Lets talk Tankless water heaters

[trekrok]

One downside to tankless is that unless you have backup power, There is no option for a warm/hot shower with residual water during a power outage

Needs power to ignite?

 

[XYZ]

Needs power to ignite?

Mine has electronics inside.
Never opened it up to see what all.

 

[BillM]

Quarterly, as in every three months? How much flushing per time?

I flushed it for several hours, since I am too cheap to buy the $100+ flushing kit for it. Used a small pump from Harbor Freight, and Ecolab Calcium, Lime, and Rust remover from Home Depot, and a 5 gallon bucket and old washing machine hoses. The Ecolab C:LR is mostly water and citric acid.

 

[dlbleak]

Needs power to ignite?

Yep. Some guy hit a power pole near our house Sunday evening. I had been working in the yard and had to take a cold shower.

 

[BillM]

Needs power to ignite?

Yes, though you should be able to run it with a computer UPS. I've got several of them here. SWMBO's and my computers, and CPAP machines, the modem for our fiber internet. Their website says it draws .5amps and 120vac, and my ohms law calculator says that's 60 watts.

https://www.eccotemp.com/eccotemp-fvi12-indoor-4-0-gpm-natural-gas-tankless-water-heater/

 

[CHenry]

I have backup power

 

[Mr.Glock]

Yep. Some guy hit a power pole near our house Sunday evening. I had been working in the yard and had to take a cold shower.

Didn’t make it any shorter did it?

 

[dlbleak]

Didn’t make it any shorter did it?

Ha, I was to chicken to get in all at once. I washed one limb at a time!

 

[SlugSlinger]

During the last deep freeze, ONG drove around the neighborhood and asked people to limit the gas use. Folks with the tankless didn’t have enough gas volume and they were all throwing error codes.

Iirc those consume 250k btu when running. That’s more than the natural gas heater in your house.

And you should look at your ONG bill. Most of the cost of service is not the costs of gas, but service fees, except for the coldest winter months.


Cost of gas- $8,
Service fees and other bs- $48

 

[BillM]

During the last deep freeze, ONG drove around the neighborhood and asked people to limit the gas use. Folks with the tankless didn’t have enough gas volume and they were all throwing error codes.

Iirc those consume 250k btu when running. That’s more than the natural gas heater in your house.

And you should look at your ONG bill. Most of the cost of service is not the costs of gas, but service fees, except for the coldest winter months.


Cost of gas- $8,
Service fees and other bs- $48

View attachment 491375

Depends on the unit you get. First one was around 178,000btu, new one is less than half that, IIRC. It only costs about $350, vs. $500 for the old one, which did a 40 degree rise on 6.6gpm. This cheaper unit does 38 degrees on 4gpm. I did have to run 3/4" iron pipe for it. A T and about 3' of larger pipe. The ones Home Depot sell run upwards of $1100. My gas bill with 5 adults runs around $69 a month in the summer. That's with bill averaging. It was closer to $90 in the winter.