heating oil hits a record average of $4.35 on Long Island

[Harvey Schneider]

I am looking at on demand hot water heaters with no storage tanks but they are expensive but in the long run worth the extra money to not heat up stored water and when it cools down reheat the water.

Modern, well insulated water heaters are so efficient that there is very little efficiency advantage to the on demand heaters. Tank type water heaters have energy factors (measure of efficiency) as high as 0.94 (94%).

Energy Factor is an annual measure of the useful energy coming out of your water heater, divided by the amount of energy going in to the water heater to heat the water.
http://www.aricoplumbing.com/waterheater/waterheater-energy-factor.aspx

I looked at the on demand and the up front cost was much too high. I don't have access to gas so I would have been forced to use electric heating. The cost of the electrical wire rivaled the cost of the on demand heater itself.

 

[glenc0322]

Modern, well insulated water heaters are so efficient that there is very little efficiency advantage to the on demand heaters. Tank type water heaters have energy factors (measure of efficiency) as high as 0.94 (94%).

Energy Factor is an annual measure of the useful energy coming out of your water heater, divided by the amount of energy going in to the water heater to heat the water.
http://www.aricoplumbing.com/waterheater/waterheater-energy-factor.aspx

I looked at the on demand and the up front cost was much too high. I don't have access to gas so I would have been forced to use electric heating. The cost of the electrical wire rivaled the cost of the on demand heater itself.

The cost of the wire and the installation would be free I have the wire and I am an electrician so wiring the heater is a no brainer. If you excluded the cost of the installation do you think its a better option to go tankless with the efficiency rating on the newer 50 gallon water heaters ?

 

[St_Earl]

there are many issues that make tankless not the panacea it's sometimes made out to be.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...eaters/overview/tankless-water-heaters-ov.htm

i forget a lot of the other stuff i read up on last year. but that link covers the basics. i decided against tankless after looking into it fairly carefully.

i seem to remember that some super high end (very expensive) units have fewer issues with maintenance and performance.
but iirc, the application where they made sense was for builders doing new houses or buildings and getting tax credits for equipment.
my memory is hazy on the exact details of that part.
no way i could afford the kind of prices the state of the art units command.

 

[Harvey Schneider]

The cost of the wire and the installation would be free

Somebody is paying for all that copper. My installation would have required four 50 foot runs of #8 - 3 Wire and four circuit breakers. I can do the installation, but the cost of materials for wiring was up to $450. The tankless heater is rated at 18kW!
You can do better on wire cost than the retail price I have to pay, but I find it hard to believe that it's free.

 

[glenc0322]

Somebody is paying for all that copper. My installation would have required four 50 foot runs of #8 - 3 Wire and four circuit breakers. I can do the installation, but the cost of materials for wiring was up to $450. The tankless heater is rated at 18kW!
You can do better on wire cost than the retail price I have to pay, but I find it hard to believe that it's free.

I removed the wire from a stove that was changed from electric to gas

 

[velvetfoot]

It's amazing how much electric and oil stuff is for sale when an area gets converted to natural gas. I hear there are moves afoot to roll out more natural gas to residential customers in NYS. I'll never see it, but others will.

 

[moey]

OK - if you're still wanting the oil for backup heat, that's another issue & takes the getting-rid-of-the-oil-tank bonuses out of the equation.

In my case, I put in a $400 electric boiler for backup heat (it's only been used one day this winter).

I haven't made a break-up call to my oil company yet - I think I'll just wait & see if they notice I'm gone.

Where did you find a $400 electric boiler? Id love to put in a electric boiler with a air source heat pump. Several companies make them but none around me. I may actually run it.

 

[maple1]

Where did you find a $400 electric boiler? Id love to put in a electric boiler with a air source heat pump. Several companies make them but none around me. I may actually run it.

Kijiji. It was two years old & came with a circ pump. They seem to pop up here semi-regularly from people converting from that to heat pumps.

I think a new one was around $12-1300 when I priced at the local supplier.

 

[DirtyDave]

when you get NG use the Tankless water heaters and heat what you need as you need it. They make theese in Elec but I dont knw how well they work