Reply With QuoteWhat is your incoming water temp in the winter, what is the hardness of your water, what is the max. temperature rise of the units, will you have enough gas flow to the unit with your existing piping, where are you venting it.
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Advice - Tankless Water Heaters !
Hi ,
I finally decided to replace the water heater I have with a tankless one. After some research, I narrowed the choices down to two "finalists": Takagi and Rinnai tankless water heaters. Rinnai seems to have some advantages, among them higher output (8.3gpm vs. Takagi's 6.9gmp) and, most important, lower kick-off flow (0.5gpm vs. Takagi's 0.75gmp). On the other hand Takagi seems more spread than Rinnai and also I could find a lot of information for Takagi and almost none for Rinnai.
Need some advice from people who are using these water heaters.
What is your incoming water temp in the winter, what is the hardness of your water, what is the max. temperature rise of the units, will you have enough gas flow to the unit with your existing piping, where are you venting it.
At what temperature rise are those gpm numbers spec'd? Huge difference if it is at 40º or 90º. Also, do you know what it will cost you to install the required large gas supply pipe, and the new larger STAINLESS STEEL flue.?
heater
Or even the same sized stainless steel flue. If you are going to do it yourself, you may have to scratch the Rinnai, because they are only supposed to be sold to certified installers.
Seems like the idea of tankless water heaters comes up about 2 or 3 times every month. It sounds great doesn't it. Just heat water when you need it and don't pay to keep a tank of water hot when it's not needed. A really money saver! Wow, it's about time! Only thing is, after all is said and done, these things cost more to own and operate than conventional water heaters over a period of time. Here are some of the pitfalls. High initial cost of the unit; high installation costs, including larger gas or electric service; frequent repairman calls to clean the innards and keep the thing operating, if you can find a repairman; limited hot water output in cold weather; high operation cost; and finally, they don't last forever and when replacement is needed, the circle of life begins again.
Excellent information (and videos) are available at http://www.tanklessuniversity.com
It's a Bosch site. "Ed Sullivan" has a hysterical New England accent.
Interesting what happens over time
its funny how you hear more and more about people
wanting the tankless units and the people
who complain about them after they own them
over time it simply has to fail
its just a matter of when. and how soon......
just like the last thread where the 2 year old Takagi went down and
the home owner jury rigged up his own repairs for it.....
http://terrylove.com/forums/showthre...461#post131461
going green is a fad that should not spread to things as complicated and
expensive as these are
I just had a homeowner
today calling about the tankless units at about 12.30,
but before I could get back to him -- having a Friday power lunch---
he had gone to LOWES and now is
hell-bent hooked on a Bosch....
took the bait ....hook, line and sinker......
I wont be able to talk him out of it no matter what I try to tell him....
Hell, I just do this for a living,,
the guy at LOWES is the expert.
....
Last edited by master plumber mark; 03-28-2008 at 11:24 AM.
In a situation where a tankless heater can be mounted on an outside wall, near the gas meter as well as the fixtures served, where the winter climate is mild and the water is of good quality, then a tankless heater makes sense, especially for a guest or vacation house that's often vacant. Here's a site that has a lot of information:
http://www.tankless101.com/
And both of them need a lot more practice using the TelePrompter...Originally Posted by robertsmu
I'm curious if this technology is just a fad that it only" here in America do we know how to heat water". yet the systems have been used and PROVEN to work for over seventy years!. But what do those yurupeans know, why this is the land we can can make a car last as long as the payments before things start to fail. Maybe the failures we have over here are ignorant installers putting it in the way [I]they [I] think it should be installed instead of how it was designed to be by the manufacturer.
If it's a problem with the water then it's a problem for everything regardless the technology.
"green" is not a fad, it's a social responsibility to make things operate as efficiently as possible [I]always[I]. The "good enough" attitude is partially the reason why we're paying $110/barrel for oil now. They know we need it.
Just my opinion from a little piece of suburban heaven.
-Michael
my Green tankless water heater
When they can get the price down to about
the cost of what a normal water heater costs
then I will get one even though the install costs
will still be higher...
then you might break even in 10 years or so
I am still haggleing with supply houses for a
decent deal on a tankless heater right now
to keep going with my own little experiment
...
here is a pic of my "green tankless heater"
the unit was installed in 1910 ..the reason
the tank type heaters took over in the 20s and 30 was the fact that
these were too complicated and too much touble even back then
and people were constantly blowing them up..
they thought that they had made a giant leap forward
when the first tank type heaters came out with
the internal thermostats...getting away from all these
high pressure issues and valves that had to be manually
controlled to get hot water..
I believe that this was called a "side arm" heater..
Last edited by master plumber mark; 03-29-2008 at 02:47 AM.
If you want green, go solar. I'm in a good part of the country (Florida), at a mediocre time of year (a week past the equinox) with a poorly oriented and shaded (by a neighbor's oak tree) collector, but at 6PM yesterday I had 80 gallons of 150 degree water in the tank after a normal day's usage. I installed the system a little over a year ago, in the dead of winter, and inadvertantly left the circuit breaker for the water heater (backup electric heating) off. It was about 3 weeks before we noticed the water cooling off. I won't know the true cost until the tank eventually fails, but the net outlay was about $3000 for the professionally installed system, and I only had to redo a small part of it. DIY kits are available for about $2200; more (~$5000) for a "hard freeze" area.
My main concern now is -- how hot will it get, after a full day in the summer sun?
Tankless heaters are def more complex than traditional heaters, will require regular maintenance, and are more expensive to install, but they probably won't cause the problem that I am now fixing: water damage caused by a leaking water heater.
The heater before this unit must have leaked as well, because the whole structure underneath is rotted beyond repair. Complete replacement of all joists and subfloor. Insects in Texas love moist wood. Need I say more?
In my application (just a washing machine, kitchen sink, and dishwasher) tankless (Bosch 1600) will suffice. Cost only $300 after uncle sam chimed in.
I'm willing to give it a chance.
it can get hotter than hell
do you have a system with some sort
of antifreeze in it that will not boil???
if you are useing a water type drain down system
those puppies can literally boil the water in no time...
if the recirulaitoin pump were to fail
On our summer vacatioin in florida last summer it was 98 degrees at disney land for the whole week....
(it made the battan death march look like childs play)
really all you need to do in Florida is put about 2500 feet of
3/4 wirsbo pex in your attic feeding your hot water heater
and I can guarantee that you would probably never run out of hot water.....
IMO the best means of on-demand tankless water heating is via a dedicated domestic coil in a heating boiler. Absent that, get a properly sized high-efficiency tank from BW and call it a day.
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