Does Consumer Reports rate individual tankless water heater brands or models?

No — and this is the detail that trips up most searches for a specific brand's CR score. Consumer Reports' own tankless water heater testing article states that its engineers grouped all the gas tankless units together and all the electric tankless models together for ratings, rather than breaking out individual models the way they do with most other product categories, because the differences among models were negligible. If you're searching 'Rinnai Consumer Reports rating' or 'Rheem Consumer Reports rating' expecting a brand-specific score like you'd get for a refrigerator or a washing machine, it doesn't exist — CR publishes one gas-tankless verdict and one electric-tankless verdict, full stop.

What did Consumer Reports find about tankless water heater running costs?

Consumer Reports' cited annual operating costs are $195 for gas tankless and $535 for electric tankless, compared to $245 for gas storage tank and $580 for electric storage tank units. Gas tankless rated 'Excellent' for annual energy consumption cost in their testing; electric tankless rated only 'Fair.' The gap between gas and electric tankless running costs (about $340/year) is larger than the gap between either fuel type's tankless and storage-tank versions.

Is switching from a tank water heater to tankless worth it, according to Consumer Reports?

Not purely as a cost-recovery decision, per CR's own payback math: converting from an existing, working storage tank unit to gas tankless takes an estimated 22.5 to 27.5 years to pay back in energy savings, and 12 to 20 years for electric tankless — both spans that exceed a typical water heater's warranty period, which is why CR's own conclusion is that replacing a working tank purely to save on operating costs 'doesn't make financial sense.' That math applies specifically to swapping out a unit that still works; it doesn't account for the other reasons people choose tankless (recovered closet space, effectively endless hot water, a 15-20+ year unit lifespan) or a scenario where the existing tank has already failed and a like-for-like tank replacement isn't the comparison being made.

Do electric tankless water heaters perform the same in every climate, according to Consumer Reports' tests?

No. In CR's testing, two electric models (Bosch and Rheem) failed to reach the target 120°F output when incoming water was 58°F — a cold-climate groundwater temperature common across much of the northern US in winter. All the gas models in the same test reached the 3-4 GPM target output regardless. That result lines up with the climate-dependent GPM principle we apply across every product guide on this site: a unit's rated flow and temperature rise is a warm-climate-incoming-water number, not a guarantee, and electric units are the more exposed fuel type when incoming water runs cold.

Where can I find Consumer Reports' actual tankless water heater guide, and what should I check instead for a specific model?

CR's tankless water heaters vs. storage tank comparison is published on consumerreports.org under their appliances/water-heaters section, and it's worth reading for the cost and payback framing above. For a specific brand or model decision, though, it won't help — since CR doesn't break out individual units, our own brand-by-brand reviews (Rinnai, Rheem, Navien, Noritz, and others) and head-to-head compares are built around exactly the spec-level differences CR's grouped methodology doesn't capture.

Does Consumer Reports Rate Tankless Water Heaters? What Their Tests Actually Found (2026)

Quick Answer: Consumer Reports doesn’t publish a brand- or model-specific tankless water heater rating — its own testing article says the differences among models were “negligible,” so its engineers grouped all gas tankless units into one score and all electric tankless models into another, unlike the individual ratings CR gives most other appliances. What CR’s tests did surface: gas tankless runs about $195/year to operate versus $535/year for electric tankless (against $245 and $580 for the storage-tank equivalents), and the payback period for converting a working tank to tankless is 22.5-27.5 years on gas and 12-20 years on electric — both longer than a typical warranty term. If you came here looking for a specific brand’s CR score, it doesn’t exist; our brand-by-brand reviews are built around exactly the model-level differences CR’s grouped methodology skips over.

Why a brand-specific search comes up empty

Searching “[brand] Consumer Reports tankless rating” is a reasonable instinct — CR rates refrigerators, washing machines, and storage-tank water heaters model by model, so it’s natural to expect the same for tankless units. It doesn’t work that way. Per CR’s own tankless vs. storage tank testing article, its engineers found the differences among the tankless models they tested were negligible enough that they grouped all gas tankless units into a single score and all electric tankless models into a second single score, rather than ranking individual units. That’s a methodology choice, not a gap in their testing — but it means a search for a brand-specific CR verdict on a tankless unit is looking for something that was never published.

What Consumer Reports’ grouped testing actually found

Water heater type	Est. annual operating cost	CR cost rating	Payback period vs. replacing a working tank unit
Gas tankless	~$195/yr	Excellent	22.5-27.5 years
Electric tankless	~$535/yr	Fair	12-20 years
Gas storage tank	~$245/yr	—	—
Electric storage tank	~$580/yr	—	—

Two things stand out in that table. First, gas tankless doesn’t just beat electric tankless on running cost — it beats it by more than the gap between either fuel’s tankless and storage-tank versions, which is a bigger efficiency swing from fuel type than from going tankless in the first place. Second, CR’s own payback conclusion is blunt: for someone with a working storage tank unit, converting to tankless purely to save on energy costs “doesn’t make financial sense,” because 22.5-27.5 years (gas) or 12-20 years (electric) both run longer than the unit’s own warranty period. That math is specifically about replacing a working tank — it’s a different calculation if your existing tank has already failed and you’re choosing between a tank and tankless replacement anyway, since at that point you’re not giving up years of a working unit to make the switch.

The cold-water finding that echoes across this whole site

One result from CR’s testing matters more than the headline cost numbers for anyone shopping electric: two electric models in their test group (Bosch and Rheem) failed to hit the target 120°F output when incoming water was 58°F. Every gas model in the same test reached the 3-4 GPM target regardless of incoming temperature. That’s not a knock on those two brands specifically — CR’s own methodology doesn’t name which exact models failed — but it’s a real, independently-tested confirmation of the principle we repeat across this site’s flow rate and sizing guides: a unit’s rated GPM and temperature rise is a warm-incoming-water number, and electric tankless is the fuel type most likely to fall short of its spec sheet once groundwater runs cold in winter.

Compare tankless water heaters on Amazon →

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What to check instead of a CR score

Since Consumer Reports won’t give you a model-by-model verdict, the practical alternative is comparing units on the specs that actually separate them — UEF, climate-adjusted GPM, and warranty length, the same factors CR’s own grouped rating glosses over. Our Rinnai Sensei RX199iN review covers our current top overall pick with that level of detail, and our gas and electric roundups break out the fuel-type comparison CR only gives as a single aggregate score per category.

The bottom line

Consumer Reports tested tankless water heaters and found real, useful numbers — $195/year for gas tankless, $535/year for electric, and a payback period long enough that swapping a working tank unit for tankless “doesn’t make financial sense” on cost alone — but it never rated individual brands or models, grouping every gas unit into one verdict and every electric unit into another because the differences were negligible in its testing. If a specific brand’s CR rating is what you searched for, it doesn’t exist; the model-level differences that actually matter for a buying decision are exactly what our brand-by-brand reviews are built to cover instead.

Check our top overall pick on Amazon →