Tankless Water Heater Installation Not For The Inexperienced
A customer called the other day asking about a problem he was having with his tankless water heater. He said it was just installed and he bought it new from a home center. His complaint was that when he ran a faucet everything was fine and he got hot water, but when he ran a shower or bathtub...no hot water!
I started asking questions and he sheepishly told me he paid someone he just met to install it. Apparently, he met the guy in the parking lot of the home center and he was believable enough to get the job. The reason he was calling me was that he couldn't get ahold of the guy he met in the parking lot. Hello? Are you serious? This customer paid $1,500.00 for a new tankless water heater and let some shark trolling the parking lot install it on the cheap. This guy made a bad decision and he knew it.
After speaking to the customer, it was pretty obvious the installer didn't know what he was doing. This was a gas tankless water heater, and although they will save energy on your monthly gas bill, they demand a lot of energy when they are actively heating water. Most of our homes have a ½" gas line which is fine for a typical tank-style water heater. For a tankless, the gas line needs to be upgraded to a ¾" gas line. That was one of the problems with this installation. The installer (and I use the term loosely), simply added a ¾" adapter onto the existing ½" gas line. Big mistake. Although the guy was able to connect the gas line to the water heater, it still was a ½" gas supply. A new ¾" line needed to be run to properly supply the water heater.
With a tankless, there are typically venting considerations also, due to the venting being much closer to the burner, and consequently burning much hotter. The point is, this probably isn't a job for someone inexperienced in installing a tankless water heater.