suburbanmd: while i've had my Electrolux units just installed a week ago, i have not yet used them. they merely turned them on briefly to indicate that they are "turning" and "working", so to speak. i could get my washer to go through the set up cycle and complete it, so i felt good about it. for some reason, i could not get the dryer to display "set up cycle" despite following all the directions. i called their support number, of course, but received totally incompetent help from difficult, poorly trained staff. they were difficult to talk to, poorly informed, and merely reading off some script with practically zero knowledge of the issues, unwilling to go to the next step to ask a more senior "engineering type", or a more senior "tech" person. they just wanted to tell me that if it's turning, then ignore the fact that the set up cycle did not appear and just feel ok about it. plus, they were downright rude in the manner of talking to me as well. all that said, i was impressed in how the Electrolux machines look and feel - of course, this is based on purely superficial criteria and i have yet to make a judgment based on usage experience. i have also just received my Persil delivery so i'm ready to go. my new apartment is 2 months away from being ready to move in so i'm thinking of doing a wash this weekend at the apartment which is currently a construction site. at least if there are issues, i can get them resolved prior to my move in date. i'm not as sure as you are, "suburbanmd", that 78F is THE temperature that "warm wash" is at. i think it's more along the lines of: should the water temperature falls below 78F, then the water heater kicks in. this does NOT discuss what happens if the water temperature is above 78F to begin with! right?

I'm a bit late to respond but I'll give you my input on how our Noritz M-084M is working in Sammamish (Seattle area), which is to say, great! The 8.4 GPM is for a 45 deg temp rise, the lower 5 or 6 GPM is for a higher temp rise needed in Winter. You can find the charts on the Noritz website. I have our unit set to 120 deg and it works well at that setting. Our kitchen is the farthest from the unit, which I installed in the garage attic, and with the temp set at 120 I run the faucet on full hot when doing hand washing of dishes and this is just fine. I find the unit actually works better with COLDER incoming water temp. In the summer the temperature at the kitchen seems to be lower for some reason. The highest load we put on the unit is running two showers at once, which we do on the weekend. It has absolutely no problem keeping up and the water temp stays nice and constant. Our unit is rated at 0.75 GPM to activate, and there is no problem at all to get it running with a bath faucet. Newer units are 0.50 or below. And once it's running it seems like you can turn it down below the 0.75 GPM rate and still get hot water. Go too low though and it will shut off and you'll get the dreaded slug of cold water. This happens very infrequently and has not been any problem. If you haven't purchased a unit and would like to see our installation, drop me an email. I have some pictures or you could come out and take a look in person. Tom

Funny, most vegans I meet are secretive and don't like talking about it. Probably result of shocked reactions (guilty as charged) and related bullying. I can see why a financial analyst might try to use NPV for this but it adds assumptions other than regular investor meeting or beating market. Comparing a tankless gas heater to a large tank heat pump water heater with different fuels and performance details is not that simple. Who cares about negative NPV with tankless lag and cold water sandwiches or HPWH making an important area less comfortable. Is positive NPV more important than possibly poisoning your family with cheap gas tank combustion exhaust? Sure money is more valuable in the future including appliance cost and replacement labor. Hassle of emergency replacement is part of reason cheapo heaters exist. Better planning includes durability, especially when health is at risk. A 6 year life for a gas tank is more unsafe than 6 year life for electric tank. I'm guessing Bry's bean counting didn't include infrastructure or monthly utility fees either. I've heard some gas fees are as high as $30 a month/$360 per year even with no gas usage. Some have low infrastructure costs, but it's not uncommon for deeply buried gas supply lines, trenching and backfill to run in the thousands for our area, mainly for challenging lots. Our HVAC contractor charges a per appliance drop charge fee for gas supply pipe in the house, roughly half the cost of the cheapest water heater. Don't forget venting! It's not just about energy efficiency, paybacks and investment. This decision involves health and life-safety. Bry's water heaters and wonderdog's most economical suggestion are atmospherically vented gas heaters. These are dangerous appliances because they backdraft combustion exhaust regularly: Picture from above link 3 problems with atmospherically vented appliances. They are most dangerous inside a home. Garage installations are certainly more acceptable but they are still unsafe. Most attached garage-to-home interfaces are not airtight. Prevailing wind, stack effect, bath fans, dryers and most notably kitchen vent hoods suck garage air into the home. Having an open flame pilot light, inside the garage which is sometimes exposed to flammable fumes is not safe either. I have a friend that was tragically effected by this exact situation. If the garage is well ventilated to the outdoors, has no living space above, does not face prevailing winds has an airtight connection to house and is not exposed to flammable liquids or fumes that makes them more acceptable but all of that is such a stretch it's safer to say never. In case others like wonderjack have missed it, my next recommendation after a HPWH is a big, electric-resistance tank (or two smaller ones) which can be very affordable and high performance. Using electric tanks with switches, timers, Time-of-Use metering or Automated Demand Response are ways to use energy more appropriately while increasing the safety of a home. I realize good situations for gas exist but for the most part, it's not the cheapest way to heat anymore. It doesn't make sense for most new, code-built homes or those considering upgrading infrastructure for existing appliance replacement.

Thanks Jake the Wonder Dog. We have the tankless set at 120. It's usually just me and my husband here most of the time and 2 college age kids here on holidays and during the summer. Yes it does have service valves and we were able to clean the little inlet filter which didn't have anything in it. I'm pretty sure we will have no problem flushing the tankless. I watched a video from Rinnai. I just wasn't sure how often we needed to do it with our water hardness value. I see a submersible pump is needed. How powerful does the pump need to be? We have a Harbor Freight near us so I can look there for one. So with the information I gave you do you think every 2 years would be good for flushing the tankless? Thanks for your help.