Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

So our water heater started leaking on June 6th, and my wife suggested we look into a tankless system. After reading reviews here and seeing such glowing results for Ecosmart, I started considering the Ecosmart 11. Due to the price, capacity and cost of install, we ended up with the Ecosmart 27. We did hear horror stories about how inefficient they are (more of that later), but decided through our own deductive reasoning that we should experience electricity savings with the unit. As of now, I'm still waiting on (and fearing) the bill from my electrician. Finding out my service amperage was painful (it recommends at least 200 amp service) because the power company didn't know how much they were supplying. Not knowing a thing about electricity (and wanting to preserve the lifetime warranty), I hired a local electrician to install, with an estimate in the $500 range. The install took them about 3-4 hours after hitting a snag or two with the breaker panel (barely enough space left for the 3 40amp DP breakers). The house's breaker panel is about 10 or 15 feet (straight shot) to the water heater, and even at that length, with 30-45 total feet (or more) of wire, a good portion of the cost was the wiring. Looking back, if I was really adventurous, I would've tried the install myself. The plumbing I handled myself. It was a bit painful for having never done it before and I got a quick course in soldering when I had to replace a corroded pipe, but it wasn't too bad. Also made sure to flush the air out of the system once everything was hooked up correctly. In any case, once the install was complete, the system worked like a charm. The hot water feels like it comes a LITTLE faster, but that's probably just me. The temperature is great (I do notice the "cold water sandwich", which to me is really more of a "tepid water sandwich") and the water really does seem to flow forever. Nice hot baths and showers without ever running out of hot water is very nice. We set our dial initially to 130 - and had to scale it back very quick! Now it's at 120, but even that is probably a bit too hot - and I like my hot showers. On to the energy consumption. I've had the unit installed for 3 full days now, and with the wonderful new (mandatory) smart meters, I can check my energy levels at any time. I haven't compiled a minute-by-minute account of the deltas, but I do have some comparisons with the conventional water heater, without any heater, and with the tankless. I list the high temperature for the day to illustrate the fact that the A/C is going to be a big factor in how much power is being used on a given day **This should all be taken with a grain of salt, as there are obviously other factors in here** Date Energy Consumption High Temp Note 06/02 72.803 94 Conventional Heater 06/03 72.803 94 06/04 65.494 93 06/05 69.415 94 06/06 72.44 94 06/07 30.953 75 No water heater 06/10 62.666 92 06/11 81.303 96 06/14 57.299 92 06/22 75.025 96 06/23 71.817 96 Full day of tankless 06/24 89.136 98 06/25 110.257 103 So, with a conventional water heater, energy consumption ranges from 65.494-72.803 with temperatures between 93 and 94 Without a water heater (and little A/C) the energy consumption was only 30.953! Without a water heater on days between 92-96, energy consumption was 62.666-75.025 With a tankless, the heat didn't cooperate, and the only comparable day was 96 using 71.817 So a few things: 1. These are very few data points, so comparison is really ... inaccurate. 2. Energy consumption seems to be about the same or even a little less (we're a household of 2, sometimes 3 when I have my daughter) 3. I need a new air conditioner Overall, I'm quite pleased with the product, but time will tell! If this is useful I'll post some updates as time goes on. Even if it uses the same amount of energy and the total price (installed) being a bit higher, with the lifetime warranty, endless hot water and space savings, it's still a decent buy in my experience. UPDATE: Got the bill from the electrician. $830. There's no real reason it should cost that much to string three wires 10 feet. I'd have done it myself for that price. UPDATE x2 (11/2012): Now that it's cooled down and we haven't used the A/C in a bit (and the heat isn't on yet either) I did a comparison for a full month to last year. On average we're using 4.34 kWH/day less, or about 10% less per day. Again, take that for what it's worth, although we do pretty much have the same major appliances as last year - no big changes in power consumption there - although the habits could be different. I can say we generally are taking MORE hot baths though. UPDATE x3 (06/2013): So far for this year, electricity usage is about 9% higher on average. Again, this could be many things, but the latest reading (through 5/7/2013) was a tiny bit lower than last year. I think there's probably too many variables to pinpoint one thing or another (although it could be that I got a triple-monitor high-end gaming PC not too long ago! woot!) Still love the constant hot water! One thing I should've mentioned long ago. Thanksgiving night (2012) we had a hot water pipe burst underneath the house, and while there were some telltale signs that this was the case (tile floor near the water heater was warm, not to mention the bit of water pooled in the garage by the heater line), the fact that the water heater was running (you can see when it's running and when it's not) when nothing was using hot water was a dead giveaway. So while the repair to reroute the pipe from under the slab to overhead PEX made my wallet cry, I don't think it had anything to do with the heater itself and having it helped us to pinpoint the problem quicker. Note that I'm a total newbie to this home-owning/home-repairing stuff, so you older/wiser folks can just keep your wisecracks about how obvious it should've been anyways to yourself =)