Tankless water heater with radiant heat and domestic recirculator loops

You manage or work at a small to medium sized business and your looking for a way to save some money and green it up a bit more. Since you have read some previous posts and already installed high velocity hand driers and sensor activated faucets – you’re now looking for the next step.

Why not install some point of use tank-less water heaters and get rid of your large inefficient hot water tank? We use a Takagi TK-3 at the family vacation home down in Jersey - it enables you to shower with perfect 122 degree water until your skin is thoroughly "pruned" (if you so desire). You will never run out of hot water again!

Smaller electric units are available for under the sink and in the kitchen, which are ideal for many business applications. Here is a great site where you can learn more

The carbon footprint of a small point of use water heater is dramatically less than that of a large tank system. The initial installation might set you back a bit more than a conventional system, but the monthly savings in water usage and energy consumption (approximately 24-34%) makes your return on investment fast. 
*Update: 1/22/11 As a bonus, the Takagi also supplies the hot water for the radiant base board heat. Get the Grundfos 3 speed pump - see link below and the Isolator shut-off valves so you can drain the system / replace the pump when required easily. 

Update: 11/15/14 installed a timer, so it only recirculates the domestic hot water during the waking hours - thus saving power and gas at night while sleeping. Accomplished this with a simple inexpensive yet reliable mechanical Intermatic Timer.

Also, installed a Descaling  filter, isolator valves for a clean out, and bought a submersible pump. Tankless water heaters are supposed to be cleaned out annually or more to clean out the nasties. Mine had not been cleaned out since it was installed and was very dirty, it required two complete cleanings and flushes with the Descaling Rinse. I got the gallon size as it is a better value than the quart size.) Get the pump on amazon, a way better deal than buying the whole kit. You likely have some washing machine hoses lying around the house as well. Make sure you flush out the system and remove aerators when finished to get all the sediment and loose particles when you are finished flushing. Replace your whole house sediment filter and clean the tankless cold in-feed filter as well.

Looks tricky - which it is, but you can contact me and I can give you some pointers. This system which I installed myself has a domestic recirculating loop, and a baseboard heating loop.