From: ralfm1@rcn.com

--- In COMMUNIT-E@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew W. Cohen & Nicola O. Goren"
<acohen@...> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone in the neighborhood have any experience (good or bad)
> > replacing a conventional hot-water heater with a tankless water heater
> > (which heats water on demand so that you never run out of hot water)?
> >
---------------------------------
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
Two years ago we decided to install a "tankless" water heater from
Bosch-AquaStar. We
opted for the natural gas 2700 model. We bought the unit at Home Depot
for roughly
$900. I inquired with several plumbing outfits about installing the
unit and finally settle
on Vito Plumbing after assurances that they had in fact experience
installing these water
heaters. It was installed and the unit failed after about 4 months.
Vito Plumbing was called
and send out a guy who had never seen a tankless heater before and had
no clue on what
to do. While this guy messed around, I finally ended up calling the
company in Vermont. It
was finally decided that the temperature sensor had failed and a new
one would be sent in
2 days. Bosch wanted to charge me for the new part, however I reminded
them that the
heater had a life time warranty. No matter I was told by Bosch: the
water heater had not
been installed properly! Apparently Vito Plumbing was NOT authorized
to install these
units. To add insult to injury the Vito service guy in the house
wanted to charge me for
two hours of service time. I told him to get out....
Anyway, I got the name of an authorized installer from Bosch and the
new part was
eventually installed. Six months later the unit failed again. This
time I called "Ameritec
Services", an authorized installer. The gentleman shows up, takes one
look at the water
heater and this was his reaction: "Who the hell installed this?"
Apparently the original
installation had been totally botched and as a result the "heat
exchanger" on the water
heater failed. Repair was not possible and a call to Bosch was made.
No water heaters in
stock and it would be at least six weeks before they would be able to
send one down. Six
weeks without hot water. I think not. At this point, predictably, I
was not happy. I told the
serrvice person to tear the Bosch unit out and that same night we had
a brand new regular
water heater. Home Depot gave me my money back, but it took a trip to
Small Claims
Court to get my money back from Vito.