Tank vs. Tankless Hot Water?

Quote:

Originally Posted by randyt there is more maintenance with a tankless if you have hard water. The heat exchanger will need to be cleaned once a year if that is the case. Also repair costs are higher with a tankless. A electric wth can generally be repaired for 20 bucks, a thermostat or element costs less than that. Are you thinking about a electric tankless or a gasfired tankless?

Sounds like the maintenance will be a deal breaker for me. Our water is softened and we have an iron filter, so baseline, the water is hard.

The existing setup is electric but we do have natural gas in the house. I had an HVAC/plumbing guy out to the house before and we talked about running natural gas to several appliances (range in kitchen, dryer, hot water heater, and future gas stove/fireplace). He recommended AGAINST a gas hot water heater due to our specific situation. We have no chimney flue to vent a gas water heater into so we would need a power vented, gas heated tank venting to the side of the house. He claimed the energy savings between a gas, power vented 50 gal. tank versus an electric 50 gal. tank was negligible with the electric required for the power vent, with the added trouble and expense of routing a gas line. I don't know how true his statements were.

What are opinions on the A.O. Smith "Signature" line of water heaters at Lowes? They never mention them on their website, I only see the "ProLine" models that appear to only be available to contractors:

https://www.hotwater.com/water-heate...=15&p=1&st=532

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Tank vs. Tankless Hot Water?