Tankless Hot Water Heaters (specifically gas)

[Ranger Digital]

I also put a small generator switchpanel in that can select up to 10 circuits and has a 30 A rating. I can hook up my 5K generator and run a few things at a time (forced hot air heat, or one or two AC's, or microwave, refrig a few hours a day etc). I have it 6 years and never used it other than testing it every few months.

Ya, that's pretty much exactly what we'll have. It's the classic case of spending $$$ and making effort for something you hope you'll never have to use.

However, we're quite rural, and even worse, low property tax rural....so if there is an outage, we'll undoubtedly be last on the list to get repaired.

What does property tax have to do with service from your power provider????? COMPLETELY seperate and unrelated in these parts. Different there?

 

[beelzerob]

What does property tax have to do with service from your power provider????? COMPLETELY seperate and unrelated in these parts. Different there?

Heh..well, it's not a policy or anything...it's more just a sense of who will get the attention first if everyone needs power and power company resources are stretched thin. Basically, it's a theory about who can make the most noise and who will get listened to, should it be days and days without power for lots of people...

 

[CollinR]

It appears true too from what I have seen.

There also appears to be the inverse which also doesn't help you at all, how many subscribers can you fix with a single circuit. Some ghettos have a very high concentration of people and do seem to get that respect in restoring service. I assume that may also play on how many elderly live in the same areas.

 

[mdiehl]

Give Takagi heaters(LP or Propane) a good look, I've had once in service for some time and am very impressed with the unit, both in performance and the overall engineering. I'd looked at many before making the final decision on purchase.

 

[felixrosbergen]

For gas tankless water heaters would you have say 1 for upper and 1 for lower level?

Or 3 total. 1 for master bath, 1 for kids bath and 1 for kitchen downstairs??

I am concerned about having gas piping all through the house and having multiple units to maintain.

How about a central larger tankless gas based heater? Is that still efficient??

 

[beelzerob]

Just guessing here, but I'd say the more tankless water heaters you can get, and put close to their point of use, then definitely the less gas you'll burn on heating the water and getting it out the tap. But you're talking quite the expense now, in units and in venting and gas line, etc.

Even for our 3 bath house, we're planning on 1 unit that can meet the demand. And demand is really only a matter of guessing how many items you want to be able to run simultaneously.

I think the tank/tankless debate kind of boils down to which evil you'd rather have to deal with....with tankless, you have to plan on how many things you can run simultaneously. With tanked, you have to plan on how many things you can run in a couple hour span. At least, that's how I look at it.

I'm still leaning towards tankless. My wife likes the idea of taking a nice long bath in our soaking tub without the guilty feeling of "I've just screwed everyone else out of a hot shower."

 

[fcwilt]

Even for our 3 bath house, we're planning on 1 unit that can meet the demand. And demand is really only a matter of guessing how many items you want to be able to run simultaneously.

Many units allow for hooking up two or more units yielding more gallons per minute. When the first unit isn't doing the job the second unit kicks in, then the third, etc.

When building our lake home we were unsure about what would work so we allowed for adding a second unit to each of the first units. This meant providing for the gas requirements of the second units, a place to mount the units, venting, etc. This added to the initial cost somewhat but if we ever need the second units we are good to go.

 

[ginigma]

After having a few plumbers in to give me a quote, I was only impressed with one of them who actually knew what he was talking about. I really thought he was going overboard when he pulled out a digital camera and started taking pics of my mechanical room in the basement. Then pulled out his tape measure. All the other guys just spent a couple minutes looking and eye balled it. However, this was the guy that when he started talking about the venting (going with gas), the manuf requires 12" from the ground, and then NJ requires another 18" above that (some stupid reason about snow build-up and closing off the vent opening!

Anyway, it looks like I can get 29" off the ground, and he knows the building inspector in my area and thinks he will let that go through, but after talking with him a bit more, I'm concerned about the flowrate for my big rain shower head. I will probably pass on the tankless and go with a 75 gal standard water heater.

 

[jkish]

Even for our 3 bath house, we're planning on 1 unit that can meet the demand. And demand is really only a matter of guessing how many items you want to be able to run simultaneously.

Many units allow for hooking up two or more units yielding more gallons per minute. When the first unit isn't doing the job the second unit kicks in, then the third, etc.

