I'm guessing sold to the trade only.

You can also try calling a local plumbing supply company (not hd/ Lowe’s). They may give you the retail price.

Since you have gas why not tankless?

I don't see any plumbers lining up at the big box store for deals. There's a false narrative that their prices are lower.... which only applies to selected items. A few days ago a Houzzer posted a similar spec'd water heater from the big box for $2500. Always price check the big boxes and big online sellers as they constantly test prices. They thrive on convenience and market dominance.

Plumbers are going to make their money anyway. Their biggest concerns are supplier/manufacturer service and minimal product issues.

Tankless can be nice, because it provides unlimited amounts of hot water. But in practice, if you don't co-locate the tankless heater next to the consumer, it tends to take a long time to get hot water.

Conventional water heaters seem to suffer less from this problem. Also, they can easily be combined with a recirculation pump, whereas (most) tankless heaters are incompatible with that.

A boiler with an indirect tank is a hybrid solution that provides the best of both worlds. It gives unlimited amounts of hot water and can do so almost instantaneously. It is of course compatible with recirculation systems. The downside is extra cost, but the nice thing is that it also works as a boiler for radiant floor heating. If you are contemplating radiant heating, this is the way to go.

The other question is heat source. In most cases, gas is much cheaper to operate than resistive electric heat. So, given the choice, that's what you should do. On the other hand, if you have the option to use a heatpump system, then electric heating could be cheaper for you. This depends a bit on the climate where you live.

Also, some people have the option of combining solar heating with conventional heating. This probably works best, if you have an indirect tank. Again, initial costs are high. But ongoing costs are low, and the system can easily be expanded in the future (e.g. adding another room to the radiant floor system is super easy and quite reasonably priced).

Yeah, I'm not going to spend a lot of time with the above... some of it is just so general it's not at all helpful.

But the OP is looking at a different animal altogether: It's a 75 gal tank with a 100k BTU input and 96% efficiency. I'm guessing with inlet temps of 60F it can provide about 3 GPM continuous hot water - that's after running through 75 gal of hot water. It has a first hour rating of 182 gallons.

That sounds a lot like our indirect tank plus boiler. Only, in this case it would be in a single unit. If you don't anticipate that you need the flexibility of two separate units, then that's probably not a bad bet

It's a fantastic heater.... but it's $2500 for the unit.

I just went out into the garage and I have a State water heater, Commercial Grade it says. I have 3 of those and have no idea what they cost because my plumber never gave my GC a breakdown of labor and parts. My gut feeling is I paid more than $2500 ea. I want to say maybe 3 grand each. The plumber is not longer on my call list.

I am not sure why you would need three of these monsters. So, that's (maybe) something to fire your plumber over. But I do have to applaud him for picking a more powerful water heater from the get go. When the old water heater in our house died, we had to go through several pricey iterations before we found a solution that doesn't have one drawback or another.

First I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to respond to me in this post. I got some valuable info and I am leaning toward going forward with this. A couple more questions :

1. how pricy is it typically to add a recirc pump ( to get faster hot water) to a new build
2. given that the life span of the water heater seems to be around 10yrs give or take , and the fact that this is most likely our forever home, is there a way to future proof our plumbing so that switching to tankless in the future is not a big deal?

ThAnks again

Well the Casita has it's own water heater/furnace and the house has two water heaters. If We were building new I would go tank less for sure. It's the way to go but wasn't going to work here.

It was expensive enough to change over from propane to nat gas for every appliance.

malokd,

The heater that was spec'd is for massive hot water needs. What type of hot water needs do you have? Soaking tubs? Showers with multiple heads? Large Family?

