The best advice I have is ask for installation costs and operating cost of each type. Electric and gas suppliers will usually do these calculations free. Ask about incentives for heat pump type.

I'm a big fan of tankless. Our last three homes have had tankless. They were more expensive and more expense to install. We lived in our last home for 11 years and had zero problems with it. I go and visit my brother who has a family of four but with us, it makes 8 and the hot water runs out constantly. We have to space our showers out, be selective when the washing machine gets used, etc. I love not having to worry about hot water supply.

No question.....tankless. I’ve lived with both and after experiencing never having to worry about having enough hot water, I would’t choose anything other than tankless. Just one soak in a large soaking tub and you’ve already run out of hot water.

If you have natural gas or propane, the tankless decision is a no brainer. Just make sure it has sufficient flow capacity for all the showers going at once.

If you want "unlimited" hot water for all 7 all the time then tankless. If you have the right location and want to save money, energy and have better indoor air quality then choose a better tank water heater, as in a Heat Pump Water Heater.

I have a client who's very happy with the AO Smith Voltex 80 gallon unit and they seem well reviewed. My choice would be Steibel Eltron's 80 gallon unit.

6 people would push the performance of these two beast's ~80 gallon first hour rating, but if you could stagger usage well and put up with running out of hot water from time to time, they would definitely be a better investment.

What are you wanting to achieve? Is it an endless supply of hot water? Is it instant hot water? Is it energy savings over time? Is it installation economy? What is/are your goal(s)?

And what will be your home heating system? Electric? Gas? Propane? Heat pump? Something else?

Each approach to a hot water system has its own pros and cons.

You really haven't shared enough information with us for a good response.

More thinking down the road not having enough hot water for the family in the morning

We have not gone through selections yet so do not know the up charge for this selection but I figured best time to do it now

We are a family of 7 as well. Our kids are aged 16-20, two girls and three boys. (Yes, there's a set of twins, LOL!) We have a large home in Indiana with 4.5 bathrooms. We have two 75 gallon gas water heaters, a previous owner had them installed. We normally have no issues with running out of hot water... except for on Sunday morning when everyone in the house decides to take a morning shower and I swear those teen boys just do not need to stand there for that long! It's almost comical except when I wake up late and have a cool shower, then it's not comical at all. But really, we've been in this home for 6 years now, and that's still the only time we run out of hot water. In reality, everyone's schedules are pretty different in our home and the only time it collides is on Sunday morning before church. And I'm a bath taker... and I have a large tub... I can run my dishwasher and still have a nice hot tub bath and not drain all the hot water.

We have a 40 gallon in our rental apartment. I have to wait about 20 minutes after DH showers till I can shower or else I run out of hot water before I'm finished.

How about 2 40 gallons tanks. Boys take short showers. And, you only have 1 shower for them all as i recall. They are going to have to take some at night anyway unless a few plan to be up before the sun. How much extra are you looking at?

Not sure the cost yet but we are for sure going to make it three bath versus 2 1/2

Ryan are you sure you want to continue with this tract house? I forgot where you're located?

Yes it’s the lot and area we want plus well under our budget.

Everything else is substantially more expensive.

We just are getting ready for selections and trying to educate ourselves on what to upgrade.

My concern for you is that since it's a tract house you don't overbuild for the area.

I know you had a concern about the kitchen cabinets too.

For me the tankless would be a definite upgrade I would do, as would anything that upgrades windows, HVAC and insulation.

we will be happy with the tract home. Closest builder is about 80k more (aka best design for the budget) The one upgrade we are doing is converting .5 bath into full and a water heater upgrade. Other things are more cosmetic for us so its all budget allowing. House is only sub 215k so can't go too crazy

where we are moving the market is scarce for 4 bedrooms with office. we have thought about buying less sq footage and more upgrades and that is an option with this builder (same layout just small sq footage) *we will see how selections goes (we have tons of time though not closing until Nov and have time until summer to change mind) Getting educated is my goal right now so I know what things are and can decide upgrade or not ... now or later etc. Loving this website though great advise

IMO......go with tankless. I'm all for tankless since you don't heat the water 24/7. Get several quotes on this. It's new and improved and plumbers are taking advantage of this and charging out outrageous prices on labor.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=tankless+hot+water+heaters&qs=LS&pq=tankless+&sc=8-9&cvid=C1F3E12A51444E029776D73C044D3735&FORM=QBLH&sp=1

The one thought about tankless is that it allows wasteful behavior. So you spend more to allow your children to waste energy. Just something to keep in mind. There does seem to be a disconnect on a budget build to install something that is expensive (especially as an upgrade) to allow your family to spend more money.

Now - I am not saying that a 40 gallon tank is adequate for 7 people so you have an issue. But your kids are really spread out. Not like you will have 5 teens at the same time.

Thinking long term? Replace with tankless if and when it is an issue. It may be cheaper to do it after closing anyway.

Ignore Robin. He/she thinks everyone in the building trades is ripping everyone off and charging outrageous prices. Robin thinks that those in the building trades should work for minimum wage.

You are going to be well past 80K in upgrades, and well beyond neighborhood specs. Tract is not a good value for anyone if you have to upgrade anything.

2 gas Tankless water heaters is a no brainer for a family that size, with the low winter incoming water temperature that you will have. 1 would be insufficient in winter for the proper temp rise and desired flow. You’ll need an upgraded gas service too. But, If bet that a tract builder will want a 10K each upgrade fee for those. Plus the upgrade for the gas service. Because that’s about double the going rate for what it would cost. And that’s how change orders work.

Add in all of the rest of the upgrades you want to have happen, and you’ve already shot past 100K.

We will be happy with the home. Our budget and based on research we are in a good spot. Other homes "same model" are selling between 200- 235k. Based on early projections of costs (with exception of the tankless water heater) we are at around 210k. Well within budget of other homes. There are some things I dotn want the builder to do cause of costs (cheaper for me to do outside of the build.) Ty everyone for there input . Gives us a ton to think about *we will keep looking at other builders along the way (we have until summer to our deadline of having to make a decision.

We built a tract/production house, too (this was definitely a submission-to-husband thing for me, lol), and we decided to use local comparable sales as our "budget."

Whatever our neighboring for-sale homes sold for, at our square footage, we went slightly under that amount (targeting about $5k-$10k less). This way, we didn't overbuild for the neighborhood, and as our value increases (we're in a high-demand area), we can add things like a deck and still be within neighborhood norms.

FYI this is the home

You can do better for the money.

Hi Ryan,

I live in Central Indy and some years ago we had looked at tankless heaters. At that time, there was a problem with incoming water temps being too low for the systems to work properly. In winter, the incoming temps are in the low 50s. The heater would kick on full blast , overheat and shut down, cool down and come back on. It resulted in slugs of hot water followed by icy blasts. That could be handy for keeping shower times down :)

The other concern is water hardness. Indiana water perks through limestone and shale and can be quite stiff. You can look up the water quality reports for your municipality online and see how hard it is.

I don't know if the hot/cold problem has been solved, have not researched lately. We are happy with our 50 gallon tank for a family of 4.