We base this on the number of service calls we receive, and after doing the math you do not save any money on your fuel bills or water bills. Tank heaters are mostly 40,000 BTUs with storage and start pushing hot water right away. Tankless heaters are 199,000 BTUs with no storage and must run for a while to heat the water. They are not ‘instant’ hot water, they are continuous hot water. To a flow you only get so much hot water per minute - so don't run a lot of hot water at one time. One of our favorite calls is what we call the "cold water dance call". The technical term is known as sandwiching. This is when you get a burst of hot water then cold water in between before the hot water flows consistently. In the meantime, a lot of water goes down the drain while you wait for hot water.
Most tankless units we find are not installed correctly and the gas meter needs to be upgraded. You will never recover the cost to have a tankless heater installed correctly. Above all, if your tankless water heater breaks, good luck finding someone to repair it. Nobody wants to be married to your headache. So my advice is simple, tanks can't be beat! Stay with what's tried and true - stay with a tank and make life easy. After 41 years of doing service and being an old school Bradford White guy, for me, it's not about the high margin sale and huge profit margins. It's about your customer. We believe it is cheaper to keep you than look for another.
