Hybrid water heater

[justler]

We have an 80 gallon rheem HPWH. If you have the space and money, go with the 80 gallon. We run heat pump only mode and you can get around 30 minutes on an unrestricted shower head (Around 3gpm).

We don't do 3 showers in a row. If we did, everyone would take quick ones. Coming from a Propane 80 gallon we're saving about $600/year just on running the water heater.

Do not run a recirc pump on a HPWH. It'll double or triple the kwh used per day (I had a nice Grundfos temp sensing one I installed and don't use now).

In terms of cost savings, this has probably been the best upgrade we've done. All paid for by our solar array.

 

[fitter30]

You should do your home work. Tankless have a service life of 20 years or more.
Units are very simple. A burner and heat exchanger.

They have to be serviced yearly to have the dhw side cleaned. Air intake screen ,some have a air filter that also needs cleaning, induced burner fan may have to cleaned along with flue gas analyzed and condensate acid neutralized needs to be replaced. What happens to most "out of site out of mind" works till it doesn't then panic. Where a tank heater is less problematic.

 

[TRITOON]

It seems this water heater struggles sometimes to keep up with water needs its 50 gallons and when 3 people shower in a row it struggles.

I had this installed (can easily do it yourself) a few weeks ago and has been life changing for my family of 5.

I was getting ready to go into some big time expenses for tankless (7-9k), or some insanely large capacity like 80 gallon, but figured i would try this first at $100 on our existing 5 year old water heater. Basically it allows you to raise the temp on your water heater and then blends it with cold water so its 120 (comes pre-set from factory, but you can adjust it on the device if you want higher temp at faucet) when it reaches all faucets/fixtures. Since then we took back-to-back showers, which had never happened before in our new house. Our water heater is now only at 130, so we have quite a bit of bandwidth to go higher as the kids start taking longer showers.

Tank Booster™ PRO Thermostatic Mixing Valve

The Cash Acme hot water Tank Booster™ is designed to effectively double a household’s usable hot water heater capacity while delivering at safe temperatures.

www.cashacme.com

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CIRY99A/?tag=atomicindus08-20