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[Sarah Ovenall <sovenall AT nc.rr.com>]

At 3:11 PM -0500 2/1/07, Scott Lundgren wrote:
> I don't need a water heater right now but I'd never heard of such a 
> thing and read through the site. Of course being the vendor's website 
> they don't mention the down sides of this approach. Does anyone know
> why one wouldn't want this design ?

I have a tankless water heater and I love it, but these are the 
downsides in my experience:

1. It's expensive to install compared to a traditional water heater, 
especially if you have to run a gas line as we did.
2. It takes a bit longer for the water to run hot, and the further 
the tap is from the heater, the longer it takes. Really big houses 
need multiple heaters.
3. The tankless heater saves money by not keeping hot water sitting 
there all the time. But if you have a big family and use hot water 
all day long, you'll see less of that savings. (On the other hand, if 
you have lots of people taking showers every day, running out of hot 
water might be a problem which the tankless heater would solve.)

It was the best solution for me because:
1. The only place where the water heater tank could go, it kept 
rusting out. Including the cost in having to replace the tank every 
couple-three years made the tankless heater not so expensive.
2. My house is small and no faucet is that far from the heater.
3. I don't have kids and don't use that much hot water. So it's perfect for 
me.