Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You can use electric BUT, do your home work. Look at the length of the run to the furthest tap and the size of the feed lines. The particular problem I had was with the feeds being wayyy to long to the far showers in the house so the unit would kick out. This was also a 5 bed 4 FULL bath place. It may be nessecary to utilize more than one unit when using electric tankless WH's. Their one advantage is that they are smaller and more easily concealed than a gas unit and require no venting (oh wait thats TWO things)
Tank-less waterheaters of all brands have a common issue, water flow. If water flow is interupted or restricted the flow switch will shut down the burner to protect the heat exchanger. As flow is being reduced due to the build up of calcium in the heat exchanger efficiency and production is lost.Service suggestions in operation manuals require or mandate annual inspection and cleaning of the unitand its heat exchanger. This can easily and safely be done by the home owner with a de-scaler product like flow-aid.
Tank-less waterheaters of all brands have a common issue, water flow. If water flow is interupted or restricted the flow switch will shut down the burner to protect the heat exchanger. As flow is being reduced due to the build up of calcium in the heat exchanger efficiency and production is lost.Service suggestions in operation manuals require or mandate annual inspection and cleaning of the unitand its heat exchanger. This can easily and safely be done by the home owner with a de-scaler product like flow-aid.
The unit in my example was a brand new ,customer supplied, piece of gear, which I told him when he brought it to the place was to small for the application. Flow restriction was not an issue, and all the plumbing in the house was brand new as well. It was kicking out because it was working to hard to move the water 75 feet through a 3/4 feed to a 5.0 gpm shower.
I have an American Heat Electric Tankless water heater. I use it in a vacation home in the mountains north of Los Angeles. A couple things:
1. I am not up there all the time, so I winterize the place in Winter when I'm gone, meaning I turn off the water at the main, so the pipes won't freeze. When you turn the water on, it often sputters for awhile, and the water pressure is not that high anyway. The plumbers who installed the water heater said that that sputtering is air pockets in the line, and when those hit the heating elements in the water heater, that would cause the elements to fry; they need to be always immersed in water when they are on.
I'm scared to death to use the tankless heater for this reason, particularly because I rent the place out, and knowing someone else is turning the water on scares me even more. Maybe I should put heat tape on all of the pipes under the house, insulate them all, and just leave the water on during the cold weather. I have an ancient gas water heater (tank) on line at present, but it's due to fail at any moment, which would be a disaster while renters are up there, so I need to do something soon. Any ideas on this?
2. The water is very hard up there, which shortens the life of a tankless water heater considerably. I'm thinking I should put a water softener online for the whole house, to protect the water heater. I have a filter on at present, but that's not the same. Any opinions on this?
3. I called the makers of my tankless water heater (they were called American Tankless Water Heater Corp. when I bought the unit, but it looks like they've changed their name to American Heat ), but none of the phone numbers lead anywhere; you just get recorded messages and when you try to leave a message, it says the mailbox is full. This does not sound good. Is this company out of business? Anybody have any info on this?
Nice sharing BOy
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
