Tankless LP Water Heater

[Sigarms]

Oh yeah, I'm sure you also know, 180 degrees is waaaaaay too hot for a residential setting

It's impossible to set your residential tankless water heater for 180 degrees. You mentioned that you had the wrong unit (after you made that same comment about the temp setting) after I mentioned that some time ago.

Oh, BTW, I do have 3 pieces of the really expensive intake/exhaust pipe

That's because they ship that product in shipped in from Norway. However, you can cut your cost down by buying a vent kit from a manufacturer in the mid west, although it's more of a pain to install IMO.

They are difficult to work on. At Rheem we had them laid out on a table . They are difficult getting at some of the parts. In the class they give you a magnetic screwdriver so you can get to the small areas to hold the screws & small parts.

Have you ever dealt with Rheem technical support on water heaters? One phone call and I swore I'd never touch another one.

 

[kenmac]

Interesting to read that those who are against them, don't own them.:confused3:.

I can all of them that I want. I just don't care to own any. Tank type give less trouble.

 

[Sigarms]

I can all of them that I want. I just don't care to own any. Tank type give less trouble.

General rule of thumb, less parts, less trouble. Another general rule is more parts, more money.

By the same token, there are guys who swear off wall hung, direct vent modulating gas boilers for the same reason.

 

[sodamo]

I have 4 Takagi units, model T-K Jr. One in operation about 5 years, installed that one myself. The other 3 less and installed by my plumber when we built the new house. All work great. Would never go back to electric or gas 24/7 tank. Of course they didn't cost me $1500 each. My only failure to date was a gas regulator, but that came from Northern Tools.

 

[picker77]

On carefully-treated city water, maybe they'd be ok. On my super hard high lime/calcium content well water I doubt I'd get a year out of the heat exchanger before it was trashed, even though I run a water softener (helps, but isn't 100% effective for really hard water). Ditto with in-ground heat pumps, or anything else that uses a tubing type heat exchanger. Assuming you do the replacements yourself, you can replace quite a few electric tank types for the same money.

 

[WayneB]

I happen to have "On Demand" hot water systems at both our summer and winter over homes. I say On Demand because tankless heaters have been around for many years and found in most hot water (boiler) heating systems.

My systems are both Bosch units and the only reason I went with Bosch was the North American Distributor was close by and I got excellent technical support from them. The first unit was a model 125 FX and is a direct heater that will increase the water temperature an X number of degrees. This was the early stages of On Demand heaters so it is possible to have water that is cold enough that you will not get the desired hot water temperature out.

The newer units are mostly proportional heaters and will automatically increase the gas flow and fire temperature to maintain the hot water temperature out.

As for the small electric tank I also have one in line with our system it is a 2.5 gallon tank and I have the temperature on that set for around 115 degrees. It isn't on too often and once you call for hot water it will be at the temperature of the On Demand heater (mine is set at 135 degrees F and the recommended temperature setting is normally 120 degrees F) The key reason for cold water is water bounce caused when someone is doing something like rinsing off dishes to go into the dishwasher. All of the new units I know of have electronic circuits that will vent the gases out of the unit prior to restarting the gas burner. This could cause a shot of cold water to enter the pipes prior to the burner coming back on. The small electric hot water heater supplies that small amount of hot water and then once the cold water enters the small tank it blends and most people do not notice the small drop in water temperature.

Delay time is another issue although I believe in our house the hot water will take as long to get to the showerhead with the "On Demand system" as it did with the "boiler tankless system".

In some new installations where the master bathroom is a long way away from the main source then there are other things that have to be incorporated into the system to bring hot water to the showerhead. I know of zero cheap solutions to this!

One way is to use looping hot water has been used by adding a circulator pump and timer to turn on the hot water at a certain time in the morning and loop it around the hot water piping. Normally it turns at a preset time prior to people getting up in the morning so when you jump into the shower the hot water is already there! I myself would wait the ten to thirty seconds at our house for hot!

One problem is there will always be hot water(24/7) and one can stay in the shower for as long as they desire. We have an understanding here to keep the showers short as possible.

Cost of initial installations are high due to the need for high-grade insulated exhaust pipes and the wall feed thorughs. I do not think the units themselves are expensive to purchase.

Savings I am not sure but I have kept records of propane usage for the past three years and right now we are averaging around $12.00 a month for hot water. Before with the hot water coming off from the boiler we were spending about $30.00 a month during the summer months. During the winter months I looked at that is just a benefit of having a boiler with tankless hot water. During the summer when it is 85 degrees and the furnace is running I had a different feeling!

We purchased the first unit for our summer place in the mountains and I wanted something that would be easy to winterize. The old 50 gallon hot water tank was a bear to empty in the fall. So when I did the new plumbing I went with on demand. Winterizing was certainly much easier and takes us about 15 minutes to complete. The other side of that is if we are away for a week or two when we show up the hot water is seconds away. In the past I would have to wait ten to twenty minutes to get hot water.

Sorry for the length of this, but I feel it is fair to say that for those who have the On Demand systems we all seem to enjoy them, those who don't have them hate them and there are those looking into it find they are too expensive to own, maybe? I will never go back to having a hot water tank that is one thing for certain.

Wayne

 

[wrangler6831]

I've had 2 Bosch units for over 7 years and never had any trouble. I run one for the upstairs and one for down. I could have got by with one. Mine have pilots on them so no need for 110V. I don't understand how they can be more trouble to work on. You have a burner (just like a conventional tank) a coil of pipe for the water to run through and a gas control valve. Pretty simple in my opinion. What can go wrong? They were more money originally but for what I have saved I think they will balance out and to have an endlees supply of HOT water is priceless. For what is worth I have a 3400sq ft. total gas home, WH, Stove, Furnace and clothes dryer. On the budget so I pay evenly through the year I pay around $100.00 per month on gas. To each his own.


Rich

 

[simonds]

As I posted before,
It depends on what type of water you have. We are not comparing apples to apples here.
Do you use an electric coffee maker?
If you do, how often do you have to run vinegar through it to clean it out?
I have to clean mine at least once a month, because I have hard water.
The coffee maker heats the water the same as a tankless water heater.
The water tubes are a lot smaller than a convential water heater.
If I have to clean my coffee maker once a month after only making 10 cups of coffee each day, how many times do you think I would have to clean a tankless waterheater per month after washing hands, doing laundry, taking showers, doing dishes.
One would not be good with my type of water.
What i'm trying to say is that they are good for some people but not everyone, it depends on the quality of your water. Think about the coffee maker test or have your water tested first before you invest in one.

 

[Dargo]

It's impossible to set your residential tankless water heater for 180 degrees. You mentioned that you had the wrong unit (after you made that same comment about the temp setting) after I mentioned that some time ago.

Sorry about how dark the pics are. My cheapo phone doesn't have a flash. They are the right units for what I wanted for the higher demand. I don't have them set that high. I just turned them up to show where they can be set. In the winter I bump them up to about 140 and in the summer I drop them to 120. They each can easily run 2 showers at the same time in the coldest part of winter no problem. The one in my guest house only goes to 120. Nobody has ever complained about not having enough hot water. There is only 1 shower in the guest house.

 

[Loren49]

We've used a tankless propane water heater for about 15 years. It works fine and I would buy one again. It has both advantages and disadvantages compared the conventional heaters. Now that its just my wife and I with limited hot water use its nice to know that we're not paying to keep many gallons of water hot 24 hrs a day.
Also feel that children can be taught to not take a 3 hr shower or waste hot water.

Loren