My Rating:

by Dave Lynch (Lititz, PA)

I installed one myself in 2004. It is currently supplying hot water for both my home and my inlaws (their tanked heater failed last year) It is also supplying half my heat hydronically. It was very easy to install and It has worked flawlessly since installed. I have not noticed the cold water slug problem common to tankless units, but it does not fire up for small amounts of hot water – but that is no that big a deal. but it never runs out of hot water. I am sorry for those who have had trouble with this unit. But mine has worked very well. We bought it quite cheaply on ebay. Even if it failed tomorow it has reduced our gas bills.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-11-08

My Rating:

by Ike van Cruyningen (Palo Alto, CA)

We had this unit installed in a guesthouse about 18 months ago. It is an ideal application for a tankless unit since the guesthouse is occupied off and on throughout the year.

However this model has been trouble from day one. It never really turns on by itself. For the first year we flipped the breaker a couple times to get it to ignite whenever we wanted hot water. After a bunch of calls to tech support (wait times are long, but the service is friendly—I am on a first name basis with the tech support rep by now), they said the unit was shipped with a defective “D” board and they sent out a “C” board for free.

With high hopes we installed the new board, but it still wouldn’t automatically ignite. On the advice of the rep we set the dip switches to propane, even though this is a natural gas install. This worked well for the last month, but over the weekend things went south again. Now the unit won’t ignite at all, though I checked for gas, ignition, and water flow.

Right now I am on hold waiting for tech support again…and the wait times are going UP from 3 minutes to five minutes to twelve minutes. Clearly they are either understaffed or have too many defective units out in the field.

We installed this heater during construction of a new house and guesthouse. Frankly it has been more trouble than all the other appliances combined.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-10-26

My Rating:

by Rusticus (New York, NY)

We have an 1100 square foot house that had oil fired steam heat and a 30gal gas HW heater … I removed the entire heating system and installed a hydronic loop with radiators and a Takagi TK-JR ... a few hiccups sizing a pump with enough head pressure and this little unit preformed flawlessly for the first year. When the 30 gal HW tank started leaking , I installed a 30 gal electric tank with a plate heat exchanger heated by the Takagi … this little unit is now supplying heat and domestic hot water with no problems… cant beat that for a unit that costs less than anything comparable … the two most important criteria for these units is adequate gas supply and good water flow. The dynamic gas pressure [ pressure at the unit while it is running] should be checked with other appliances running , just because the inlet is 3/4” doesn’t mean a 3/4” supply will suffice, I had to install a 1” supply. If you are using the unit as a hydronic boiler , don’t plumb the unit in series with the main loop , but rather on a secondary injection loop with a high head/low flow pump… lint can be a problem , I taped a piece of screen material over the air intake slots so as to minimize opening the unit to clean the internal screen. Since the unit works so hard in winter , I am under no illusions that it’s life expectancy will be reduced , but at the price these are selling on EBay , I plan on buying a spare as back-up.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-09-12

My Rating:

by JW (Cary, IL)

What can I say? T-KJr is a small sized unit firing at 145,000 BTU. Adequate for probably 1.5 faucets @ 2.25 GPM ea. If you don’t Direct Vent this unit and a dryer is near you’re asking for trouble even though “dryer is vented properly”
Is your laundry room spotless? No, and there’s free airborne lint in there and w/o Direct Vent intake air the T-KJr is a vacuum cleaner.
As to flow problem, clean the aerator in your faucet often to maintain minimum initiation flow through the unit. Burner firing is flow initiated and without flow or low flow you have no burner.
As to pinhole in the heat exchanger if the water is caustic and hard it MUST be softened or HE will fail in 2 years or less. All you have to do is soften the water.
As to warranty it’s 2/7 so if you hadn’t tried to be cheap and self-install your plumber should have gotten you a replacement if you had soft water and professional installation both conditions stated clearly in the warranty and manual.
Lag in start up is flow needed to start the heater or about 1.5 gallons plus whatever cooled water is in the pipe from heater to the point of use.
And that crap about tanks lasting forever….visit many houses where I’ve had flooding with tanks under 12 years old.
Tankless isn’t a miracle but it can be great with a good install, proper sizing, good gas piping and both Direct intake and horizontal exhaust venting to minimize cost of Type III stainless pipe.
Tankless, unless pre-plumbed and vented as they do in Japan isn’t a non-professional task.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-09-08

My Rating:

by Cathe Greenwood (St. Johnsbury, VT)

We have this specific model, and I agree with John, Steve Cunningham and Richard Johnson. We purchased a Takagi T-KJr unit 4/26/2008 and installed in about 6 weeks after that. We used it about 11 MONTHS and the unit has failed. The unit developed a pin hole leak which affected the burner assembly, heat exchange and the computer board. Upon calling the store where we purchased it and talking with people at Takagi, we were informed that due to water quality and that we installed this unit ourselves, there would probably be no warranty. Regardless of WHO installed the unit—the unit only lasted 11 MONTHS! Inferior copper tubing! ELEVEN MONTHS of use? They are rating this unit for 10 to 20 years?
This unit is JUNK! Would NOT recommend this item OR THE COMPANY to anyone. The company was looking for ANY loophole in their written warranty to not have to replace the unit.
They wanted us to pay up front 5.00 for a “refurbished or used” unit, that we may end up keeping in the end, take our unit down and ship it to them so that they could cut it open to see if it was a “defective unit”. Then they would send us their determination. As with most of these companies, they do not cover the labor cost of having a plumber come in under any warranty, so it would cost us approximately 0.00 to have that switched over. Then if they determine that the unit was NOT going to be covered, we would be out another 0.00 – 00.00 for a unit at this point you are not sure you would want anyway! Check out the top ten manufactures of the tankless water heaters, you will find Takagi ranks about 7th out of the top 10. Shame on us for not checking the company and their reputation out further before we made our mistake in purchasing our unit.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-04-30

