Tankless Hot Water Heater: Did the conversion work?

During the past year, the new installation in our home was a gas tankless hot water heater. There were a couple of reasons my wife and I decided for tankless. My wife was getting sick of us running out of hot water, especially while she was in the shower. We heard that it would save gas, since it didn't need to maintain the water temperature in a tank. Finally, it saves space which is important to us, because our home is less then a 1000 sq ft.

So I looked at the gas bill for June 09 vs June 08 to see how things were looking. On a daily average for the month we were using 4.5 cubic metres/day vs 6.1 in the previous June. I noted that the temperature for the month was the same, and we had made no other adjustments. So we were saving about 1.6 cubic metres per day or 49 cubic metres per month. This translates into $20.82 per month or $250.00 per year. This kind of return is welcome, but the cost of the rental still puts us into a negative of $14 per month. So from a financial perspective it hasn't worked out yet.

Did the change help us to accomplish our goals? It provided my wife with hot showers; it saved space; it lowered our environmental imprint. So would I suggest it? From our families perspective the answer is yes; but if you are only doing it to save money, you'll be disappointed.