I am generally the first one up.  I turn on the shower then the hot water tap 
to brush my teeth.  By the time my teeth are done the water temp has 
stabilized.  I have a 200Kbtu heater (actually 2 of them for two parts of the 
house).  I never seem to notice much of a temp difference when you are in the 
shower and someone starts something else.  You can hear the heater instantly 
rev up when more flow is detected.  Takagi were crap.  Rhinni have lasted much 
longer.  Not sure I spelled those correctly.  

From: Nate Burke 
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 10:43 AM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group 
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Water heaters

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]> 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]> 
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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