Tankless Water Heater

[chinchaga]

My Propane Water Heater bit the dust. So time for a replacement, and my boiler room is pretty tight for space. Removing the HW tank is going to be tough. To save on space, I've been thinking of possibly installing an on demand tankless hot water heater. Quite a bit more money, but quite a bit smaller. Anybody have any experience with them? Any recommendations?

[CaberTosser]

Are you calling it a boiler room because it has a boiler as well? If so, you could simply put in an exchanger tank as you already have the heat source.

The tankless heaters have improved; I'd seen a few that were rather tempermental, but I haven't dealt with a great number of the buggers. One thing common among them is that if you don't have a water softener, they will need periodic descaling service to keep their heat exchanger passages flowing properly.

[Roughneck12]

That's good to know Caber. Thanks.

[silverdoctor]

I'm renting a condo in mill creek, it's got a climatemaster unit. Drives heat, air conditioning and hot water - I assume all in the same unit. Pretty quiet, really hot water out the taps in no time. Never seen one before, but it's impressive.

[Lahey99]

the biggest thing with tankless hot water that alot of people dont understand is that the water is endless. NOT limitless. meaning that tank can only produce around 6 gallons per minute of hot water. with the result being. 1 hot tap in use at any givin time, no more. some customers of ours think they can purchase a tankless and there family of 5 can all shower in there 5 seperate bathrooms at once. this is not the case. Caber is right they have deffinately came along way and without a water softner you will be putting roughhly 300 per year in servicing the system. that heat exhanger is roughly the size of a kleenex box and with 200,000 btus hitting it they do not take long to plug up and cause major problems with extremly costly repairs. this can be avoided by the yearly servicing.

short story long. they are OK if space is really needed. but i am not totally sold on them myself. you have to knwo what you are getting into so the maintenence and what the unit can produce is not a big suprise after spending the big dollars.

[chinchaga]

All good information, thanks, I had no idea. You guys obviously know your water heaters. I wondered why they weren't more popular. I can see that theres several drawbacks.
I have rural house and the water is cold well water. It has a lot of tannins and sediments. I bet it would plug up the heat exchanger in no time. The boiler room has an old boiler in it and it blocks the way, so the HW tank has to be lifted up and over the boiler. I thought of changing out the boiler for a high efficiency one, as now would be the time.

Any thoughts on which make of boiler would be the best one to buy. Smaller house, one bathroom, two bedroom. about 1000 sq ft. Winters hard on the house. It only has 2x4 walls, it gets colder than a bankers smile in here.

[rugatika]

I have yet to talk to anyone that was happy with them. They have them up in Winnifred lake lodge, and they rarely worked. (likely a scale problem as mentioned).

[doetracks]

We have a tankless in our house here in Devon. I like it, but it is absolutely true about not providing "limitless" hot water. It also takes longer for the heater water to appear at the tap in comparison with a tank style HWH.

I thought about having one of those installed when I lived in Whitehorse (also had very cold well water) but was advised against it due mainly to efficiency, IIRC.

[FishingMOM]

Tankless systems work great in Europe because they have spot units. Meaning 1 for the bathroom right inside the bathroom, 1 in the kitchen, etc.

In alberta our ground water is so cold.
When I told units I only ever sold clients units rated for 9.5 gal per minute but explained to them to only ever expect 5-6gal per minute.
Also explained that they couldnt shower, do laundry and run the dishwasher to get the hot water.

Yearly maintenance is needed with or without the softener........ but without it you can count on maintenance every 3-6 months.

Parts are a pain to find. Certified technicians are even harder to find.


Found Rheem to be the best for tankless.
If you buy a bosch off the shelf at home depot be prepared to be 100% on your own.

[K44]

http://www.eccotemp.com/eccotemp-fvi...-water-heater/
I have one of these in my cabin and it works great

[CaberTosser]

Normally a house of that square footage would have a boiler or furnace in the 80 to 100,000 BTU/H range, but that's if its reasonably insulated. In your case I would err on the high side of things so far as sizing goes. Are you on propane or do you have a natural gas service? If you have natural gas you might be able to get consumption records from the gas co and these could help in properly sizing your new boiler. Obviously your existing boilers capacity and how it serves you is a good starting point as well. What type of boiler do you presently have, and what is its BTU rating? Can you post pics? If your boiler is working reliably your best bet so far as energy savings go would be to strip your homes exterior and sheet foam insulate it and then re-side with whatever. Not cheap, but energy you're not losing at all equates to way more savings than energy you simply use more efficiently.

It should be a relatively simple task to incorporate a heat exchanger style tank to your boiler for your domestic hot water. There are some nice stainless steel ones and considering that your water quality is poor there are also ones with clean-out access ports in the bottom (removeable door somewhat akin to a submarine hatch), this would allow for periodic cleaning of settled sediments with a shop-vac. I'd keep a spare gasket or two on hand as they're not really common models.

