Tankless Water Heaters

[Jerryr]

I am thinking about switching out my tanked water heater for a tankless water heater. I am looking for feedback on whether I should do this or not. Looking for both pro's and con's to doing so. It would be great to hear from anyone with experience at making the switch.

For a typical Atwood 6 gallon tank heater:
If you’re using it only in electric mode the recovery rate is 6.2 Gallons per hour
If you’re using it in gas mode only the recovery rate is 11.6 gal/hr
If you use it in combo mode, both electric and gas at the same time, the recovery rate is 17.8 gal/hr

In Florida we never run out of hot water on electric only with back to back showers where “cold” water is usually about 70 degrees. Water heater hot water is about 140 degrees. A hot shower is about 100 degrees.

When we get to camp site and want to shower right away I turn on both electric and gas and in 15 minutes we have real hot water. Then I switch to electric for remainder of stay.

[orbiker]

HERE is a link for shower heads.

We have the Oxygenics Body Spa.

You SHOULD be using a water pressure regulator on the outside of your rig to keep your interior pipes from bursting from water pressure that is too high coming in. If the water pressure is too hi, you will also use up your hot water faster.
KEN

[DJ Moore]

Ken, that's a good point I hadn't thought about. I do have a pressure regulator on my incoming water. I am going to turn the pressure down and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the input.

[orbiker]

Ken, that's a good point I hadn't thought about. I do have a pressure regulator on my incoming water. I am going to turn the pressure down and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for the input.

GD recommends 50 psi I believe.

[DJ Moore]

Last year GD tech support said no more than 60 PSI. I have had it set at about 52-55 PSI. I just lowered it to 40 PSI. I will see how that works out tomorrow when I take my shower.

[alanhenson]

We had 4 adults and 8 kids in our RV all taking showers and never ran out of hot water.

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[Shance]

I have a tankless water heater so the cons are: it's hard to maintain (at least once a year), it has a "cool down", and it needs to be protected from freezing. Numbers depend on the brand and model, they are all different. Ours is Eccotemp i12-NG, and we don't have problems with its maintenance, it has ~15 min "cool down" and we've never had "freezing issues".
Some useful videos:
- RV Tankless Water Heater. Should I Get One? (Pros vs Cons)
- Tankless Water Heater 3 Things to Know

[arisythila]

Tankless is a GREAT idea... IMO well worth it.

[Heavysledz]

I do't have a tankless WH but have a friend that does and he doesn't like it for boondocking because when you try to limit your water usage and flow a very small amount of hot water, the heater keeps cycling on and off because it doesn't detect enough flow to keep the heater on....this may be isolated his heater/model but that ws his feedback and he wished his toy hauler had come with the standard tanked heater setup.

[mntbikejack]

I wonder why I am running out of hot water then. I bought a water saving shower head and installed it. What shower head do you have in your rig?

Is the electric turned on? There is another switch that needs to be turned on outside on the water heater for electric to work.