When building our lake home we were unsure about what would work so we allowed for adding a second unit to each of the first units. This meant providing for the gas requirements of the second units, a place to mount the units, venting, etc. This added to the initial cost somewhat but if we ever need the second units we are good to go.

We have dual tankless heaters installed and they have some nice benefits. When the flow requirements are low, only one unit is fired up. The units will alternate every 10 requests or so to maintain even wear. For high flow needs, both units fire up and work in parallel. Having two units also gives you a backup system in case one dies.

 

[pkoslow]

This tread reminded me of an article I read in Fine Homebuilding magazine several months ago. I found the article on-line (liked below):

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/PD...e/021192082.pdf

I didn't read through the entire thread so some of this may have alrady been covered...

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Digger]

Even for our 3 bath house, we're planning on 1 unit that can meet the demand. And demand is really only a matter of guessing how many items you want to be able to run simultaneously.

Many units allow for hooking up two or more units yielding more gallons per minute. When the first unit isn't doing the job the second unit kicks in, then the third, etc.

When building our lake home we were unsure about what would work so we allowed for adding a second unit to each of the first units. This meant providing for the gas requirements of the second units, a place to mount the units, venting, etc. This added to the initial cost somewhat but if we ever need the second units we are good to go.

We have dual tankless heaters installed and they have some nice benefits. When the flow requirements are low, only one unit is fired up. The units will alternate every 10 requests or so to maintain even wear. For high flow needs, both units fire up and work in parallel. Having two units also gives you a backup system in case one dies.

Thats really nice. What brand/model did you use? Do they have a seperate controller to manage them?

Thanks for any information!

 

[jkish]

Even for our 3 bath house, we're planning on 1 unit that can meet the demand. And demand is really only a matter of guessing how many items you want to be able to run simultaneously.

Many units allow for hooking up two or more units yielding more gallons per minute. When the first unit isn't doing the job the second unit kicks in, then the third, etc.

When building our lake home we were unsure about what would work so we allowed for adding a second unit to each of the first units. This meant providing for the gas requirements of the second units, a place to mount the units, venting, etc. This added to the initial cost somewhat but if we ever need the second units we are good to go.

We have dual tankless heaters installed and they have some nice benefits. When the flow requirements are low, only one unit is fired up. The units will alternate every 10 requests or so to maintain even wear. For high flow needs, both units fire up and work in parallel. Having two units also gives you a backup system in case one dies.

Thats really nice. What brand/model did you use? Do they have a seperate controller to manage them?

Thanks for any information!

It is a pair of Rinnai R85i's: http://www.rinnai.us/Products/water_heater...s_benefits.aspx

There is a controller for each, but one is designated the master unit and the water temp etc is determined by its controller setting. The controller for the second unit is there for diagnostic purposes. The units communicate with each other to determine who runs, etc.

 

[beelzerob]

This tread reminded me of an article I read in Fine Homebuilding magazine several months ago. I found the article on-line (liked below):

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/PD...e/021192082.pdf

I didn't read through the entire thread so some of this may have alrady been covered...

Cheers,
Paul

thanks for that link! I now fully understand "cold water sandwiches", and its reassuring to know that it's not an issue of the heater not being underpowered or some other irregularity.

Funny how almost all the solutions involve adding a small water heater tank. Still...a 10 gallon electric water heater tank will cost almost nothing to operate.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Just got back from the International Builders Show in Orlando and their model home had SIX tankless! I thought that was crazy until I saw the master shower, LOL. Was told it could take up to 27.5 gallons per minute just in the master! HOLLY MOLLY! The mechanical room looked like it was out of a commercial facility.

But WOW, talk about a house!

(was not impressed with the whole house automation however. simple vnet pads and little other automation)

 

[brotsten]

Just got back from the International Builders Show in Orlando and their model home had SIX tankless! I thought that was crazy until I saw the master shower, LOL. Was told it could take up to 27.5 gallons per minute just in the master! HOLLY MOLLY! The mechanical room looked like it was out of a commercial facility.

But WOW, talk about a house!

(was not impressed with the whole house automation however. simple vnet pads and little other automation)

We went to the show a couple of years ago and took the tour of the model house. I thought the same thing of that one, where is the HA?

After we headed home, my wife was fingering through some of the literature and says "oh, hmm, there was two houses, the one we didn't see had all the HA." The only reason I went with her was to check out the new HA before we built our house. Hope the same thing didn't happen to you.

Brian