24
The following events took place between 8:24 pm and 2:04 am
Events occur, in turned based time.
Customer calls last night, a referral from HD. Customer has 5 bathrooms and 7 adults living at their home. Both the upstairs and downstairs of this house is completely finished with full kitchen (parents live with kids, not the other way around) First words out of the customer's mouth, "I'm sitting over here at LW's, just left HD because they didn't have a tankless water heater to buy. HD sells Poloma sp? and they were out. I "already" know this customer has been influenced by the market hype of these tankless units, otherwise it wouldn't of been the first words out of his mouth.
I start talking to him, asked him how close the main trunk line of the gas service is. He told me it is on the opposite side of the furnace next to the water heater. I told him the absolute minimum need for his application starts at 3/4" and goes up. Given his demand with 7 adults will be safe to say 1" is more realistic, don't you think?
Mind you, this is an emergency call; this guy ONLY cares about having hot water come monday morning @ 6am. The sun could fall from the sky, it doesn't matter to him. He's has to worry about showers come monday morning before they go to work. I found out the unit this customer wanted to buy that was a Poloma was $200 with a 4-7.5 gpm flow rating.
See the problem here? The customer drives for the cheap, the reality of his situation calls for a much higher GPM rating on his unit to accomplish hot water on demand with the combination of other demands (dishwasher/washing machine) without a lower temperature because of the shared use.
I explained to the customer that in our area that calcium buildup/liming of the heat exchanger requires cabana boy to clean it periodically to maintain it's original efficiency to maintain that GPM flow it was so gloriously remarked about to convince the masses that it will serve your needs.
Verbatim from the customer, "Well it sounds like you are trying to talk me out of the tankless." I replied, "No, I'm telling you the reality of these units and what you have to value what your personal time is worth to keep maintaining this unit." "You have substantial costs to install it, major rework of the gas line along with substantial costs involved in running the new flue for the tankless
." "The unit you are purchasing has to be ran in stainless steel due to the high temperature of the burned gases which is in excess of 500 degrees." "Galvanised piping cannot be used due to the high temperature, the creation of toxic fumes and condensation which is detrimental to the tankless unit." "In other words there is no way you are going to afford me even during regular scheduled hours along with the cost of a tankless unit along with the vent kit and all the ceilings I have to tear down to install this unit."
He said, "We'll, I guess we consider ourselves pretty fortunate with our current situation." "Our water heater is 14 years old and we've never had to do anything until now." < A.O. Smith tank. 50 gallon gas regular vented.
He basically scoffed at the numbers I gave him to get the tankless in and said there is no way the savings would recoup, especially if he has to periodically "babysit" the unit so he can take a hot shower without paying hired hands quarterly to clean an ongoing issue.
He heads to Sears (by my recommendation) and in calling them before he gets there, no 75 gallon gas heaters in stock. (we find out when I arrive that due to the location of this water heater, nothing is going in other than a 50 and the 50 ended up being a ton of work after all. He brought the 75 over to the house when I arrived, had the wife take it back and get a 50 gallon 12 year GE. (Flue venting killed the idea of "trying" to make the 75 go in, 4" minimum and they had 3 going to a B-vent chase.
Customer wanting a pan installed under this heater made everything on top the heater change, dramatically. I charged almost $600 last night to get this in, including materials which included a PRV and copper pipe/fittings. He provided the 3/4 ball valve and 3/4" DUF's/aluminum pan and bricks.
The expansion tank you see in the pictures below is defective. I brought a ST-12 upon the assumption a 75 gal heater was going in. He didn't want to pay the cost for that larger tank upon the discovery his tank was bad and only two years old so he opted to take care of the EXP tank himself.
After I wrote the bill, I always give my first time customers a discount. The guy was so glad to have the luxury of waking up sunday morning (probably as late as I did LOL!) knowing he has hot water for under a $1000.
Tankless cannot touch those numbers. Neither the install nor the base price of this particular customer's needs, excluding the vent kit.
I told the customer since I'm working for his next door neighbor across the lake next week, I'll come over and replace that expansion tank ($24) @ no charge along with I want to strap that expansion tank to the ceiling and get some metal hanger iron on that 3" flue as well.
Now the customer doesn't even have to worry about spending another $50 plus the time to replace the tank; he's getting it for free.
The majority of people treat plumbing as PUT IT IN AND FORGET IT, WORRY ABOUT IT WHEN IT BREAKS. There might be cabana boys running around that have the time and knowledge to tinker with their plumbing but the majority of people follow the out of site out of mind theory.
GoTankless,
Since your username is solely created to promote,
I'm going to invest a little of my time and call around to say, 20 mfgs. of tankless heaters and get the prices of those heat exchangers you stated are on average, $138. Then I'm going to find out what it costs to have "trained hands" replace that exchanger in retrospect to a plumber replacing a water heater like I did last night.
My response time was 45 minutes. If I was going last to replace a heat exchanger on that unit, I wouldn't of been able to, would have to wait till monday, the customer would be conflicted with what is the better choice; buy a whole new tankless or pay to have parts replaced on the aging unit.
What's good about these types of threads?
Promoters of tankless water heaters don't handle constructive criticism of their product very well. In retort, they start pulling these inflated numbers out of the air and try to diminish factual evidence such as I and others provide on a continual basis that pretty much should do one thing to the many readers of these threads:
Take all the information you read, examine it greatly, find out who in your area has the capability and availability of parts and expertise before you dare stick your neck out to try these new devices.
GoTankless "tried" to blame the plumber on my one customers situation on New Year's Day on being a nit-wit and plumbers in his area install heat trap nipples upside down.
The reality of my customer's situation was he had a product no one knows how to work on, no one can fix it and he has to rely on 1-800 numbers to fix it, along with a slew of parts to figure out what will fix it by the average consumer with no background knowledge of "how-to".
Market hype folks. Until they make a better product with parts availability and trained hands to work on them with the elimination of efficiency loss due to calcium buildup,
I cannot mislead my customer base to invest in something that leaves them helpless when the times come when **** goes wrong. It's predictable, products fail and my ability to solve my customer's hot water issue last night laid solely on the product I was working with.
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