[curtz]

I have a Takagi TKD-20 tankless hot water heater, works great. Well water, its been good for six years, did a vinegar flush on it this year.

[Icon]

I have a Rinnai Tank-less hot water system. Love it. I have 3 teenagers in the house and everyone wanting showers in the morning. Hot water tank wouldn't keep up with that! I have had it for about 5 years.

I do my own servicing every few months. About 12 liter of vinegar in a pail connected to an inline pump with a hose, then a hose to the inlet of the unit, and a third hose to outlet the vinegar to the pail. Run it for about an hour.

My gas bill went down immediately when installed! But the water bill went up, not as much as the gas went down though, haha.

Everything said is true... takes a bit for the hot water to appear, cold water of our area takes a bit to heat up, only 1 sometimes 2 outlets at a time (depends on the unit output). There are ways around some of these issues. Put in a large tank to store water at room temperature and some units you can put in a water return that returns not as hot water back to the heater until it is hot enough.

[RescueDiver]

Originally Posted by chinchaga

My Propane Water Heater bit the dust. So time for a replacement, and my boiler room is pretty tight for space. Removing the HW tank is going to be tough. To save on space, I've been thinking of possibly installing an on demand tankless hot water heater. Quite a bit more money, but quite a bit smaller. Anybody have any experience with them? Any recommendations?

We had one at our last house and I didn't like it. I found you needed to descale it twice a year, and it didn't really work as well as you would like. We are building a new house and am glad to NOT but it in.

[chinchaga]

Well, thanks for all the input. It is good to hear from the experts and the owners with real life experience.

Im tearing the tank out now, letting it drain. Slowly. I think the valve must be plugged up with so much sediment and scale over the years and it is slow.
I'm looking at the boiler and see that it is 100.000 input BTU. It barely keeps up here. I see the marks on it where Noah packed it onto the ark and then off again. I better get a new boiler perhaps. This one loses a lot of heat into the boiler room. It gets hotter than the hubs of hell in the boiler room during the heating months. Any ideas where best to purchase a high efficiency one? Costs?


Caber, you know what your talking about, you are obviously a professional, thanks for all you help on this.

[CaberTosser]

Originally Posted by chinchaga

Well, thanks for all the input. It is good to hear from the experts and the owners with real life experience.

Im tearing the tank out now, letting it drain. Slowly. I think the valve must be plugged up with so much sediment and scale over the years and it is slow.
I'm looking at the boiler and see that it is 100.000 input BTU. It barely keeps up here. I see the marks on it where Noah packed it onto the ark and then off again. I better get a new boiler perhaps. This one loses a lot of heat into the boiler room. It gets hotter than the hubs of hell in the boiler room during the heating months. Any ideas where best to purchase a high efficiency one? Costs?


Caber, you know what your talking about, you are obviously a professional, thanks for all you help on this.

For a boiler I'd recommend finding a good installer in your vicinity to supply & install, as there's almost an infinite number of details to be taken into consideration that can't be covered in an AO post. As you noted its an old farmhouse, do you still have the old cast iron rads as your heat sources? Original piping? I love how those big heavy old suckers radiate. Proper system piping and controls have a great deal to do with how well a system functions. Some can be extremely efficient when coupled with sources that can radiate at low temperatures (a basement slab for instance), but cast iron rads actually radiate heat at lower water supply temperatures than do copper fin/tube systems, so they can benefit quite well from a modulating high-efficiency boiler that's got good controls coupled to an outdoor temperature sensor. (A modulating boiler is a boiler that can throttle down to variable output levels, most boilers are just one or perhaps two-stage burners). The one in my house (see my FB link below this post) can modulate from 100% firing rate all the way down to just 10%, and it can operate anywhere in between as its microprocessor calculates based on the outside temp and the heat load being serviced.

Too bad you're not closer, I have a 150,000 BTU cast iron take-out boiler that's only about 10 years old that I'll be putting on Kijiji as soon as I take a photo of it. The client just wanted something fancy, there's nothing wrong with this unit save for a simple & inexpensive limit switch that was accidentally damaged during removal. I should pop it into the AO classifieds as well I suppose. Depending on your actual heat load though a 150 might be a bit much, oversizing can lead to them cycling on and off with greater frequency than just staying on steadily (compare it with a vehicle driving at a steady velocity versus one speeding up and slowing down, efficiency is lost).

A BC company called Tekmar makes nice boiler controls that can improve the efficiency and comfort provided by a standard boiler by adjusting the systems water temperature for the varying temperatures outside, keeping temperatures modulated instead of just on/off reduces noticeable high/low swings within the home; the same controls can also switch modes to fire different temperatures to service different heat loads (radiators versus a domestic hot water exchanger tank versus slab heat for instance). A few different boiler manufacturers use Tekmar controls built right into their units.

