THe labor will be the big cost difference here. A correctly done shower is a lot more labor than is a simple alcove tub with tiled walls, especially if you have to hand build the shower floor. Using a prebuilt pan does help to cut down the labor, but it still a bit more time involved than a tub. The two also have different plumbing requirements, so that is another area where labor costs can be different. You will have to have the drain relocated and enlarged for a shower if the area is already set up for a tub. And while you will still need to waterproof the walls for either setup, the actual amount of tile involved won't be dramatically different. If you do a shower curtain instead of tub door (which are nasty and difficult to clean) the costs will be less expensive. Even a box store stock door can run you $400 if you want frameless.

I have a Triangle Tube Series 50 (45 gal.) in a 2,000 sf house with 2 bathrooms. My plumber said I should put in a smaller unit and I wanted a bigger one. We compromised on this unit, because he said a bigger one would consume a lot more energy. I take a 25 min shower with a 5 gpm shower head, and I get enough hot water from this unit, but it took some doing. The first thing I would suggest is to turn the temperature on the water heater all the way up. We have an L-shaped ranch with the water heater on one end of the house, and the master bath on the other (over an unheated crawl space). So we need to keep the water very hot to get enough hot water at the bathroom. The hotter the water is, the more cold water you'll mix in, and the longer your hot water will last. Despite this, I was still running out of hot water after about 15 min. As my shower valve doesn't have a volume control, I put a small valve on the shower arm which allowed me to slow down or shut off the water when I was soaping myself. This allowed the hot water to recover a bit before I finished my shower. The real breakthrough came last summer though, when I had a new boiler installed. The installer told me that the circulator pipes between my boiler and water heater were only 3/4", when they should be 1 1/4". He also set up the new boiler so that the water heater gets priority over heat to the house, and the boiler automatically heats up to 180 degrees whenever the unit calls for more hot water. Now I have plenty of hot water for a 25 min shower followed by a shave, even without turning the volume of hot water down during my shower. I think you should be able to get enough hot water out of this unit provided you use it to its full capacity. You may need to have someone do some work on your boiler though. One rule of thumb I live by, is to never let a contractor tell me how much water or hot water I need. Aside from this, do you have separate shower valves for your 2 shower heads, and are you satisfied with the water flow? Many newer shower valves limit the flow to 2.5 gpm or less. You can check your actual water flow with a 2.5 or 5 gal bucket and a stopwatch. If you're getting enough flow out of the shower arms, but not out of the shower heads, there are some places that sell shower heads with easily removable flow restrIctors.

Are you sure it doesn't say 'a 220 volt otlt' which might mean an outlet for a 220 volt appliance, i.e. stove, dryer, welder? What is 'expensive' to one might not be to another. I'd expect it to run a few hundred, but a lot depends on your existing electrical service size, capacity and location. I'd recommend you get referrals and two or three bids. JM$.02W

I had a conversation with a local pro, and he believes adding a mixing valve and turning the aquastat up from 100* to something like 140* will do wonders. He said it's normal in any water heater to have much higher temps at the top and lower at the bottom, with the average around the aquastat setting, meaning we have ours turned way down. I'll give that a try. On the DHW priority wiring, I'm having a little difficulty finding straightforward info. Most diagrams/discussions include so many references to controllers and various models of components that I can't tell what the basic schematic should be. Here is my current setup:We have a single circ pump controlled by the boiler control. I just learned that the "DHW End Switch" terminal in my boiler goes to the HydroStat controller and only bypasses the thermal targeting in order to get full power from the boiler during DHW demand. My plan now is to simply add a DPDT relay (in red below) with the coil powered by the aquastat, that disconnects the signal to the two heating zone valves from their thermostats. This will will close those valves while the DHW is heating and create the priority setup. Anyone see any problems with this setup?