Tankless Hot water options

Joe_129

My father in law had a navien installed but only gets hot water upstairs. In order to get hot water downstairs, he must turn on the upstairs water. Any suggestions?


Joe

JBW_2

tankless

Hello,

Have a client who is hell bent on going tankless. I was recommended the Bradford White Everhot. Anyone have any experience with this model? Any comments or warnings. Will this unit be triggered by a dishwasher demand for hot water or is the flow rate insufficient? Any other recommendations?

All you wetheads - client has hot air, so cant install a combi boiler or heat exchanger...

Looking forsome suggestions.

Regards,

Josh W

Rudnae

Tankless

Josh, I believe that Bradford White are rebranding another companies heater as their own. So make of that what you will... You will need to check the chart for tempature rise vs. your entering water temp to get the max flow rate at the temp you need. You should take a look at Navien tankless. They are condesing and so at least offer a better effieciency than the standard 80% of the other non condensing units. I would also make sure that your customer is aware of the fact the most units require manditory yearly service or you risk voiding the warranty. As long as all it has to feed is the dishwasher though, it will most likely be a good fit. Rod.

JBW_2

Rod,

This will be supplying and entire home (5 people).
My concern with the dishwasher was that the dishwasher flow rate would not be sufficient to trigger the burner on the heater. I know that some of these units require a minimum .65 gpm before they will fire and some dishwashers only pull .5 gpm.

Josh W

Mark_7

tanknit startless

Dishwasher turns unit on at start, dosen't on 2nd cycle. But dw dose have electric element to compensate. Also some humidifier man. recommend the water line on the hot, which dosen't even flow enough water to make unit come on.

Rudnae

Once again

Josh, If I were you I would really check out Navien. They have no minimum flow rates, operating even at 0.1, 0.2 gpm. They are condensing, have stainless steel heat exchangers. I mean as far as tankless go, I haven't really seen much better. Now, they are relatively new to our market, there may be some issues that haven't come to light yet, however, that being said, that is a risk one takes with any new product. If its in the budget, I would make that my recommendation. Hope that helps. Rod

schiller

look in to the rinnia products we've put 2 or 3 a month in for the past 4 years and have had almost no concerns

Larry Weingarten

I'll second...

...Rudnae's suggestion of Navien. Look into the unit that has a small tank. It gets rid of the cold water sandwich, since it's condensing, it's far more efficient than the normal types and has no minimum flow rate. Time will let us know how it holds up, but it looks good from here.

Yours, Larry

KennyG

Tankless

The Bradford White is a Rinnai Unit. We have installed over 50 without any problems. They are very popular in the Atlanta area. The Bradford / Rinnai units are preferred because they pull all combustion air from the outside. Flow rate is important so keep the water temp at 120 or below. The 199 input BTU will run two showers at the same time without reducing flow rate. I haven't had any complaints on the dishwasher, probably because most now have an internal heating element. Other complaints were corrected by reducing water temp at the heater. Do not use with Recirc, it will reduce the heat exchanger warranty from 10 years to 3 years.

KennyG

Tankless

Mad Dog_2

I concur on the Rinnai.....

No complaints at all. In cases where a high demand is desired, we have used the model that has a btu input around 230 K. I could see long runs and pipe size as more of a problem than the unit's ability to produce. Once they fire. they are very consistent and just keep plugging away. The hardest part of the install is getting the exhausty/intake outside...whcih can be a pain. I want to look in to the Navien as well. Mad Dog

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Nron_17

tankless eater heaters

I have installed and tested many water heaters including the navien 240a unit and they run well but have some time lag with cold water temps , we had a 2 gpm show running at 109f for ten min then introduced a extra 2 gal permin load and found the water temp drop down to 85F for about 30 -45 seconds and then the unit came up to temp amd the shower went back to 109F this was at a 40F entering water temp
this was with a 60 ft line and the recirc pump active to keep the line to temprature

Rich Kontny_3

tankless

Things to consider:

Enough gas sizing and proper sized meter.

water quality and fairly constant water pressure.

Navien America has the little buffer tank and with
the condensing feature means it can have a snorkel
vent and fresh air (using recommended venting materials)

I have installed Navien,Rinnai, Takagi, Poloma and Noritz they all seem to do as advertisd. Not totally convinced that they should be used for space heating sources as the cycling tends to exceed there design intent.

These are the heaters of the present. Old style tank type heaters are dinosaurs. All the major domestic manufacturers have taken on a tankless line as they know there gradual use will accelerate to become the norm not the new kid on the block.

Rich K.

Mike.C_2

Rinnai!!

I use Rinnai exclusivly for DHW.
I have used other brands and have found Rinnai to be a easy install. Easy to work on when needed. Tech support is awesome when needed. Nice quality company and product.
I do not work for Rinnai but Do support them with my sales of their units. I have installed litteraly about a hundred and have had very very few problems.

Garritt

Tankless

I have installed Rinnai, Bosch, and Noritz tankless water heaters. All of them were pretty easy to install pretty self explanitory. One of the things that I brought up in the service meeting at our company is the service and how easy is it to work on. Bosch is the worst in my book, and noritz being the best. Rinnai is allright, but sucks if you are the one working on it.

Home Depot Employee

Approaching 19 years myself with an on-demand, my new house now 1 year old has a TK3 Takagi.

Never looked back

Home Depot Employee

Dang, didn't notice someone with a problem brought an old post forward

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)_11

modcon tankless

In addition to Navien, Noritz now has a 93%er modcon tankless 11K to 199.9K. Times they are a-changing(G). Can the others be far behind?

Bruce M_2

Water Temperature

Keeping the water temperature below 120 degrees is inviting Legionaire's disease. That can be a killer for the eldery, infirm, smokers or immune deficient.

Darrell

I took out three units of two brands last winter when they froze and split. The flue's were put in correctly but 18" from the coil to -20 was too much.

Flow rates are a problem on most units...can be overcome with education and/or re-setting of expectations to match the installed equipment.

Pressure balanced shower valves on wells can be problematic.

Some manufacture's will only sell parts to a serial number...meaning that I cannot stock parts on my truck. It has to quit, be trouble shot, they have to be contacted, and parts are "rushed" to your customers door in a week or so. No retail mark-up, no on-site first visit satisfaction, lots of small talk waiting on hold for the service line to pick up.

Do your homework.

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Larry Weingarten

That really...

... sounds like a plumbing problem. It could be a cross connection or recirc problem.

Yours, Larry

bob eck

I sell NORITZ to plumbing and heating contractors. If they are sized right tankless gas water heaters work fine.

For jobs that have more than two bathrooms I ask the contractor to leave the 2.5 GPM shower head in the master bathroom shower but to use American Standard Flowise 1.5 GPM shower heads in the second, third, fourth bathrooms.

Check to see if you have hard water. If so install a water softner. If the home owner does not want a water softner install a CUNO AQUA PURE AP430 (10 GPM FLOW RATE) filter on the cold water inlet side of the tankless gas water heater. The cuno AP430 will not soften the water but will help prevent lime build up in the heat exchanger. The cartridge must be changed two or three times per year depending on how many gallons that go through the tankless gas water heater. I would also install valves for flushing out the heat exchanger in the future if it needs to be cleaned.

Very important make sure the gas line is sized right not just for the tankless gas water heater but also sized large enough so in the winter when the furnace or boiler runs and they run their other gas appliances like the oven, stove, gas dryer, fireplaces that the complete gas line system is large enough to run all gas appliances at once.

Thanks Bob Eck