Rinnai RXP199iN Condensing Tankless Water Heater.

[bluegill]

Have any of you used Rinnai RXP199iN Condensing Tankless Water Heater ? Do you like it ?
My current conventional water heater is in a walk-in attic. Is maintenance a problem ?
2 plumbing companies quote price of $6,000+. About $2000 parts, $4000 labor for a 1 day job.

[boglebob321]

We have 2 Rinnais (not sure of model). They were installed in our new build construction house about 3 years ago and no problems. Everyone else in our neighborhood seems to have the same system with no complaints. Ours utilizes propane. On one of them we have a heated loop due to long distances to the faucets. I was initially worried about the cost of heating this line but it seems insignificant. We're retired and have it on between 8am and 12pm and 5pm-10pm.

With all that said how wonderful it is, it's hard to justify your additional labor charge in an existing house. The tankless would be more efficient, but the extra cost of natural gas would be minimal for water tanks, and probably hard to justify.

[hoofaman]

We had a RUC98 installed 10 years ago, it has a 3/4" gas supply line connected to it. It's been awesome, zero issues so far, unlimited hot water and we've had 4 showers running at a time on occasion. I think our total installed cost was about 3k or so (10 years ago), with 2k of that cost being install costs as it needed new intake/exhaust ports through the wall, and some additional plumbing, so I assume in the future if I need to replace it future install costs would be lower

[PoorPlumber]

Have any of you used Rinnai RXP199iN Condensing Tankless Water Heater ? Do you like it ?
My current conventional water heater is in a walk-in attic. Is maintenance a problem ?
2 plumbing companies quote price of $6,000+. About $2000 parts, $4000 labor for a 1 day job.

Been awhile but have been Rinnai certified by Rinnai and worked on Bosch, Takagi, Rheem, Noritz, etc.
Yes, I have installed Rinnai condensing units.
Rinnai for many years has been (or at least was) the bar for others to meet as far as quality. Others may have caught up.

I have zero clue what your prices involve. Could be too much, or could be fair.

What many don't understand is what has to be done to do things right when doing a changeover from one system to the other.

A tank heater is commonly 40,000+- BTUS.
A tankless heater is commonly 199,999 BTUS. (Please don't waste your time telling me about lower BTU models.)

So what must be done is COMPLETE evaluation of your gas supply system.
Meter supply, regulators, piping, etc.

A good plumber will calculate demand of all appliances running at full burn & make sure the current system will supply that.
Most won't.

So then they have to figure out what changes will have to be made so that the system CAN perform with ALL appliances running at full burn at the same time.

It does NOT matter whether they will all be ran at the same time or the likelihood of that happening. It's how the system must be sized and installed.

Ask Rinnai and they'll tell you the biggest problem they see is improper installation.

You see, you can hook a tankless to say, a 1/2" existing gas line and the tankless will work. It just will never perform as it's designed and many homeowners are none the wiser because they rarely use higher volumes of hot water.

So changes are likely if done correctly and those have to be inspected.

Don't have an electrical supply for the heater in the area of installation?

Licensed electrician has to do that. That's another contract and inspection.

Any venting? Ubbink ain't cheap.

Condensation line on interior? Must be ran out neatly and to code.

Plus the old heater must be hauled away and the supply/vent must be terminated to code .

Then another inspection for final approval to put system in operation.

And I haven't read a manual in awhile honestly but at one time Rinnai and others required an annual vinegar flush, with proof, of the heat exchanger for warranty or just general maintenance.

So, in short, for the majority of people, put in a boring tank if that's what you have and forget about it. You'll win overall.

But one thing I have absolutely proven from my experience with customers is that in the times of Internet and confirmation bias, is that no-one will do anything other than what they want regardless of professional experience or advice.

[life in slices]

Have any of you used Rinnai RXP199iN Condensing Tankless Water Heater ? Do you like it ?
My current conventional water heater is in a walk-in attic. Is maintenance a problem ?
2 plumbing companies quote price of $6,000+. About $2000 parts, $4000 labor for a 1 day job.

I had the exact same model installed about 1.5 months ago to replace my previous aging model - has been working great with no issues. Just found my invoice and cost was $5600 installed and took the better part of a day to install as code changes had them rerunning the venting and a large part of the plumbing. This was in the northeast US.

Maintenance should be simple - we have semi-hard water so I will just descale it and flush once a year or so (or per manufacture's recommendations)

[inverter]

Are you on gas or electric now?

If electric (or if you can run 240v), why not do a heat pump hot water heater? You'll get a federal tax credit (+sometimes local), have the most efficient type available, dehumidify your attic, and won't need to worry about increasing your gas line.

[Mems20]

I don't know the model, but I had a Rinnai tankless water heater installed at my last house in 2013. It was fantastic, and I had no maintenance issues while I lived there - moved in 2020. If/when I need to replace my current water heater, I'll go with a tankless Rinnai again.

[bluegill]

Are you on gas or electric now?

If electric (or if you can run 240v), why not do a heat pump hot water heater? You'll get a federal tax credit (+sometimes local), have the most efficient type available, dehumidify your attic, and won't need to worry about increasing your gas line.

natural gas

[NightFall]

I was just quoted over $12K to replace two naviens after 8 years of use. It turns out that you need to flush them regularly. The company quoted $900 per year to flush both of them, which seems insane to me. So tankless last longer as long as you pay crazy maintenance costs. I would have rather used the old tank version, which seem to last over 10 years anyway and I could have replaced myself. But you do get an endless supply of hot water.

[rufflesinc]

Tankless water heaters are a solution in search of a problem. A very expensive solution.

Energy efficiency : i spend $30 a month in the summer for gas water heater, gas stove and gas dryer, so probably $15-20 on the water heater. Payback period for a tank less would be decades.

Unlimited hot water: the residential use case of hot water will be maybe 2-3 back to back simultaneous showers. If your 40 gal tank runs out, turn up the temperature of the tank.

[notmyname]

Conventional gas water heaters also continue to work when electric power goes out. I really appreciated this when my power was out for a week not long ago.

If you have backup power, this isn't a big deal. I don't have backup power.