Hot water heater replacement - brands and size

Sadly, it looks as though I may need to replace my hot water heater.  Looking for knowledgeable recommendations on brands and size.  Two adults and two children in the house.  Kids sometimes shower in the morning now, assume that will become more frequent as they get older.  Thanks.

whatever you do, get a high recovery unit - makes a huge difference in having lots f water and is also more energy efficient  

Btw water heaters are sized both by # bathrooms and # people in the house 

Yes, but in terms of usage, heaviest is the am rush.

I didn't see this thread till now.

How is the current capacity?  Is there insufficient hot water?   Copy brand and size info of your current unit and go to a plumbing supply house such as Palmer's.  It's an easy DIY job.  Hardest part is moving them around.

GL

Apollo_T said:

I didn't see this thread till now.

How is the current capacity?  Is there insufficient hot water?   Copy brand and size info of your current unit and go to a plumbing supply house such as Palmer's.  It's an easy DIY job.  Hardest part is moving them around.

GL

Not so easy. That is what we thought and now we have come to find out that due to changes in the size of the venting pipe and the fact that the furnace exhaust was put through the wall instead of the chimney our options are significantly more costly and not DIY at all. We will either have to reline the chimney, or use a power vented water heater and vent outside. So what looked like a very easy job is not so easy after all. Best bet, get a couple of quotes and get some opinions. I do admit that we received multiple opinions and very different rates for our replacement which still remains to be done. But it will be double of what we had originally estimated! 

It's a 75 gallon model currently.  This is not something that I'm willing to undertake.  If I were to screw it up (or take too long), not only could I cause significant damage to the house, my wife would (rightfully) kill me.  

Steve said:

It's a 75 gallon model currently.  This is not something that I'm willing to undertake.  If I were to screw it up (or take too long), not only could I cause significant damage to the house, my wife would (rightfully) kill me.  

For anything over 50 gallons there are significant changes as of last Spring. The question is would you really need something that large? We are a family of 3 (2 adults and 1 child) in a 3 bathroom home and we are only going from 40 gallons to 50 gallons, and even now with the 40 gallons we have never ran out of hot water, not even when we had people staying with us. 

That's exactly one of the reasons that I'm asking.  Upside of the larger ones is that the efficiency gains are substantial.

Sorry I forgot about the changes to the code.  I did my first replacement 1992, second time 2013.  Pro plumber, doing other work, found NO problems. He also said any well installed heater should last 20+ yrs.  But as noted my replacement was pre-change.

Try these for sizing info:  

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sizing+a+water+heater

http://energy.gov/energysaver/sizing-new-water-heater

As another poster alluded to, beware the size of the vent pipe. We got a new water heater last year, and the plumber told us that it was now required that we have a 3-inch pipe instead of the existing 2-inch pipe (if I recall the measurements correctly). This turned out to be a bigger deal than we thought, because the pipe was connected to another pipe in the wall. So, the wall had to be opened up, the pipe changed, and then re-cemented. Not a huge job, but more than we'd anticipated.

How does efficiency increase as capacity increases? I don't understand that.

Tom_Reingold said:

How does efficiency increase as capacity increases? I don't understand that.

It has to do with the new requirements.  More for larger units.

We installed a tankless water heater (Takagi T-H3-DV-N) -- high efficiency, direct vent, infinite hot water, and the pressure and flow rate is more than adequate (with 2 adults and 2 teenagers).

Bonus feature: since it doesn't have a tank, there's also no issue with PERC "settling down" overnight, which would otherwise increase the concentration of PERC in your morning shower.