I know this isn’t a fun topic, and I’m as anxious as y’all are to get to the pretty stuff in our bedroom suite, but I’d love your input on this. As you know, if you’ve been following this project, my plan is to turn our current guest bathroom into a storage closet sooner than later. And the half bathroom in my studio will become our main guest bathroom.
When we bought the house, the sunroom was just a huge, open, and kind of awkward room. I initially thought I could salvage it, but I soon realized that that wasn’t an option because it doesn’t have an appropriate floor. The floor in here is just layers of plastic, particle board, more plastic, and commercial carpet placed over concrete that I’m assuming used to be a patio. So with the room not having a good foundation, there was no need in spending money to repair anything above that foundation.
But it was, at least, a good temporary location for washer and dryer hookups, which the house didn’t originally have. And it was a good temporary location for a hot water heater since the original location was at the far end of the garage, as far removed as it could have been from all of the actual sources of water inside the house. Since all of the plumbing had to be redone anyway to get rid of the old galvanized steel pipes that were so corroded that they would only let a trickle of water through, we went ahead and had the hot water heater moved to a much more centralized location, and the only location available at the time was the corner of the sunroom, which happens to be just on the other side of the hallway bathroom. You can see where the original window was in the hallway bathroom above the washer and dryer.
Little did I know that that “temporary” solution for both of those would last for 12 years. But now, my washer and dryer finally have a new (and much prettier) home in my walk-in closet.
And after 12 years of dreaming about the day that I can tear down the room that is (almost jokingly) referred to as “the sunroom”, our current hot water heater is the last remaining fixed element that is preventing us from being able to tear down that room.
Don’t get me wrong. The room is filled to the brim with stuff. But it’s almost all stuff that I can either get rid of because I won’t need it anymore (i.e., stuff that came out of the hallways and guest bedroom), or stuff that will eventually be relocated to my workshop once I get it organized.
And that just leaves the hot water heater as the final fixed element in the room that prevents me from taking a bulldozer to this room.
As I said, the new location for the hot water heater will be what is now the hallway bathroom, which is just on the other side of the wall where it’s located now. And that bathroom looks like this for now…kind of. This is the most recent picture I have, which I took when I was planning to do a little makeover in here with new tile, new shower curtain, and new wallpaper. That makeover never fully materialized, and in hindsight, I’m so thankful that I didn’t waste time and money on that makeover. I can hold on to everything I planned to use in here (and store the quartz countertop) to use in the future guest bathroom when we build the addition.
And this room will just be a storage room where I can keep Matt’s equipment, other household items that I need to store (i.e., vacuum cleaner, carpet cleaner, etc.). I’ll also have the scuttle hole to the crawl space underneath the house put in here. And then, it will be the new home of the hot water heater.
I’ve already spoken to my contractor about my plans for this room. I told him that I would do all of the tear out, and then I need them to terminate all of the plumbing, do the drywall, cut the scuttle hole to the crawl space, and then install the new hot water heater.
I had been planning on a tankless water heater, but because these are all interior walls (although the one back wall will temporarily be an exterior wall until the addition is built), that means that my only option is an electric hot water heater. I didn’t think much of it. I’ve heard great things about electric tankless hot water heaters. But the one problem is that electric hot water heaters require some pretty heavy wiring and lots of space in the breaker box. And we’re running out of space in our breaker box. He seemed to think we could make it work, but when it comes to electrical stuff, the whole “we can probably make it work” thing doesn’t leave me feeling very confident.
So now, I’m having second thoughts about trying to make a tankless hot water heater work. I really don’t have a problem with a standard tank hot water heater. Our current one is gas, and since the line gas line is already right there, it seems to me that it would be cheaper and so much easier to just move it to the other side of the wall and be done with it. But I’d love to know your thoughts, especially from those of you who have had both a standard tank hot water heater and an electric tankless hot water heater. Is the electric tankless really that much of an upgrade? Is it worth possibly having to upgrade our electrical panel?
The one other option is that I could plan on an exterior tankless gas hot water heater. But I’ve given this so much thought, and I can’t figure out where it would even go. I would need to be a location that’s kind of central to all of the plumbing in the house. And, unfortunately, it can’t go on the back anywhere because there will be that interim between tearing down the sunroom and building the addition. Obviously, we can’t live without hot water for an unspecified amount of time between when we tear down the sunroom and build the addition. So that would leave the side of the house with the master bedroom and bathroom, which is where the exterior condenser unit for our HVAC is located. It’s also where our exterior electrical panel is located, so that might be an issue.
The only other location I can think of would be in the area by the breakfast room windows, but I don’t love the idea of it being placed anywhere on the front of our house, even if it is in that area that is set back from the front porch and the front of my studio.
It seems like it would be so much easier and less stressful to just put it in the hallway storage closet and be done with it. But that location makes me lean towards having a standard gas hot water heater. Ugh. I just don’t know, and this is one of those decisions I wish someone else would make for me. 😀
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
