Looking for fellow OzBargainers to share your experiences with storage vs instantaneous/continuous flow gas hot water systems, and which would you recommend?
I need a new hot water system, and a plumber has recommended me a gas storage tank (Rheem Stellar 360) and quoted $2200. When I asked about the option of instantaneous (eg. Rinnai Infinity 26), they advised me against it saying energy savings were minimal and service is harder. This was despite instantaneous offering them a bigger fee (about $1000 more) to change to larger gas pipes.
We have two bathrooms, but currently it is just the two of us using them for 90% of the time. We do have family staying once or twice a year, and do plan to have kids in the future.
That's a large enough system. You won't run out of hot water*.
*unless you run 4 baths in a row as in within an hour. 170 litres of hot water goes a long way and it doesn't take long for the water to reheat. In the time it takes for someone to have a bath or dry off from a shower it would have reheated enough to go again.
I'd go with storage and yes the energy savings are minimal if you actually do use hot water every day. You would save energy if you rarely used hot water but I'm sure most households, even one person households, do at least use some hot water each day.
I would pick the 330 instead of the 360 to save. It's smaller but it still has plenty of water and recovery times are short.