Pros and Cons of Tankless water heaters in RV
Thank you for your replies if any.
Forum Discussion
We have a tankless water heater in our sticks and brick house. It's OK, you do have to change your showering style a bit. Most of us adapted, wifey curses at it every time. And it's been about 8 years so far. I've told her to turn the shower on for about 15 seconds BEFORE she steps into it, but she views that as wasting water. Soooo....she curses instead. And she likes to shut the water off (like in the RV shower) while she's soaping up, Sooooo she curses again when she turns the water back on. LOL Anyway, In NO WAY does a tankless unit save water. It definitely uses more water.
Ditto what folks said about stopping and restarting the flow, as many of us do in an RV shower. Do that with a tankless water heater and there WILL BE fluctuations, hot & cold, in the delivered water temperature until the system stabilizes. At home, the water flow remains constant.
We have a 10 gallon electric/propane water heater unit in our RV and it has NEVER let us lacking for hot water. Even with 5 of us camping in temperatures down into the 20's. When we all took showers, I did kick on the propane WITH the electric element to keep up with demand, but I don't know if I had to do that or not. I just did it as a precaution. BUT, everyone in the family knows how to take save water in an RV shower, but shutting off the flow.
For an RV, water is a precious commodity for some of the camping we do, so no way would I want a tankless unit. The next precious commodity is propane, so having to use propane to heat water when I could be using electric is a con as well. And in a pinch, IF I run out of propane, I could always start the generator to heat the water. (I know, not efficient, but it IS an option. And I've done that while travelling because the generator is running anyway and then when we arrive at our destination, we'll have hot water.)
On a full-hook up site, these issues would be minimized, but we don't always camp that way. You still have to deal with the temperature fluctuations.
~Rick
Ditto what folks said about stopping and restarting the flow, as many of us do in an RV shower. Do that with a tankless water heater and there WILL BE fluctuations, hot & cold, in the delivered water temperature until the system stabilizes. At home, the water flow remains constant.
We have a 10 gallon electric/propane water heater unit in our RV and it has NEVER let us lacking for hot water. Even with 5 of us camping in temperatures down into the 20's. When we all took showers, I did kick on the propane WITH the electric element to keep up with demand, but I don't know if I had to do that or not. I just did it as a precaution. BUT, everyone in the family knows how to take save water in an RV shower, but shutting off the flow.
For an RV, water is a precious commodity for some of the camping we do, so no way would I want a tankless unit. The next precious commodity is propane, so having to use propane to heat water when I could be using electric is a con as well. And in a pinch, IF I run out of propane, I could always start the generator to heat the water. (I know, not efficient, but it IS an option. And I've done that while travelling because the generator is running anyway and then when we arrive at our destination, we'll have hot water.)
On a full-hook up site, these issues would be minimized, but we don't always camp that way. You still have to deal with the temperature fluctuations.
~Rick
