Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I ordered this unit to replace the failing Rinnai R85i that came originally with our house. Swap was straight forward as the original water and gas lines lined up with the new unit. After 5 weeks the replacement is working without issue. New unit was being sold as refurbished (approx 150 less than new) but appeared to be an unopened return. Now why I rated 2 stars: Original unit was manufactured in 2006 and supposedly had a 10 year warranty on the heat exchanger and 5 years on the circuitry, electronics, and igniter. After the old unit began failing I called a Rinnai authorized serviceman who looked at the unit and originally told me the unit was improperly installed with out a condensation trap line. After a rather long phone call with Rinnai, he then reversed himself and said my unit was one of the units designed without a trap line and later units were redesigned with a condensation line. Note the small fitting coming out of the top of the RL94iN, this fitting was not on my old unit. So Rinnai admitted they designed a defective product, and later corrected. But my still valid warranty would not cover my old unit. I was told the warranty covers the heat exchanger for 10 years, and the circuit board and electronics for 5 years. I have included a picture to show the water damage (rust) as a result of the design defect. From my understanding the damaged part is the igniter and is not part of the heat exchanger according to Rinnai. Additionally, labor and any service charges are NOT covered by Rinnai on any of their water heaters, so I was out 70 dollars for the service call. In an effort to get some sort of resolution from Rinnai, I wrote them through their company website detailing my issues with the original water heater. After a couple of weeks, they eventually responded with a generic "How a tankless water heater works" email that for all intents and purposes was cut and pasted from a sales brochure. Seriously? Bottom line, don't expect any support from Rinnai if you decide to purchase one of these heaters. I had the distinct impression from my the Rinnai rep (to his credit he was professional and courteous) that Rinnai was going to do whatever was necessary to weasel out of any warranty coverage. If you do decide to purchase one of these units, be sure to account for the useless factory warranty from Rinnai.