The Wonders of Tankless Water Heaters

Denisa and I met this morning with a guy from our heating oil company. Why would we do such a thing? Well, for the past three months, we paid about $100 each month for heating oil, despite the fact that we weren’t heating our house. Our hot water runs off our oil furnace, and when it was serviced the last time, the man who serviced it mentioned we might want to check into a tankless water heater, because he thought it would save us quite a bit of moolah. (I know–a utilities person making a suggestion that would lose the utilities company money?!? What can I say–Maine is just cool like that.)

Anyway, today was the day when we went over what it would take to make the switch. The answer? Easy schmeasy. They could have it switched over in a day, before the end of the year. What does it look like it will do for us?

• Bring our hot water bill down from $100/month to $20. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, that’s a savings of $80. Each month. (Of course, I added family dental and vision insurance to my benefits package starting next year, which comes to about . . . $80/month. So I’ll break even–still a plus.)
• The unit can be put in our bathroom, close to where we actually use hot water, as opposed to where the furnace is, which is as far from our hot water as you could get and still be in our house. This means when we turn on the tap or the shower, it won’t take 8 years for the hot water to actually reach the tap. Nice.
• They’re going to install a device that will make it so our furnace only turns on when we’re using it for heat (rarely, due to our spiffy wood stove). This will save additional money.
• They’re going to install a water filter, which should help with all the little mineral bits we’ve been getting in our hot water, which should help the water pressure (or lack thereof).
• It’s way more efficient, so it’s better for the environment, too. Always nice.
• This installation qualifies for the 30% tax break from good ol’ Uncle Sam (which expires at the end of December). So it’ll be that much cheaper for us. We’ll pay off the investment in under two years.

So it looks like we’re going to go ahead and make it so. Of course, before I pull the trigger, I thought I’d give you, my faithful readers, the chance to chime in and tell me if I’m making the right choice or if you’ve had bad experiences with these things. So . . . anyone got any additional input they’d like me to know?