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Old 05-06-2009, 04:23 PM   #8
Mee-n-Mac
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmen24 View Post
dpg
You are correct in that is costs more to make hot water than it does to maintain hot water, but a fair amount of our clients only come up a few weekends out of the year and that includes winter and they typically shut down the water system to prevent massive flooding in the winter if the system has a freeze up. In those situations we recommend the tankless, as the hot water is right there when then come up and want to have a shower right off.
Huh ? I think it costs less to make the hot water than it does to make and maintain it, which is what your typical system does. Am I missing something here ? If you're constantly using the hot water then the difference may be small and not enough to make the extra cost of a tankless system pay for itself. We'd have gone tankless except that the plumber guy said the gas line (from the LP tank) would have to be redone as the on demand systems required more flow to make the BTUs they do. This made some sense and then again .... How many more BTUs, say over a gas range, does a typical 3 GPM tankless system produce (note: not used in winter) ? What kind of "special" pressure regulator and gas line diameter (if any) does an on demand system need vs a typical tank system ?
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