Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

It still works when the power goes out.

It was a scratch & dent store orphan, I didn't choose it for any other reason than that.

What I've learned about these machines:

Smaller is often better. Ours was rated for a shower and a faucet. Larger heaters sometimes fail to light up for lower flows. Ours doesn't have any trouble lighting up and heating water for a single faucet, one, or both of our low flow showers. We've got flow compensating scald preventing shower valves, so even if somebody starts the washing machine on set to "hot" while both showers are on, no harm done, the shower flow is reduced, but it doesn't become cold. These sorts of modern shower valves are a "must" with these heaters if you don't want to be the household hot water cop.

But that leads to another problem. When we had a tank water heater our kids knew to limit their shower lengths or face the wrath of other family members. I installed our tankless water heater when they and other random teenagers were filling our house. Tankless did not reduce our energy bills. Teenagers will utilize "unlimited" hot water for long showers. (It's especially awkward to bang on the door yelling "I'M PAYING FOR THAT HOT WATER!" when they are not your own teenagers.)

Our kids are off in college or out on their own so now we are actually saving energy with the water heater. When we are not using hot water, we are not using gas.