Tankless Hot Water Works in Brooklyn, If the House Cooperates

The pitch is familiar by now. Endless hot water, a unit the size of a carry-on hanging where a fat tank used to squat, efficiency numbers that make the old cylinder look wasteful. All true. What the pitch skips is that a tankless conversion is really a negotiation between the unit and the house, and the house gets a vote. The Plumber Brooklyn homeowners bring in for the estimate should head straight for the gas meter before saying a single word about models, because that’s where most of these projects are actually decided.

The Appetite Problem

A tank water heater is a gentle creature. It takes a long time to heat and retains the result and absorbs moderate gas in the process. A tankless will heat the water as it passes through, making a burner four or five times hungrier, which fires on the range and the boiler, when they are also firing for water.

The tank sips. The tankless gulps. The current pipe will determine.

There are lots of row houses with gas lines built for the previous decades, and a tankless unit won’t work to provide gas service on a cold morning. This is accomplished by “upsizing” the line from the meter, sometimes the meter itself via the utility, and most of the difference between two quotes for the same unit is due to this one variable. Without mentioning any gas line, an estimate isn’t an estimate. It is a guess/logo.

Size It for January, Not July

The capacity of the tankless depends on the flow of water that enters it, so it’s a variable. It must carry the contents of whatever comes in up to shower temperature, and the water that comes in to a Brooklyn main in deep winter is a lot colder than the water that comes in to it in August. Two showers side by side all summer can get behind in February, and February is when people notice.

The honest morning is the count of sizing. That would be two showers and a sink running together in a cold snap for a three-family in Bed-Stuy. The size is taken at that moment, and the unit is no longer visible in the house but is hidden in the background. The third floor learns the shower skills to the brochure size!

There is also an intermediate solution that can be called. The small POU unit that’s installed under a remote kitchen sink or in an upper-level bath takes that fixture completely off the main fixture’s plate and sometimes costs less than upgrading the system by a class.

The Exhaust Needs a Door

The old tank puffed and blew through a masonry chimney. Tankless exhaust leaves under power through a sealed pipe, stainless or plastic (depending on model), and must exit the building through a wall that complies with legal requirements for breathing room from any window that opens, any door, and the neighbor’s property line. If it is a row house and both side walls are shared by another house (typically the rear wall, although sometimes the geometry won’t allow it), that’s usually the rear face of the house.

Condensing models include a drip of acidic condensate, which requires a neutralizer and a nearby drain. Real needs—small parts. The vent route and the condensate path should be part of the plan before any equipment is ordered, as they’ve been the death knell of more of the tankless projects in Weeksville and Stuyvesant Heights than price ever has.

The Habits Change a Little

There are some things to be aware of when it comes to living with tankless. The famous sandwich is stuck between back-to-back showers; there’s the slug of cool water between uses, which is short but shocking to the naive. The burner also requires a minimum flow to “turn on,” so if you are shaving with a trickle, the flow might not even cause hot water for you. Just like when they had a tank in the house, quick hand washes take place before hot water reaches them.

A recirculation system complements this by almost eliminating it and reducing the time spent at remote fixtures. Every one of the oddities here is none a problem. They’re all better learned through an article than by a cold February surprise.

Where Tankless Genuinely Earns It Here

The other quiet present Brooklyn gives to the owners of its tankless hot water systems is city water. In hard water towns, they require annual descaling to live, which locals hardly think about as a maintenance tax. The heat exchanger is kept clean to a large extent due to the low mineral loading, thus prolonging the already long period of service. One tankless unit lasts twice as long as two tanks, and they are designed to have repairable parts, while a leaking tank provides only a “when” date.

The space return is true as well. A closet is restored back to a Garden apartment in Crown Heights. Then the failure mode gets smaller, since there’s no 40-gallon cylinder ready to send its flood of hot water across a completed floor to call for service; there’s a wall unit that won’t keep producing hot water.

Do not bother with it: if one person uses it for short showers and the tank is healthy, there’s little to lose. In most of these buildings, a whole-house electric tankless still requires excess amperage in the panel, requiring it to be sized larger than necessary. Here, the version is used for gas.

The Estimate That Tells the Truth

A quotation that’s worth signing sounds like a plan. The gas line evaluated in writing, including the upsizing, was deemed either redundant or as part of the evaluation. Vent route named and wall and clearances checked. Paper size of unit based on the winter numbers and not off the box label. Condensate handled, permit filed, and a licensed plumber has his name on all of it.

If two quotes are far removed, it’s most likely going to be in the gas line item, so make that question your first one. With the proper planning, the transition is just a workday: out the old tank in the morning, uninterrupted hot water at dinner, and a cellar corner to suddenly take the bikes.

Brooklyn Plumber, 1406 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY 11216, (929) 755-8936