Just Tankless

Bill I.

I am happy with Just Tankless service. Al and Armando take down the old water heater and installed the 9.8 GPM tankless WH within 3 hours on Sunday. The workmanship were top notch.

Jo R.

I have recently upgraded the power circuits in my home to support a tankless water heater. I have a list of models that would provide the necessary flow, but I deferred choosing one until I selected a plumber (to get their feedback on models they trusted).

After receiving this information, Al told me that you can't install electric tankless water heaters, that it was impossible project, and it couldn't be done. WHAT? I persisted to try and understand what he was saying, but he just spouted a stream of nonsense:

1. It's impossible to install enough circuits
-- two 60amp circuits or three 40amp circuits? This isn't rocket science.

2. You can't get enough power from PG&E to power one
-- I have it already

3. It will cost you much more what a normal water heater will
-- Energy Star and many other installation reports indicate 50% savings at our flow rate

4. Nobody buys electric tankless
-- Which is why they're sold at Home Depot, Lowes, OSH...? Yeah, those stores stock products that nobody uses.

Seriously, he just told me my project is not doable and yet he can't justify a single thing he said. This wasn't a voice of experience raising practical considerations, it was someone who wanted to avoid a prepared, intelligent customer.

This is a predator. Stay away.

Dakin F.

Due to ongoing problems with my construction and existing plumber, I called Just Tankless back. Damn if he didn't spend another 25 minutes with me on the phone going into great detail about my situation. I swear by the old gods and the new, if I could fire my existing plumber and hire someone new, it would be this guy. It wasn't just that he took my call. Or that he was kind even knowing I wasn't likely going to give him immediate business. But his practical knowledge was better than multiple plumbers, multiple online resources I've called, and even better than the sales support from Rinnai USA who called me and read out of the manual. Gotta love someone who knows what they do and can communicate clearly.....so I felt the need to come back and update this.

Sabrina M.

My tankless water heater (AO Smith) broke and needed to be replaced. It was unfortunately not covered under warranty. I got quotes from three different places for replacement. The last one was Al, who gave a reasonable quote, came the next day (on time), and installed a Rinnai unit that works great! Nice guy and knowledgeable. Did not try and up sell me like the prior water heater guys. I know nothing about plumbing, so I think the other plumbers tried to take advantage of that. I am very happy with Al at Just Tankless and would recommend him to others.

John K.

After all the glowing reviews here I called Al. He scheduled a visit by one of his technicians to evaluate my situation and give me a quote. I waited half an hour after the appointment time when the technician had not appeared and called Al. He said he was swamped and could not spare a technician and said he would have called to cancel the appointment but had not gotten around to it!

He then told me he was too busy to send anyone in the foreseeable future and suggested I find someone else to install tankless. I asked for a referral and he told me he had no one to recomend.

Al seems to be a victim of his own success. If you need a tankless heater look elsewhere, Al has more important things to do.

Hank L.

We tried to contact numerous plumbing services to change our water heater to tankless, but got no response on most of them. One plumbing service that answered actually quoted $12000 for replacing the unit! Talk about a fleecing!
Finally we tried Just Tankless. Initially our impression is not that great. Al was late for over an hour, and he seems to be very busy and didn't spend a lot of time talking to us. However, we got enough info from the web, and his pricing and availability is very reasonable (much less than $12000,) so we decided to take a chance. Glad we did.
Al and his crew showed up right on time, which is totally unexpected since he was late last time. They started working on the installation right away. They are extremely familiar with how to install the water heater, and has the heater up on outside of our wall in less than 2 hours, including installing the earthquake gas shut-off valve. The rest of the time was spend tapping into the existing gas line and electricity, which they did cleanly and fast (Al actually tap into the interior wall socket instead of running a line to the electrical panel, since the electricity is only used for the controller.)
Removal of the existing water heater proved a little confusing, but that's because our house has a lot of old piping connecting to the now-non-existing solar water heater. Al and his crew actually helped us trace the water pipe to see if it's needed or not.
the whole installation job took 6 hours, which is a lot less than the 3 days he originally quoted. However, they did not skimp on anything, they are just very familiar with what they do.

