67 455 Bird ragtop
Well-known member
Who has one of these in their garage or small condo?? Trying to decide which one to get for my garage. It will have a shower.
Electric tankless water heaters ???
- Thread starter 67 455 Bird ragtop
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Stuart in MN
Well-known member
Tankless water heaters are fine, but pay attention to how big an electrical circuit will be needed to operate it - for one that's large enough to provide water for a shower, it may require more amps than you expect.
OP
67 455 Bird ragtop
Well-known member
There are a few things to think about with these, as mentioned, the amount of power you will need is one- some require up to 120A (two 60A breakers). The main thing is to know how much you need to heat the water to- you are probably not going to end up with a real hot shower with a smaller 40A unit unless the water coming into the heater is all ready pretty warm. You will also have need lower flow rates (i.e. a low flow shower head) to maintain a hot shower- more flow = more water that needs to be heated. I looked at these for my shop and was going to buy one of these-
http://www.titantankless.com/index.htm
That site has some tables about how much it will heat the water and at what flows. I ended up wiring for a standard tank heater in the end though, I just wasn't sure that the electric tankless would work for me. If you can do propane or natural gas they seem to work very well, but the electric is somewhat limited.
http://www.titantankless.com/index.htm
That site has some tables about how much it will heat the water and at what flows. I ended up wiring for a standard tank heater in the end though, I just wasn't sure that the electric tankless would work for me. If you can do propane or natural gas they seem to work very well, but the electric is somewhat limited.
OP
67 455 Bird ragtop
Well-known member
I just saw something on a few of the propane ones. Since it's not like I'll be taking a shower each day I could probably use just a normal gas grill size propane tank. Cheap and easy to refill. I may have to look into these a little more.
I have an electric tankless in my house, it works great! The initial cost is high, and if you have to run the wire a long distance, even higher. But it cut out power bill by $30.00 a month. When I build my garage, I plan on putting one in. It is not constantly using power when it is not in use and for just a single bathroom I would not see it causing a shortage of hot water. The one that I have in my house is the $420.00 at lowes and I think it has already paid for itself.
BrianAltenhofel
Well-known member
Just a word about if they have a problem: every plumber I know talks about how much of a PITA they are to fix. You're actually lucky if you have a problem and don't have to replace the thing.
JohnZ
Well-known member
A professional plumber friend has told me that the first thing you should ask the dealer for is PARTS before you buy a tankless electric heater; his experience is that parts support for those things is VERY sparse, with "National back-order" a common response when he has to fix one. He hates to fix them due to the parts issues (which result in unhappy customers), and he won't install them in new work for the same reason.
Abodyracer
Well-known member
A professional plumber friend has told me that the first thing you should ask the dealer for is PARTS before you buy a tankless electric heater; his experience is that parts support for those things is VERY sparse, with "National back-order" a common response when he has to fix one. He hates to fix them due to the parts issues (which result in unhappy customers), and he won't install them in new work for the same reason.
Sounds like he needs to start selling a different brand. I.E. one he can get parts for.
GaryRoushkolb
Well-known member
I've got a small size one to take the chill off the hand washing water in my shop. The small size ones have little water flow and couldn't be used to shower, but it's nice to warm that water when washing your hands between jobs. I bought mine from ebay and I think it was less than $100. Mine uses a restrictor to slow down the water flow and it needs cleaning a couple times a year because I'm using hard well water.
JohnZ
Well-known member
He isn't selling them, and won't - just gets occasional calls to fix them (including Bosch), and parts are seldom available from distributors (who love to sell them anyway).
