Installing a tankless water heater - have questions

[vectorges]

I am looking at installing an outside tankless heater. I am having trouble finding suggestions for where to locate it. - How far from windows, how far from eaves, etc.. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Daox]

Hello vectorges, welcome to ER! I moved your post so it gets more attention on its own and people can respond directly to your questions.

The installation manuals should give you most of the information needed to install the water heater. I'd basically try to install it as centrally as you can to your water faucets so you have shorter plumbing runs. I don't think windows will be a problem, I would just have the flue far enough away that you can't see it from inside. The eaves will have to be dealt with by running the flue around them. Its kind of hard to avoid them.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by vectorges

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hello vectorges,

I have been using a tankless for about 17 years, and I think that you should try to locate the unit as close as possible to the most frequently used hot water tap. This may not be the tap that uses the greatest volume of water.

In my case, the most frequently used hot tap is the kitchen sink. The largest by volume is the shower.

My reason for saying this is that there is a warm up period that is longer than a tank style heater, and locating the heater as near as possible to the most frequent hot tap will save water, gas and time. Over the life of your heater, this will really add up.

I initially replaced my tank style DWH with a tankless DWH and put the tankless in the same spot as the old unit. Over the years, I had time to think about what would have been better...

Last year, I re-did the plumbing in the house and moved the kitchen sink closer to the tankless (for other reasons than shorter wait time). I also used smaller diameter pipe in the hot line. The difference is substantial.

In the future, I plan to move the tankless even closer to the sink.

I have noticed that in European movies, I have often seen the tankless water heater hanging on the wall just above the kitchen sink, where it belongs.

-AC_Hacker