current tank. I thought about doing it then but had other projects going on so I held off. Will probably do one in the next 12 months. We have three children and one on the way so it will come in handy and pay for itself. So who do I call in Columbia?

Not an expert by any means, but we had a Rinai at our last house. The system is gas, but the ignition was electric, so if the power went out we had no hot water. Also, make sure you do the annual maintenance. Ours went a little haywire after about 14 months, but they came out to check it and run diagnostics and it worked fine after that.

That would be a deal breaker for me. Too many power outages in my area to not have hot water when the power is out.

Or you can get a battery back-up for the tankless heater. Only $100 or so.

Well KamaCocksy.... I got to say this... I'm 51 years old and only one time in my life can I remember needing to take a shower while the power was out and that was the big ice storm in the mid '70's.

If the power goes out and you have an electric water heater, you're only gonna have water for about 8 to 12 hours anyway. Again, the ice strom and Hurricane Hugo are the only two times I can remember being out for an extended period of time.

Your arguement would not deter me from installing a gas or electric unit.

I do plumbing in the Columbia area. We will install 3 tankless water heaters this week. 2 internals, installed in an underground root cellar and vented to the outside, and 1 external. Most of our installations are for remodeling or new construction. We quote a lot of replacements but rarely do one. If you already have gas, you have to verify the size of the line furnishing gas to meet the btus of the heater. Any good brand of tankless water heater will also require electricity to run the unit and keep it from freezing in the winter. I know someone that had a contractor buy 8 units for some houses he was selling. He paid less than $600.00 for each and the heat exchangers froze and busted. He ended up eating $6000.00. If you have gas, SC&G estimates you will save $60.00 a year. I f you have an electric heater the savings will be much greater but so will the installation cost.

In truth, the only way I would consider a tankless heater is for endless hot water. Some drawbacks exist for this as well. Tankless water heaters have a flow control in them. This is to allow for the same temperature water reguardless of the the incoming temperature. A 9.4 gallon water heater would provide this amount of hot water at a 30 degree rise. If the incoming water temperature is 40 degrees the flow control would slow the movement of the water to maybe 2 to 3 gallons of water a minute. Thus, not endless hot water. The flow control also has a minimum, Rinnai, 1.2 gallons per minute. If you turn your water on very slowly, the heater may not turn itself on. We just had a service call for this.

Discuss thiese with a wholesaler or a plumber not a home service center for all the facts about a tankless heater.
Only about 50 percent of the people we have installed tankless heaters for are totally satisfied. Most say I thought I would save more money.