It's funny that I just found this blog today. I don't agree with Mr. conecaster who's constantly singing praises about his on-demand water heater at all. Matter-of-fact, today I just got my new tank heater that I picked up yesterday into the basement. I friend is going to do the swap for me hopefully next week. The on-demand water heater sitting on my basement wall right now is a Bosch AquaStar Model GWH 2700 ES LP, that is it's powered by propane, installed in February 2009 by the builder of my house. It was supposedly a high-quality & premium on-demand unit. I paid extra for it, a lot extra (a tank heater would have been a no extra-cost item in the house build). It was installed by plumbers & gas technicians, everything done to code & per Bosch instructions etc. etc. Because I had been hearing for years about how great these on-demand water heaters are. It was never good, never mind great. But since I had heard all the stuff about these water heaters it must have just been me, right? Right from the start one had to turn taps to full hot & then play with the cold tap to adjust for correct temperature. I was NEVER able to set the water temperature to what I wanted while showering. I always had to play with the tap so the water was too cool & then it would get too hot....repeat. The tap that was really driving me nuts though, especially for the past year or so is the kitchen tap which is located almost exactly above the heater, the hot water line looks to be less that 10-feet long. That tap has a single handle so of course full hot would be selected as described. It would take about 5-minutes, timed more than once, to get warm & then hot. If washing a glass or dish I'd adjust the tap to comfortable-on-the-hands temperature, less than hot. After a few minutes, three or four, the water would start to get cold so I'd move the tap back to the full hot position.....the water would continue cooling, to ice cold temperature or watever the temp is at 295-feet deep, & stay like that for about four minutes before it would slowly start to warm up again until it got hot. If anyone doesn't think that's enough to drive one nuts look at your watch & time three minutes. Then put your hand under some running water & time that for three or four minutes....try five. Feels really long, doesn't it? The people at the local service provider, who used to be Bosch dealers, have been in my house about five times in the past three years & have done this & that to this thing. Whatever they suggested I did. A house call was $95 right off the bat, before 13% tax After an hour it was their hourly rate in 1/2 hour increments. I had the plumbing altered per their suggestion to install a backwash line. The unit was cleaned & heater lines "de-scaled" (in quotes since there was no scaling). Real long story shorter, I've spent a fair bit of hard-earned on this item. The builder has nothing to do with any of this since any new house warranty had long expired by the time I figured I was going to sort this out. Whan I went to the retailer that supplied the unit they just gave me Bosch's phone number & told me to call them myself (as in "shove off"). I won't bother describing that experience but you all can use your imaginations about trying to talk to a human at some outfit that's spent big bucks to try to make that as difficult as possible. I think it was my third time when I decided I better jump through all the hoops & do all the waiting in order to get help. Suffice to say they were no help at all, but I did get a customer number. No one carries Bosch around here any more. No one. I was considering another brand of these things, ones that required less flow to activate the heater since I thought that might be the problem, when I heard the strangest thing. Working overnight one time I was moaning about the water heater to my workmate, & mentioned about how these are so well-liked in Europe. My workmate was Dutch...... & he said that in Holland they don't use them any more. Apparently he had talked to his father who lives there & yes, he'd replaced his on-demand heater with a tank & most of his neighbours had as well & that on-demand heaters were kind of passe there. I don't know what the person that said that we're the last ones that still use tanks is talking about. After talking with a propane expert about the propane requirement difference between a tank heater & an on-demand heater I got another bit of information that got me thinking. And I don't believe that it's just a "Bosch" thing. I could be wrong but after crunching the numbers & determining BTU's consumed, to me it doesn't appear so. My wife suggested we just change to the brand of on-demand heater at Home Depot with their warranty etc. but I was having none of it. And for conecaster's advice? I'm done with throwing good money after bad. So I'm not going to be installing recirculating lines & buffer tanks or anything else to try & get this to work properly. After all wasn't simplicity one of the on-demand water heater's selling points? Think about it for three seconds. Right now I'm looking at my new tank heater sitting beside that on-demand unit & I get a really good feeling. Tank rupturing? You've got to be kidding me if you think I'm going to worry about that. To my mind that's a non-issue. Matter-of -fact the first I've heard of it is a few posts up, & I know tons of people that have tank water heaters....TONS. When I get that on-demand heater off my wall I'm going to try to get $10 for it on Kijiji. If no luck with that I'm going to use it for target practice. Sorry about the novella.

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Of course, I should have thought of that, too - I just assumed the fence was on the lot line, but it's probably been there for a while, and if it is not on the lot line, no one cares. And since this is a post WWII plat, I did assume that the utility easements were from the main street, but did not consider the easements across the lot for the adjacent subdivision that was built 15-20 years later. Another issue is the septic field -- this is a larger lot -- 1/3 acre, and in this area it is not uncommon to have a septic field on a lot that is only 1/4 acre. I should also check the location of the septic fields for the adjacent lots -- and thanks for that tip about drainage -- that's a nice way to enter into a more detailed question in advance of any interaction, post purchase, regarding odors from a neighboring septic field that is overdue for servicing. What I have done is to verify the square footage in the listing against the reports in the assessor's records; I was amazed that there is a wide variation in how realtors communicate square footage -- one will add in patios, garages, decks, even porches as living space, while another will only use the interior space in the assessor records. This makes a difference if you are comparing houses; the dimensions provided by the realtor are rarely questioned, and including exterior spaces in the interior dimension can alter the cost per square foot by ten to fifteen percent. A "2000" square foot home is really more like 1700, after you remove the deck, porch, patio, etc., and the cost per square foot is, for example, closer to $250 than $200. The assessor's records also provide the name of the owner of record -- the realtor has this information, but it is helpful for the buyer to have it, too. From this name, one can verify quickly the age of the seller -- and, from the photos, if the seller has children, why are they moving? Or if this is advertised as "a good starter home", why is their still a crib in one bedroom? Although some people think this analysis is intrusive, I think it is common sense to verify the ad, and to learn what you can from photos. If there are ceiling fans, and CAC, it might not work well. And if you feel comfortable talking to the neighbors on a Saturday morning, before or after you find your dream home, ask them how well they like the neighborhood, the school, the commute. Thanks!! Next stop, Planning Department.

Alasdair Keith shows as the original posted, not Lois Hartigan. The point I want to make still the same, a handful of random posters on an internet forum vs. the cumulative experience of hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of owners and countless more dealers and service people worldwide. How can you possibly justify the entire English-speaking, high-end appliance buying population of the world base their decisions on your single experience. Discussing faults and failures are fine IMO -- and you seem to have a tremendous number of them, perhaps even a record high number (warped warming drawer, loud fans that run for an hour, a "microwave safe" metal rack that sparks when it is microwaved). What is beyond absurd is the the title and apparently the reasoning behind this entire thread, "I had a bad experience with brand X and therefore I advise no one to ever buy this brand again." The meaning in this is someone thinks they are the sole arbiter of the utility (meaning: design, reliability, longevity) of a specific appliance brand. And in a stretch no reasonable person would or should ever believe, this experience of the one person supersedes that of everyone else. P.S: Below is what the operating manual for the microwave oven I own says. No where do I see Microwave Save. Common sense says a metal rack is not ever microwave safe: