David Walker

I lived in Kobe, Japan, for two years in a small house that had nothing but tankless water heaters. They worked just fine: hot water on demand, as needed, no waste, no bulky, wasteful standard water heater. So, I think they truly are in our collective futures. However, every faucet had an appropriately sized tankless heater, the homes in Japan were built with tankless heaters in mind, and they generally have much more sensibly sized (smaller) homes than the gigantic homes in U.S. Retrofitting probably is impractical, but eventually it will make sense to require new construction to include tankless heaters -- along with a raft of "green" ideas that are just now starting to gain traction.