Yesterday I got an email from a friend asking me what I thought about tankless water heaters. I think he must have been under the impression I might know something about them because of all the remodeling I've done in and around my house.

I replied that I had no experience with them; but that I'd think carefully about installing one. Naturally that set off quite an email conversation. Right away I picked up on something. My friend himself wasn't completely comfortable with the tankless water heater idea.

He'd read they were energy efficient, which is true. After all, you only pay to heat the water you actually use rather than heating an entire tank of water which may cool off and need to be reheated before you use it. Less water is wasted too because supply pipelines between heated water and the tap can be shorter. In case you're wondering, I agreed with him completely on all these points. I really believe they're a better technology for the home. Still, I told him I'd think carefully about installing one.

My thinking behind my position comes from experience - the old school of hard knocks. I was burned in the past for buying a new home technology and I won't soon forget it. These are the kind of expensive lessons that tend to stick with you your whole life.

A few months after I bought my first house a nice man stopped by to offer me his brick conditioning services. My new home had a lower story brick facade. He told me it was a good idea to seal the brick and mortar against the elements to extend its lifetime. And lifetime was the operative word too. His sealing process was guaranteed for life. My home was a big investment. I wanted to protect it. I bit. The next year it bit me back.

Within 12 months his new miracle sealant turned a chalky white. It wasn't really noticeable unless you knew the original color, but I did and I wanted my original brick color back. When I called the company about my lifetime warranty I learned it really meant the lifetime of his company. They were out of business. I was out of luck. I may have been conned; it's hard to know for sure. Bottom line: I learned an important lesson about "new" technologies for the home.

I wanted my friend to look at his investment through my eyes. To help him with his thinking process, I urged him to assure himself these new tankless water heaters had market acceptance in his area. I told him he should check with professionals who would know and understand these things.

For example, he should check with his municipality about whether they were in the building codes. I told him he should check with a few plumbers to find out whether these things were becoming more mainstream. If they were, I wanted him to ask them something about adoption percentage and about reliability. Only if this little bit of research showed the local market had accepted them, it told him, should he buy.

Reading back on this article, I hope you don't get the impression I'm trying to be negative about tankless water heaters. Indeed I think they're a great idea, and I will consider adopting the technology when my water heater inevitably gives up the ghost. My real intent with this article is to say you should gage market acceptance of a new home technology before you invest in it. With big investments like this, investing in proven yet unaccepted technologies can be very costly. Unless you have the money to back it up, I recommend you think twice before becoming an early adopter of new technologies for your home.