Had an electric tankless unit in the old haouse for several years. On the plus side, it cut my electric costs by over a dollar a day. That does add up. never ran out of hot water either.
On the minus side:
#1 triacs firing made for some real crap on the power lines in the house. Made noise on TV and hum in stereo. Also, dishwasher would run forever. Turns out, noise kept restarting the cycle.

#2 blasted thing sprang a leak. Been awhile, but I think I did the best soldering job of my life and fixed it.

#3 Temperature cycles. Wound up installing a 5 gal. 110vac unit downstream of the tankless to smooth out the temp. swings and to provide better temperature on startup. Just set both to 120 degrees.

#4 power requirements. This unit wanted one 220vac 90Amp breaker (two 90 amp 110's, one on each line actually). I faked it with a double 60 and a double 30, carefully checking to make sure the phasing was right! Yeah, it was a heck of a load on my 200A service. Thing actually had three 22vac 25 amp elements in it.


My advice, whatever system you decide to use, make sure the tenants have to pay the costs of heating and cooling everything. Let the other guys competing with you give away heat, cooling, water whatever. In a few years, you can buy their old buildings when they go belly up!

Insulating hot water pipes is not a good idea. It saves money but the temperatures in insulated pipes are ideal for bacteria. If you use it for a shower it is a serious health risk. In the Netherlands it is for this reason against building regulations to insulate hot water pipes.

Rob

OK,here's a question.Since I'm not going to switch to gas for another year or more what about an insulated storage tank,either running off the tankless coil in the boiler or with a heat exchanger loop with a separate circulator??

What's the issue with the current tankless coil in the boiler?? Fins accumulated with soot..........no performance??

Kip, those are some resourceful tenants....stealing the lot!

Tom W

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I got a titan tankless heater installed last month and I am proud to say that my electric bill has gone down almost 50 bucks. Cost me 250 bucks installed. My buddy works in contruction and got 5 of them from an apt bldg they were going to gut.

WOW!

__________________
Enough about me, how are you doing?

Depending on your hot water usage habits a tankless heater can either save or cost you more on utility bills. The inrush current for the electric tankless units is huge. Due to this there are resistive losses that one cannot recoup.
On the other hand a tank type heater uses little energy but over a long period of time so, if you use small amounts of hot water often, tanks are the winner. If it is infrequent use, then the tankless wins.

I've had a tankless at my weekend cabin for 14 years now. It's ideal in this situation as it uses no energy when I am not there plus I have instant hot water when I get there.

The Titan is a good inexpensive unit. Beware of the early versions that did not have any over temp protection. I had one melt copper pipe. Although, it lasted 12 years before giving any problems.

That's an "it depends" kind of question.

Try this site:
http://forum.doityourself.com/boilers-steam-hot-water-systems-128/

Those guys are very helpful and know their stuff.

__________________
1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

My FIL's went out after six years. It was a Bosch. That seems a little early to me. Then again the repair guy may have been giving him a load of bull. I wasn't there.

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I have had 2 Paloma flash heaters since 1988 and have only put $11 worth of diaphrams in each. These are all stainless and brass and nearly bullet proof as far as I can see.

We have used gas Rinnai's in a number of houses and condos without any issues.

They cost slightly more to install in new houses than the tanked heaters; not really any extra work though.

On existing houses you will probably have to run larger pipe and have a higher flowing meter installed. They burn a lot of gas when they are on!

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200