[waterninja]

both my brothers are home builders in b.c. and they love the tankless heaters. they are more expensive up-front but apparently very fuel efficent, and you nrver run out of hot water.
they also told me that every hot water tank will ALWAYS leak or burst eventually.

[super7mag]

Just installed a 200,000 btu NTI boiler and stainless in direct hot water tank. The NTI brand came highly recommended by a commercial plumber. The stainless tank was a bit more dollars but has a 20 year warranty. We are not in the house yet maybe end of September so can't say how it works .

[JB_AOL]

MY parents have one, and they seem to like it, but you definitely use more water.

I think it would be a better system if you put them in every bath room instead of a whole home water heater.

One think I did notice was that the water never got "HOT", it would get warm, but no wheres close to how hot my house on a regular water heater would get.

[Sundancefisher]

I am now in the market for a new heater. Sigh...always happens on Saturday mornings it seems.

In reading this thread it does not seem so clear cut a decision for me.

I do have a water softener. So I am wondering with 5 people is there a good unit capable of having two people showering while running the dishwasher.

How much is a good efficient tankless unit versus a water heater tank?

How much is the savings each year on gas less any loss in extra water?

Is a house better off putting in a unit for each bathroom and one in the kitchen?

Thoughts?

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by JB_AOL

One think I did notice was that the water never got "HOT", it would get warm, but no wheres close to how hot my house on a regular water heater would get.

Just as with your tank unit, you can set the water temp on most of them. I always warn folks at my place - "Hot water is HOT."

[CaberTosser]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

I am now in the market for a new heater. Sigh...always happens on Saturday mornings it seems.

In reading this thread it does not seem so clear cut a decision for me.

I do have a water softener. So I am wondering with 5 people is there a good unit capable of having two people showering while running the dishwasher.

How much is a good efficient tankless unit versus a water heater tank?

How much is the savings each year on gas less any loss in extra water?

Is a house better off putting in a unit for each bathroom and one in the kitchen?

Thoughts?

With the very cold water we are blessed with from our city mains it means a tankless style heater has a higher temperature rise to perform. There isn't a tankless on the market that will work well for 3 loads running simultaneously. My recommendation would be to stick to a tank style heater, there are additional capacity ones with some hefty burners/better recovery rates available, and even power vented units that would increase efficiency (but need a hole cored out yout wall of through a rim-joist). I'll PM you my contact info if you want to discuss some options.

[jmparker]

we have the Rinnai tankless hot water heater installed in the dinning hall of the camp/conference centre i work at. one unit provides enough hot water for the entire hall and can keep up with the demand of 10 showers at the same time. they work GREAT! our water is extremely hard - around 30 grains per gallon. the unit needed to be descaled once or twice a year. vinegar will do the trick. i would install one of these in any house any time! the Rinnai ones really work great!

[CaberTosser]

I should modify that statement to read that there isn't a residential tankless that will do that, but the commercial ones will. Primary difference being a bunch of $$$.

[super7mag]

We've been in our place since October and so far love our system. 2 people can shower a d have the dish washer on without running out of hot water . Maybe the only draw back is its not instant hot , you have to the the tap a bit to get hot water. So the indirect hot water tank is set as the priority , with the basement zones as secondary's . My cousin that installed my system runs a plumbing company out of spruce grove. He said last year alone he removed 8 instant systems with the small exchangers for floor heat and replaced them with what I have. Including his fathers 7 yr old house.

[Justanotherbuck2]

What most people are not educated in is that on Demand water heaters are NOT maintenance free, I would also reccomend a water supply filter be installed with a annual replaceable cartridge(more often depending on water condition.) If water inlet temp is to low install a mixing valve to increase supply temp to unit. and descale annually whether you think you have to or not. Personally when I built my new house I considered on demand but opted for twining two 40's together instead. Cheaper and less maintenance. 5 of us live here and we never have a shortage of hot water. Don't get me wrong I think on demand systems are ok, I'm just a bit old school and opt for simple and ultimately less expensive.

[Icon]

My thoughts in RED

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

How much is a good efficient tankless unit versus a water heater tank? They are a more expensive, but the savings will pay for it.

How much is the savings each year on gas less any loss in extra water? When we switched to the tankless, we found a significant savings in our Gas bill. We have a family of 5 and on average it was about $40 -50 a month. The water bill may be a bit higher (not $50 though) as the kids seem to have longer and longer showers now!

Is a house better off putting in a unit for each bathroom and one in the kitchen? You should not have a problem with one unit, just make it the largest residential unit. I frequently have a shower with the dishes running, no problem. You would have a potential problem with multiple tankless units if they are Gas. Your Gas service may not be large enough if you also have a gas furnace, a garage/shop heater, a gas stove, multiple tankless water heaters... you get the idea.