I have a tankless for 10 years now and love it. I would replace a tank
heater with a tankless any time. We have semi-hard water. City water,
combination of river/well. Wife would like a watersoftener, I think
it's fine.
For our 2 person household, it's been perfect. Once you are in the
shower, you never have to adjust the temperature no matter how long you
stay in. When my sister came to visit, she commented 'How do you know
when to get out? The water never gets cold"
However, Caveats they don't tell you about when using a tankless (At
least my 10 year old model).
It won't get as hot as a tank heater. On ours, you set the output
temperature, recommended is 120 degrees, it will adjust the flow to get
you to that temp. It can fill a tub, or the washing machine without a
problem. but you notice a flow decrease when you try to do both at
once. If you want to sanitize with only water temperature, tankless is
not the way to go.
It really does not like On/Off operation. If you are the kind of person
who rinses their dishes with 1 or 2 second bursts from the faucet, it
will never get hot. Our dishwasher fills like that, so it always send
the waterheater into a burner ignition failure (that it recovers from as
soon as sustained water is drawn) The dishwasher has it's own internal
heater that raises the water temp, so that's not a problem.
If your spouse turns off the shower, and you jump right in, You will
have about 5 seconds of ice cold water at some point during your
shower. The water that didn't get heated yet as it went through the
heater as it was firing up the burner.
Someone running cold water in the house has no affect on temperature,
someone running hotwater will dramatically change your temp, as suddenly
the hot flow is decreased until the heater burner ramps up to increase
the output again. Same when the other hot flow is turned off, you will
get really hot.
I de-scale my heater every 6 months. They didn't tell me to do it when I
got it, and it stopped working after a year. I use 5 gallons of vinegar
and a 1/6hp pump in a 5 gallon bucket. The heater has built in bypass
valves that make it super simple to hook up. Just let the pump run the
vinegar through for an hour (there are manufactures directions on how to
do it)
On 11/29/2020 10:47 AM, Colin Stanners wrote:
FYI, quick pricing example for the above
2x Eccotemp 45HI-NG ( I can't find the -NG on Amazon easily but just
for reference here's the very similar but not compatible -LP version
https://www.amazon.com/Eccotemp-45HI-LP-Indoor-Propane-Tankless/dp/B00K2XLJIW/
) $530 USD each
2x Descaling/service valve kits (not the Eccotemp model but these seem
to be compatible)
https://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Master-Isolator-Tankless-Pressure/dp/B07KVCFT2K/
$60 USD each
2x 4inch class III stainless steel vertical vent kits, with additional
piping as needed - depends greatly on your house but I'm assuming
$1000 total
1x device interconnect cable - I thought that these models were able
to be ganged, can't find the serial cable to do so but I assume it'd
be <$50.
1x descaling kit
https://www.amazon.com/Eccotemp-EZ-Flush-System-Descaler-Cleaning/dp/B01MY7AJ9D
$150
By far the biggest cost would be the labour to replace the old chimney
/ galvanized B vent with the new class III stainless steel piping x2.
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 10:10 AM Colin Stanners <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Steve, no feces involvement here but I've been looking into water
heaters quite a bit for a project.
For the hard water, instead or in addition to the water softener
you may want to look into putting one of these into your hot water
path. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000NKETXQ/ I wouldn't put it in
the general cold water path - while polyphosphates are safe for
consumption from what I can see, and I'd trust 3M to vet them
well, I try to not add much to drinking water, and cold water is
usually mostly what is used for drinking. Maybe check your
plumbing if it's possible to add that device to the cold water
path for everywhere except the kitchen sink, where drinking water
is usually taken. The $80 USD price is almost "too good to be
true" compared to a water softener but the reviews suggest that it
works well without downsides. The cartridges are $50 each and
supposedly last 6 months.
If the chimney leaks it could be a simple fix to the rain cap or
flashing, did you inspect it? WISP experience is at least useful
for judging if it's sealed well to the roof or if the structure of
the rain cap is good in strong wind.
I would recommend doing lots of math before assuming a solar
system can run an electric water heater for a busy family - it
takes a ton of electricity to create heat, which is why tank
electric heaters take 2x-3x as much time to recover from a cold
tank as gas heaters. I don't think you'd want family members to
wait 1-2 hours for a hot shower after someone else used all the
water. As a reference, the bigger tankless heaters use a
reasonable amount of gas (~150-200K BTU) but they take an
inordinate, almost frightening, amount of electricity, ~36kW.
Tankless math starts with available GPM (from temperature rise
chart). IIRC you're in Illinois, where groundwater temp averages
47 deg F (8 deg C in the developed countries). Assuming that you
want 120 deg water output from the tankless heater, that's 73 deg
F temp rise. That's on the higher end for a tankless heater. If we
look at the Eccotemp 45HI-NG natural gas tankless water heater,
their biggest model at ~140K BTU, the chart says that at that temp
rise it can do 2GPM, so one low-flow shower. If you want to run a
high-flow shower and a sink, or 2 showers at the same time, you'd
need to buy 2 units and the serial cable between them that allows
them to run intelligently in parallel (reducing the "not
activating at low water flow" problem by having just one of them,
not both, operate in low flow conditions).
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 12:35 AM Steve Jones
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
You guys all do different weird shit. Went to drain my gas
heater tonite (may have put that maintenance off longer than
intended)
We are quarry country so we have super hard water. Needless to
say tanks full of baked in sediment and when I cleared the
valve I may have cracked the liner, about every ten seconds
I'm getting a drip on the burner, and my pop off is dripping,
probably some sediment.
The water heater is the only thing I have that vents hot
anymore and my chimney leaks in driving rain. Is rather just
bash it in and put a dumbwaiter in the chase. I have the two
fresh kids that I bet would have a blast riding that.
Power vent gas looks to almost double the cost.
Tankless is looking almost comparable in price for gas, so I'm
curious if any of you guys run them without major water
softener and filters.
I'm planning on solar in the next 5 or 6 years when I redo my
roof so electric would be the thing I go with on the water
heater after the one I'm gonna have to put in now.
I like gas water heaters because I know how to fix them, parts
are cheap, same with my clothes dryers. But theyve priced
themselves into me looking at my options.
Tankless I dont know how to calculate gpm needs. But what led
to this was taking the flow reducer out of my low flow shower
head and running out of hot water in 20 minutes. I start my
day by scalding myself for about a half hour cause I'm a
filthy bastard and need to be cleansed of my sins.
We have 2 bathrooms and a girl hitting her teens, so I assume
we may be getting into a shower and bath coming on at the same
time and the wife knowing what's good for her and washing dishes.
She wont let me put a wood stove and still in the bathroom, so
wood fired shower options are out.
Are residential boilers a thing? All my walls had pocket doors
so I have plenty of room for radiant walls, I dont know if
boiler heat it even efficient though.
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