jhnlmn - Just look at your local plumbing code to find your answer, or hire a local plumber. The reason folks here are focussing on burns is because you appear to lack the ability to understand temperature and its relation to burns. I'll try one more time: Go look at your water heater. What is the temperature setting? If your regular hot water is burning your hands, you can do one of two things - 1) set the water heater temperature lower, 2) wash your hands with a mix of hot and cold rather than placing the faucet all the way on hot. At least you have that ability with a normal faucet. With an instant hot you will have no ability to mix and, if it is functioning properly, IT WILL BURN YOU. The fact that your current one isn't burning you is not relevant - clearly it is not functioning properly. Now, go do whatever you want to do because you are, of course, under no obligation to take advice. (Just keep a tub of ice water handy to plunge your burned hands into in the event of a scald)

I agree with above. Even in drier, heating dominated climates, the dehumidifying effects help keep interior humidity at better, lower levels for health and home. Great that you recognize the benefits of a more controlled recirculation system. They make sense to serve the needs of the ever growing trend of oversize homes and plumbing footprints. People going for recirculation are wise to include timers, occupation sensors or buttons to turn on the pump. It's true that waste heat from the pipes will help heat your house, a good thing for Russ but probably results in increased maintenance or shortened life of an expensive appliance not designed for space heating. Costs of HPWH are amazingly low to me. In this recent electric or gas hot water heater thread we discuss these issues and Ms Lindsay says she found a HPWH GE model, retailing for $999 at $630. I would expect very fast paybacks for HPWHs in the 1k-2K range but even 3k-4k will eventually payback maybe as little as 4-7 years depending on Air Conditioning with reduced dehumidification benefits. Sorry Russ, looks like I barged in on your thread there too, and while it's probably not right for you, I'm hoping other readers benefit. There are many hidden costs in gas heating, including water heating. For electric tanks including HPWH, infrastructure is very cheap. Standard electrical wiring and monthly, service fees from the utility provider are already being implemented anyways. I think well built building envelopes and technology like heat pumps, PV, and induction cooktops have given us a cost effective path to eliminate the gas bill entirely. Gas piping and venting costs, maintenance and risks disappear. Even before heat pump water heaters HPWH were widely available, many energy experts still preferred storage over tankless. As long as you can find a good place for one, HPWH seem to be the preferred favorite for the vast majority of energy and ASHRAE type professionals. From what I've read, garages that don't experience freezing temperatures are a great spot for HPWHs. For the best performance and energy savings, get the biggest tank that fits or is available.

Thank you again for all your responses. Perhaps we should all contact Tesla to request standing seam solar panels? Wouldn't you think that they would be even easier to produce than the shingle and tile styles they have now? In response to Sammy, we originally designed the house with a propane gas log fireplace, a gas range as well as gas tankless water heaters. We then decided to eliminate the fireplace and range mostly for indoor air quality reasons which meant installing a new propane supply and piping to both wings of the house just for hot water. At that point it made sense to consider other heat sources and I thought that electric tankless would be the answer especially as they can be installed close to the points of use. We could always return to having propane tankless, as like you, we have been more than satisfied with this arrangement on our current house but it would mean dedicated gas tank(s) for the tankless heaters. CP I will take your suggestion to post on the plumbing forum. Your endorsement of electric tankless keeps us considering them as an option. I have been following your building story with interest as we began ours around the same time (and I believe from your posts that we are about the same age). I foolishly anticipated that we would be going through all the stages of building at the same time as you and since you are only a few miles down the road from us, thought we would be comparing useful notes! Yet here we are, you are starting to put in lovely finishing touches to your new house but for various reasons we have not yet moved from first base! As far as the location of the laundry is concerned, thank you for the warning. I am sorry that your mother's health declined the way it did despite taking such good care of herself, it is certainly a cautionary story for us all. My father was still easily climbing on to his roof to maintain it, digging drainage ditches and riding his bicycle many miles until cancer abruptly felled him at 82. My mother, a cancer survivor at 87 years lives alone, maintains her own garden including still planting trees, mowing the grass, doing all her own cleaning, decorating, shopping etc and walks 2 or 3 miles a day, and sometimes up to 6 miles to visit her friend. She would be shocked that anyone would think this is in any way exceptional. I know my parents' active lives do not guarantee that I will be so fortunate, just as your mother's decline happily does not bode ill for you. You are right though that we should plan for any eventuality. In our case we decided not to limit our current active lives in order to be braced for possible disability in the future. Our new property is not suitable for a disabled couple. If the time comes when we cannot haul our small amount of laundry the approximately 50 feet from the master wing to the laundry we will be out of there. The property is 3/4 of an acre with a dock, boat and seawall to maintain so we will only stay there while we are still fit and healthy. If a disability is temporary we can get help until we are back on our feet. Our plan is to leave as soon as we can no longer maintain the property. Thank you once again jln333. So much to think about.

