water heaters

[dgroshong]

Any experience using traditional hot water heater vs tankless hot water heater. I have very hard water. Live in remote location. 3 people in family but only two live at home all the time. Need to replace traditional propane hot water heater.

[Redwood]

Very Hard Water?

I'd stay with what you have been using...

[dgroshong]

That was my thought as well.
thank you

[rmw]

Hard water tends to scale up any water heater and tankless water heaters will be affected more readily as you will see it take a sharp decreese from its GPM rating in amout of water heated as the scalle starts to coat the inside of the heat exchanger.

What exactly do you mean by a tankless some tankless actually use a very small tank they keep hot all the time and others are true tankless that only heat on water flow, in the case of the true tankless the flow switch is also suseptable to problems with mineral deposits.

The scale can be treated by acid washing the heater as is normally required it will just need to be done more often with hard water.

Make sure to figure out the maximum amount of water you will be useing at once (shower+Kitchen sink+Washmachine,ect) and then the tempeture rise from your water supply to what you want as hot water tempeture. Otherwise you may not get enough hot water to run multipal taps at the same time or you may not be able to get warm enough water. Plan well and you will be happy with it plan poorly and it will perform poor.

[LOVEDIY2011]

I have been thinking about a tankless water heater as my water heater could go any day. This has been the same concern that I have had because I have very hard water too. I've thought about installing a water softener to increase the life of all my appliances, but I'm very afraid that the tankless won't give me the same type of hot water I'm used too!

[rmw]

Do the recearch to size the tankless appropriatly and you will be happy.