I found the new RO units when I was looking at buying a small island
in Fiji. Raw island so I was looking at the cost of solar plus adding
a desalination plant. It turns out that desal plants are just RO with
an added prestage to handle more gunk and salt water. Really not that
expensive. I think the unit I thought would be best came in at about
$7k and would produce 1200 gallons a day. That is a lot of fresh
water. I didn't get to test one and was wondering if it would be
better than the desal plants onboard Navy ships which tasted like ass.
Those desal plants take more energy to run than normal RO as it takes
more pressure to run the extra stages and you don't have any external
source of pressure like you do on a water system. The high volume
standard RO plants typically take some power as they use pumps to
restore the pressure you lose going through the system and without
them you can't reach the volume past about 200 gallons a day it seems.
I figured the solar would likely cost another $60k with batts and all.
Figure another $15k to get it all shipped in. It turned out I could
only afford the island I didn't want which was 4 hours from an Airport
by small boat. The one 5 minutes from the international airport by
boat was 18 acres and out of my league.
Wow, sure get off topic quick on this list.
On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 10:02 AM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-water-softeners-wo/
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-water-softeners-wo/>
*From:* AF <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> *On Behalf Of *Chuck McCown via AF
*Sent:* Monday, November 30, 2020 9:46 AM
*To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* Chuck McCown <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Water heaters
No, the salt is used to make a brine that washes the hard water
deposits off the resin beads. It is then dumped overboard and the
beads are rinsed. Then your water flows through the beads again.
The beads only have so much capacity so the softening ability
starts to decline as soon as it is put back in operation thus the
need to set the regen cycle. But it should not add any sodium to
the eater if operating correctly.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 30, 2020, at 7:59 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
RO I assume is reverse osmosis. That sounds like a great
alternative to a water softener. We had a water softener
before our town got Lake Michigan water, and while they may be
a minor pain, they are still a pain. There’s the constant
bags of salt of course. But while it sounds so nice that your
water is “soft”, in reality it is just replacing calcium with
sodium, and I’m not sure it’s good to be drinking water with
extra sodium.
We did have separate plumbing for outdoor faucets that
bypassed the water softener, I assume that’s standard
practice? Don’t need to water the grass with soft water,
although some people might want it to wash the car.
*From:* AF <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> *On Behalf Of *Lewis Bergman
*Sent:* Monday, November 30, 2020 8:35 AM
*To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Water heaters
I'll have to look at the brand I have. I have had tankless for
about 25 years now in 2 different houses. First, the electric
ones suck and I wouldn't have one. The gas ones of either type
are great. I had a Bosch for 20 years and I had to clean the
firing tip with sandpaper twice in that time. That location
had soft water and we had no water softener. The new house has
two units that are plumbed together and if the demand gets too
much for one the other fires up and keeps up with the floor.
Found out recently though that they are not redundant. If the
first one has issues the second one never comes on. Evidently
many of these forced air jobs that have PVC exhaust pipes also
have filters. Check you unit before installing it so that if
yours has a filter that has to be cleaned once a year like
mine, you can easily get to it.
If you have hard water, definitely install a water softener in
front of it to lengthen its service life. My new place with
the dual ones has a big water softener. I am thinking if I
ever build another I might get one of those whole house RO
units. They have come down a lot in the last few years and you
can now get a whole house RO that puts out 500 gallons a day
for a couple thousand dollars. If you are smart enough to have
home run plumbing done you could have one that is a lot less
expensive only supply the hot water, sinks, dish washer, and
ice maker.
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 12:22 PM Colin Stanners
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The latter brand is likely Rinnai or Rheem. I'm surprised
that you saw issues with Takagi, I thought that they were
a higher quality brand.
On Sun, Nov 29, 2020, 11:58 AM Chuck McCown via AF
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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/
<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/
<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
<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/
<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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