What makes a Good Tankless Water Heater or simply put which is the Best Tankless Water Heater?

I get this question asked quiet often and decided to do a write up about it.

The one thing that a storage tank or better traditional water heater has going for it is “SIMPLICITY”. It is fairly simple, a tank and a burner with a pilot light that burns all the time. And then the burner comes on frequently to heat the water as it loses its heat through various means. The point here implied is that there is not much that can go wrong with it, of course until it starts leaking. It usually doesn’t stop working suddenly; it will give some warning by leaking or by the water not being so hot anymore.

Well, things are not so simple with tankless water heaters. They are a very sophisticated appliance, having at least one microprocessor and many sensors and valves that control the water temperature, the burners and many other things. They also monitor the heating process for high efficiency, water pressure and more.

So what makes a GOOD tankless Water Heater is not by how many microprocessors it has or how many additional things can do besides heating the water. It is its RELIABILITY, period.

This reminds me of many of the new cars, particularly some German brands. They are packed with electronics, can park themselves, can massage your back, can give you individual temperature settings for all occupants, as if everyone is in his or her private enclosed surrounding. I hear heated steering wheels are the latest. Now if you check the RELIABILITY of these cars you’ll find them to be terrible. They simply have problems going from point A to point B. This becomes very quickly annoying when the onboard computer has diagnosed mistakenly that there is something wrong with the car and puts it in “CRAWL MODE” not going faster than 25mph and advising you with a pleasant voice, usually a female soft spoken one that you should now visit your nearest “Authorized ……. Dealer”, most likely for a “software upgrade” (bug fixes). Never mind that you paid top dollars for that car.

Well, I wanted to get the point across that the most expensive tankless is not always the best one if it cannot reliably do its job, namely heat the water.

Over the years we have come across many different brands and models of tankless water heaters and have seen sometimes customer’s frustration when that tankless water heater suddenly stops working and it did that when they were under the shower. As they are computer controlled like many other things in our life today they need to be chosen, installed and serviced by professionals who do that for a living.

This definitely is not a product you want to purchase at your local hardware store and have it installed by local handyman or your everyday plumber.

Companies like http://www.Justtankless.com are unlike your traditional plumber whose technicians clean a sewer system today, install a toilette, clean a drain and tomorrow install a tankless water heater, a sophisticated piece of equipment. Most of them are just not trained and experienced for that.

A trained professional can devise the best solution that encompasses what type, what brand, what size, what location, what gas supply, what type of venting and where it is needed for a tankless water heater to function RELIABLY and efficiently. A tankless water heater can suddenly shut down maybe because its exhaust temperature has risen too high or its gas supply volume or pressure has dropped or many other reasons that are mostly failure of correct and proper installation.

Unfortunately there is not a simple answer to that question. The “Best Tankless Water Heater” brand can be installed incorrectly and be the “Worst Tankless Water Heater”. It is true that some brands are less reliable than others and the best manufactures have models that are not so great.

As our life has become more complicated and sophisticated so has our need for specialized and trained specialists. It is like the car mechanic that fixed cars 10 years ago cannot fix today’s cars without major training. The same analogy goes for the plumber and many other trades.

So the BEST tankless water heater is the one sold and installed by a company with a clear track record on experience and specialization in tankless water heaters. It is by far the least expensive route to go considering all the things that can go wrong besides the “cold shower frustration”.

A company like http://www.justtankless.com that specializes in tankless water heaters will not sell a brand that has technical problems because the customer’s troubles mean many unnecessary service calls, unhappy customers and financial burden on the company. A customer usually doesn’t call the manufacture’s toll free number that most likely connects to a very far place in a different country; they call the company that installed the tankless unit as they tend to be local. So it is important to purchase also a tankless water heater from the same company that installs them too, this way the customer avoids the problem that the installer points the finger to the place or company the unit was purchased from.