My Rating:

by C Greenwood (St. Johnsbury, VT)

Couple of errors in the review—- They wanted us to pay up front 0.00 for a used or refurbished unit.
It would cost us another 0.00 to have a plumber come in to install it
Leaving us another 0.00 to 00.00 for a unit we weren’t sure we wanted at that point anyway.

I am not sure why the “amounts” I typed in were brought down to zero ...............

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-04-30

My Rating:

by Chris villar (Liberty Hill, TX)

We’ve had two units installed to provide all hot water in a new house since May 2007. We’ve had absolutely no problems.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-01-05

My Rating:

by Osvaldo Pagan (Waterbury, CT)

I Installed one unit for each floor of my 2 family home to heat the house thru the cast iron radiators (hydroponic heating). We set them at maximum temperature of 182 degrees. Since October 2008 the units have been working perfectly and efficiently. The gas company bills have been around 5 per month. We are extremely satisfied with the units and recommend them to anybody that wants to replace any other older heating boiler or furnace. Next step for summer will be to connect them to the running hot water and replace the electric heaters.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-01-03

My Rating:

by Osvaldo Pagan (Waterbury, CT)

The amount of the monthly gas bill did not show correctly. Is One hundred twenty five dollars. Also we are located in CT where is much colder and expensive to heat a house, so this units have free us from the oil company, its high costs and pollution.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2009-01-03

My Rating:

by carl (berkeley, CA)

same problem as above. it keeps turning itself off. i cleaned lint from its filter and worked o.k. for a few days but now having same problem

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2008-11-01

My Rating:

by John (San Francisco, CA)

Expensive install + I don’t like the idea of have electricity also to run the unit, My taps are less than 12 feet from the unit and it takes 45 seconds to get warm water 1 full min to get Hot water, and if you turn off the tap for more than 15 or 20 seconds you get warm water that turns ice cold than after 45 sec it starts warming up again, if 2 taps are open the hot water pressure drops in 1/2 if 3 taps are on it goes down to 25% of full pressure!! I am Not Satisfied with this unit at all, and am investigating other options, the only thing good about it is once the water gets hot you don’t run out of hot water….

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2008-07-05

My Rating:

by Steve Cunningham (Franklin, MA)

We had this unit installed 20 months ago and it ran fine for the first 12-14 months and then started giving irregular hot water. We have worked with our plumber and Takagi and they say the probelm is lint that gets airborne from our dryer 20 feet away. The dryer is properly vented and so it the Takagi. Takagi says the fix is to have the unite direct vented which will run us another K to have done!! Our entire install with the unit was ,500 and gives heat to a second zone in the basement. A ,000 fix is rediculous and so is a unit that is so sensitive lint from 20 feet away affects it. We take showers with water turning hot/cold throughout the whole shower every day as a painful reminder to this purchase. Will be tossing it for another brand DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT!!!

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2008-06-23

My Rating:

by Steve Cunningham (Franklin, MA)

For some reason the cost of the repair got edited from my post. The cost to fix this unit by direct venting is two thousand dollars. Our entire original installation was four thousand five hundred. This suggestion does not come with any guarantee that it will fix our problem and is rediculous.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2008-06-23

My Rating:

by Creigh Gordon (Albuquerque, NM)

I keep reading bad reviews for the T-K Jr, had to try for myself. It installed easily (next to my washing machine so I had a drain for the exhaust condensate), and works just fine. On line for 6 months now with no problems. Can’t say about efficiency, since we’re just getting into the time of year when space heating doesn’t dominate the gas bill.

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2007-05-25

My Rating:

by Richard Johnson (Salt Lake City, UT)

Nothing but expensive problems, from installation to it breaking after only 11 months. Piece of GARBAGE

Fullfilled: N/A

Dated: 2006-10-22

Product Specifications

• Natural Gas Input: Min. 19,500 Btu Max. 140,000 Btu
• LPG Input: Min. 17,000 Btu Max. 140,000 Btu
• Gas Connection: 3/4” NPT
• Water Connections: 3/4” NPT
• Water Pressure: Min. 15 psi Max. 150 psi
• Natural Gas Pressure Inlet: Min. 5” WC Max. 10.5” WC
• LP Gas Pressure Inlet: Min. 11” WC Max. 14” WC
• Manifold Pressure: Natural 2.8” WC Propane 3.2” WC
• Weight: 30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20” x 14” x 6”
• Ignition: Electronic Ignition
• Electrical Supply: AC 120 V