I highly recommend Just Tankless if you need a good professional installer that know what he/she is doing and give reasonable price. Just forgive him when he is late.

Stu A.

After some online reading, I was leaning towards a tankless water heater after our 12 year old 50 gallon heater cracked and started dumping water in our utility closet. I met with a couple water heater installers who install both standard water heaters and tankless. They gave me quotes for both...but said nothing about the make or model of the tankless heater. Are they all the same? Of course not. When I asked, they said they usually install Noritz. One recommended Takagi. But there was no explanation of why, or specifically, why is it better for us vs. other options? They didn't have the experience or level of expertise about the different tankless products or manufacturers that I was seeking, or which make/model would best suit our needs. They wanted to locate the heater on the outside wall, close to the bathrooms. Ok, there is an argument for that. But what's the downside of that? And can a recirculating pump make up for the proximity disadvantage of the utility closet to the bathrooms?

Do we need a condensate pump? How about a scale inhibition system? These questions never came up with the 3 other installers I met with. Two installers I only talked to on the phone said ""take a picture of your old heater, send it to my phone, and I'll give you a quote"". One highly rated installer on yelp wanted a credit card deposit before coming over. I passed on that.

Al was able to talk about all of the above from both an experience and knowledge standpoint. In my view, tankless is a very different animal, requiring a specialist with in-depth product knowledge, and which tankless product makes the most sense for a given home and homeowner. After reviewing our situation, we went with a high end Rinnai with built-in recirculation. It's an expensive unit. But another local company recommended a Noritz plus a separate add-on recirculator, and with installation of both, their total quote was actually higher. The price for the value of what we got, and most importantly, the right system for us...I am very pleased.

Al was happy to answer all of my questions (and still is!), to discuss the implications of locating the heater inside vs. outside, or go with Rinnai vs. Takagi vs. Navien, etc. He recommended a condensate pump and scale inhibitor, which both made sense to me. Heck, he even registered our unit with Rinnai for us for warranty purposes. If you decide you're going to go tankless - or if you need help deciding, I highly recommend calling Al.

(note: regarding tankless vs. tank, if you have an old plumbing system, putting in tankless could expose issues with your plumbing that did not show up before. For example, after a few days of recirculation issues and testing, Al determined that we had to install a check valve that should have been in our recirculation plumbing for the system to work as it should. According to Al, our experience was very unusual. But this was just a minor speed bump. We are thrilled our new Rinnai system.)

Tom H.

Do you want the job done right? Do you want a contractor who will show up on time, is knowledgable, courteous, and does what he promises he will do? If so, then Al at Just Tankless is the guy you want. No, he is not the cheapest, but if you appreciate a job done perfectly and an easy to deal with transaction, then you will pay for it. He was the highest bid I got, but I knew right away that he was trustworthy, communicated hid plans well, and I know will be available for follow up if needed. I got nothing close to that with the other 3 contractors I got estimates from.

Do yourself a favor - if you are thinking about a tankless water heater, give these guys a call and you will see what I'm talking about.

Paul L.

Let me preface this by saying that I do not believe there is such a thing as a perfect 5-star experience when it comes to major home repairs or remodeling. In other words, something always goes wrong. The real question is, what happens when something does go wrong - do they make it right? Or do they become passive aggressive and walk away?

Fortunately, Al and his team at Just Tankless are the former. They did a solid job on the install and got the job done very quickly. We now have a super-efficient combo water heather/radiant heating boiler, with zero problems. We also asked Al to put in an earthquake automatic shutoff valve on our gas line, and install a Nest thermostat for us.

Francois T.

I've had a hard time finding someone who is knowledgeable about tankless water heater in the area. I've had recurring issues with my water heater, and just every big plumbing franchise came to inspect it, just throwing random suggestions about what could be wrong. After many cleanups and replacements of random parts, I eventually ended up trying just tankless (because I thought that with a name like that, they ought to have a clue about the technology;-) and I was not disappointed.
Service price was right, and Al was very responsive to few follow-up questions/problems I had.
Highly recommended, thanks!
Francois