Tankless Water Heater Installation
Tankless heats water as it passes rather than storing it. It does not run out and it takes up far less room, but it has real requirements for gas supply and venting that a tank unit does not.
Tankless Water Heater Installation
When to call
What usually brings people to this
Hard water and older piping together will take out a water heater years before its warranty runs out.
These are the symptoms that usually prompt the call. Any one of them is worth a conversation, and most of them get cheaper to deal with the earlier they are looked at.
Running out of hot water with a tank unit
Wanting the floor space a tank occupies
Replacing a heater at end of life
A remodel changing the hot water demand
Wanting a longer service life from the unit
Left alone, most of these problems take something else with them: a floor, a cabinet, a section of drywall, sometimes a foundation.
How we work it
We would rather spend an extra half hour locating the fault than an extra day undoing unnecessary work.
Check the gas supply
Tankless units demand considerably more gas flow than a tank. If the supply line cannot deliver it, that is part of the job.
Plan the venting
Tankless venting is its own thing and is not interchangeable with what was there.
Install and commission
Mounted, connected, vented and tested under real demand.
Set up descaling
With water as hard as ours, scale management is what determines how long the unit lasts.
Worth knowingWhat tankless water heater installation actually involves
Pricing a job properly means an actual assessment, not a number given over the phone by someone who has not seen the problem.
The gas supply is where most tankless conversions run into trouble. A tank heater might draw around 40,000 BTU. A whole-house tankless unit can demand 180,000 or more. The existing gas line, sized decades ago for the tank, frequently cannot deliver that, which means upsizing the run or in some cases the meter. It is entirely doable and it is normal work, but it needs to be in the quote from the start rather than discovered halfway through.
We would rather carry more equipment than we need on a given day than tell a customer we have to come back with the right tool.
The territory we cover spans three counties, which is a practical consequence of having been the plumber people call here since 1982. If you are outside the usual radius, call and ask. We cover more ground than most shops our size.
We would rather spend an extra half hour locating the fault than an extra day undoing unnecessary work.
Keeping it from happening again
Left alone, most of these problems take something else with them: a floor, a cabinet, a section of drywall, sometimes a foundation.
Look behind and under appliances once in a while. Washing machine hoses, dishwasher connections and ice-maker lines are common leak sources and they are all hidden from normal view.
Keep grease out of drains, and that includes running hot water after it. Hot water simply carries it further down the line to somewhere less convenient.
The cheapest plumbing is the kind that gets looked at before it fails. An annual walk of the visible plumbing, checking under sinks, around the water heater and at any exposed pipe, catches most problems while they are still small and dry.
Exercise your shutoff valves once a year. A quarter turn and back keeps them from seizing, and a main shutoff that will not turn during an emergency is a much more expensive problem than one that gets used occasionally.
Who you are calling
We run a genuine 24-hour line rather than an answering service that takes a message until the morning.
This company has been in one family since 1982, through three generations of Inland Empire housing and every change in the trade along the way.
Being licensed for sanitation systems as well as plumbing is why septic work stays in-house rather than getting referred out.
You get a technician who has seen this before, not someone learning on your house.
Big Mike's · Yucaipa, California
Questions we get about tankless water heater installation
If yours is not here, call and ask. We would rather talk it through than have you guess.
Will I really never run out?
Correct: it heats continuously. But it has a flow rate limit, so sizing for simultaneous demand still matters.
Does hard water hurt tankless?
It scales the heat exchanger, which is why periodic descaling matters more here than in soft-water areas.
Is the gas line always an issue?
Often. Tankless units need more gas flow than most existing lines were sized for, and we check that before quoting.
How long do they last?
Typically longer than a tank, roughly fifteen to twenty years, provided the scaling is managed.
How long have you been in business?
Since 1982. Big Mike founded the company and handed it to his family, who run it now. That is forty-four years in the same valley under the same name.
How do I know it is an emergency?
If it is actively causing damage or has made the property unusable, treat it as one and call. Water through a ceiling, sewage backing up and any gas smell all qualify.
What should I do before you arrive?
Know where your main water shutoff is and whether it turns. Clear access to the work area. If you smell gas, leave the building and call from outside.
Do you guarantee your work?
We stand behind what we do. If something we repaired is not right, call us and we will come back and deal with it.
How this fits the rest of the system
A house's plumbing has three separate systems running through it: pressurized supply bringing water in, drainage taking it away by gravity, and venting that lets the drains breathe. Most confusing symptoms come from people troubleshooting one while the actual fault is in another. Gurgling drains are a venting problem. Weak flow is usually supply. Knowing which system is misbehaving is most of the diagnosis.
Before we come out
Photographs of the problem, particularly if it is intermittent and might not be happening when we arrive, are genuinely useful.
Forty-four years of work in one region builds a footprint that covers a lot of towns, and the trucks are on the road across it every day.
Related work and where we do it
Other work we do in homes
- New Construction Plumbing
Ground-up residential plumbing.
- Drain Cleaning
Slow and stopped drains, cabled and cleared.
- Water Filtration
Point-of-entry and whole-house filtration.
- Boiler Repair
Residential boiler and hydronic faults.
- Copper Repiping
Copper supply repipes.
- Tankless Water Heater Repair
Error codes, scaling and flow faults.
Where we go
We run tankless water heater installation out of Yucaipa across Highland, Beaumont, La Verne, Corona, Montclair, Lake Elsinore and San Bernardino, and the rest of San Bernardino, Riverside and the eastern edge of Los Angeles County.
Call the shop. A person picks up.
Tell us what it is doing and we will tell you what it takes to fix it. Plain language, no sales pitch, and the number before we start.
Yucaipa, California · Serving San Bernardino, Riverside and eastern Los Angeles counties · Open 24 hours