Tankless water heater...activate

Today the plumber, Chris Collins, finished installing my new Rinnai 94Lsi tankless water heater.  It took him about a week, but he didn't work every day due to some flooding emergencies elsewhere.  I decided to go tankless because I was able to centrally locate it in my basement and it replaced an aging 40 gallon tank and a soon-to-be-old 50 gallon tank.  The US government is offering a 30% tax credit on tankless heaters so I'll get some money back next year.

I tried it out when I got home from work and was disappointed to discover it takes longer for the water to get hot, but once hot,  it'll stay hot for longer.  I'll also be able to have hot water on demand since I don't need to wait for a tank to refill.  Before, I would run the dishwasher and then wait a couple of hours before running the laundry or taking a shower or whatever.  I think I'll have enough pressure to shower while the dishwasher is on, but I'm not sure.

It'll be interesting to see if I save money since natural gas is cheap around here.  I may even break even because I'll use more water waiting for it to get hot.  Hmmm...it's much to early to have buyer's remorse, but it'll be something for me to keep an eye on.

In any case, if you're in the Albany, NY area, I highly recommend Chris Collins as a plumber.  He's knowledgeable, efficient, conscientious and charges a fair price.  Since he does quality work, he's usually busy, but not to the point where I would consider taking my business elsewhere.

Here's a picture of the unit installed in my basement:

The yellow line is the natural gas.  You can see a red and blue valve in the lower left hand corner.  Those are maintenance valves and are highly recommended.  The water around here is hard so you need to flush the system every now and then.  If you do not have maintenance valves, you'll need to cut the pipes off to get access.  Pretty stupid eh?  I'm not sure why maintenance valves aren't standard, but it didn't take much convincing to get me to buy some.

The unit needs to be vented so Chris had to drill out a hole in my foundation near my deck.