We are building a 6000 sq foot house for 4 full time residents plus our parents. We have 6 full baths and a three tubs. In the next 5 years we are looking at 2 showers and 2tub baths going on at the same time. One person in our family takes 30+ minute hot showers and as it stands right now other people get screwed bc of it. Our parents are aging and the bathing process will become more complicated and long as they age.
Basically I wanted to ensure that we could have everyone in the house shower or bathe and have a laundry machine running without an issue. I would rather have overkill than find out we are underpowered after install

We have a house that made it difficult to place the water heater directly next to where the hot water would get used. When we had a tankless heater, things never quite worked well. That's really the biggest issue about future proofing. You want short runs for your water pipes and you want them sized correctly for the anticipated use. I think some of our pipes were actually too big, and that just aggravated the problem of having to wait for hot water. Good insulation for hot-water pipes is also a great idea. Neither oversized nor undersized pipes are good.

A recirculation pump is cheap and easy to install. It works much better though, if there is a dedicated return pipe for the circulating water. That's something that gets installed during the initial construction phase. If you don't have the return pipe, you need to use the cold water pipe for circulation. That has potential downsides. Also, when you install the recirculation pump, consider installing an extra backflow preventer valve next to the pump. Many pumps are supposed to have them included; but I found that those internal valves don't always work. And you end up with mysteriously malfunctioning hot water supply. You get hot water instantaneously for a while, and then it gets cold and later hot again. The valve fixes that.

You likely will need an expansion tank for your hot water in order for all of this to work correctly. Don't skimp on that. Again, it's super easy to install, if you plan in advance. The biggest issue is allocating a little space for it.

Personally, I wasn't too impressed by our tankless heater. But then, our house probably had some unique challenges. I am much happier with our high-powered boiler and indirect tank. And your idea of getting the high-powered State water heater sounds as if it'll give you something very similar.

The advantage with our current solution is that it is low maintenance and is expected to live much longer than 10 years, if occasional repairs are performed. A regular water heater can have an extended life if you regularly maintain it (i.e. replace the sacrificial anode). But once it breaks it can't be fixed. So, there is some advantage to getting the fancier equipment, if you don't want to think about the hassle of having to replace a broken appliance.

Whatever you do, get a drain pan that is connected to some sort of standpipe. Water heaters frequently spring leaks at the end of their life.

malokd,

None of the above. The plumber just replaced existing heaters. No consultation with me as usual, just the bill. Supposedly they don't last longer than 10 yrs around here. I honestly don't know why since the hard water is treated. I remember our electric Hot water heater in Washington (state) lasted and lasted. We lived there for 25 yrs and it was still heating when we sold. One time I had to have the thermostat replaced and it kept on heating.

In Florida they don't seem to last long either. Maybe it's the salt air or the RO water. Who knows!

Straight RO water is quite bad for appliances and for anything metal. You need to add some minerals back in, if you don't want to have issues with corrosion. Salt in the air is pretty bad too. My aluminum garage door looks really bad, and we aren't even that close to the coast. I don't even want to take a guess what other metals (e.g. iron) would look like.

In general though, you can significantly increase the lifetime of your watertank if you regularly replace the sacrificial anode. It's a relatively simple DIY maintenance task. But very few people remember to do so. Some of the nicer water heaters come with a bigger anode straight out of the factory. That might explain why they live longer, even if you don't service them.

I know RO water is harsh for pipes and metal. There is no way for me to add stuff. It comes from the street thru the meter and to the house. I think we replaced it shortly after we bought the house. It is now rusting out but it's been 20 yrs so not too bad. Last time I looked, it wasn't any 3 grand and husband does the plumbing.

Where is the anode? Must be similar to sacrificial zinc on a sail drive.

Ok, this is gettiing too confusing with multiple people using this thread to talk about their issues that are not the OP. Perhaps it would be better if ifoco started another thread.

malokd,

You have greater needs for hot water than a single tankless heater can supply.

I suggest you stick with the one that was specified - it provides both the large quantity of hot water at a time (GPM) and it also can provide continuous hot water for a single shower. The recovery time is very fast.

If you don't have long runs for the hot water, you will probably be okay without recirculation. However, installing a recirculation return line now IS a good idea - because it's really hard to add it later. You can just cap it for now and use it if you need it.

not necessary. This thread is about hot water heaters which we're all talking about.Regardless, I'll bud out. Ta