Great but..., December 9, 2011

Excellent way to heat water for a house up to three bathrooms, but it can take a solid sixty seconds of running water from a kitchen faucet to initially get hot. This may not sound like a long wait, but try sitting at your sink for sixty seconds and see how it feels. Plus if you are in an area with expensive water, it can get costly.

My gas hot water heater just died. Got quotes to replace with similar. Quotes ran from $1800 to $1250 installed. The tankless unit priced out at $2000 installed which included adding a larger gas line and tapping into electric. $300 fed tax credit, $100 from Rinnai and $150 from my nat gas company gets me to $1450. So for $200 I made the leap to tankless and should save at least that much in gas first year.First shower tonight right after install. Plenty of hot water. Can't speak to fluctuations as it was still clearing air in the lines. I gave it 4 stars only because it is too soon in ownership to award it 5 stars. More later...assuming I can update this later.Jan 23, 2012 Update:Update: It definitely takes a little longer to get hot water (30 seconds-1 minute). Of course once someone gets hot water upstairs the first time in the morning the lag time isn't really noticeable. And there is a "cold water sandwich" effect as mentioned on the Rennai site. I...