So now the cold weather has been upon us for a few months. The better half has one complaint about this full timing, not enough hot water. I’m guessing since the water is much colder that she runs out of hot water faster. So what are your thoughts on a tankless water heater ? Good , bad , how hard to retro fit , worth it

Are you running both the electric element and propane burner at the same time? That adds quite a bit of heat to the water heater. As far as tankless, I haven't heard anything very good about them from folks that have them.

Agree! Run on both LP & electric for faster recovery plus replace the shower head with Oxygenics head, it feels like an increase in pressure & uses less water.
Make sure the faucets on the outside shower are turned off or the hot/cold will mix cooling the hot water at all the other faucets.
Hopefully you don't have other hot water issues as the only time we've ran out of hot water is when the granddaughter visits, that's how she knows to stop showering is when the hot water runs out.

Yes I run both gas and electric

We've never run out of hot water even if we shower one after the other although we don't spend a lot of time in the shower.

The only time we've had an issue is when the 110V side was compromised by the wire going out of the thermostat getting shorted by rubbing against the steel heater edge, that created only warm water but didn't blow a fuse. It would be good to check, remove the black rubber cover and look after shutting off the 110V side.

Agree with above. The only time I have run out of hot water for a shower is when Deb had just finished doing dishes. I should have known better, she uses more hot water for dishes than a restaurant.

I haven't heard great things about the RV tankless systems, unless they are the full diesel fired AquaHot boiler systems in a motorcoach. I do find it hard to believe you are running out. Redwood has that nice 12 gallon tank that I miss, but even with the 10 gallon we have now I don't really ever run out that I've noticed. Wonder if you have something else going on.

Just curious - Are your basement utility faucet valves on (whatever that thing is called with the blue coiled hose that plugs into it). If so, they can causing mixing of the hot and cold so all you ever really get is warm water. They go unnoticed sometimes because there is no water actually flowing with the hose unplugged.

Also see Terryandnina's post where they had the check valve fail allowing the cold to mix back into the tank.