I installed a tankless 6 years ago and will never install a tank again. I did it myself and will do it again if I am ever in a new house. I have a 120k Noritz unit that performs flawlessly. I just don't get it guys. Installing a tankless without recirc is like trying to start your car with a half dead battery. Really! "Your builder is right, it defeats the purpose of tankless" nonsense! I did not have recirc initially. I learned by experience you do not just replace a tank with a tankless. It is a bad result for hot water supply. Slow and inconsistent. Internal recirculation tanks might help but never having used one I have no opinion. But unless you circulate water and insulate your pipes to maintain the heat you are really missing the boat. Recirculating inside the heater means your pipes are cold and it takes longer to get to a tap because unlike a tank there is no pressure in the lines to radiate towards the taps. Why store water inside your heater when you need the heat in the pipes for faster delivery? That is just a limited solution to the issue in my opinion. How much does it cost to keep the lines hot. Depends on heat loss and vol. of water in the lines. Insulate!!! I would say my pipes take very little in cost to keep hot. Maybe $5-7 a month. I used 3/4 inch pipe for recirculation to store more water for start up and to feed 110 degree water into the heater. I do not have a timer to shut off recirculation at night so I could save a few bucks if I did that. Its a simple thing to lay out. You go to the last tap in the system and put a return to the heater from there. You need to have a cold water supply for the recirculation. A one way check valve between the recirc and the street supply prevents hot water from pumping back to the street as hot water pressure rises. A second check valve goes between the last tap and where the street supply feeds the recirc line to prevent cold water pressure from the street from back flowing through the hot water lines. Why any builder would not just put a return line back to the heater is beyond me. Its really not a lot of extra work. Especially with all the cheap Pex being used now. A small grundfos 1/25th hp pump is all that is needed in most cases. I use a Honeywell aquastat to trigger the pump. The pump engages maybe once an hour for maybe a minute to raise the water temp from 105 to 110. Heat loss? Did you insulate the pipes you say are losing heat from? You can lnstall a timer to turn off recirc in the night so you use no energy at all. You can do the same during the day when you are not at home. For some families you could have a daily timer that changes recirc to match your schedule. The hot water works with the recirc off, it just does not work properly as iz well known. Tankless is a superior technology. I did not think the endless supply would matter to me, its noticeably better. A tank cools as soon as you start using water out of the tank and cold water replaces it. The temp drops and drops the longer it flows. A tankless heats water on demand and it is maintained at the same temp. Its really is an advantage. But, as has been stated here by users, un managed hot water supply sucks and who cares if it costs a little bit of money to heat and pressurize your pipes so hot water is instant. Its way less expense than keeping 40 gallons of water hot in a tank. I would never heed the advice by someone on this thread that you don't need recirc. Have your builder install a true full house recirculation system. Don't pay attention to this "you don't need it stuff." If the builder balks or talks down to the idea get someone who knows what they are doing to come install it and over ride their obstinate attitude. Just do not listen to the talk of having a better system is not needed. You are going to great expense to have the best hot water supply you can have. Don't let someone with out your best interests in mind wreck your enjoyment of a great tankless system. Recirc all the way!!! Gee people, why would anyone not do this in new construction when its way easier to do.