water heater questions

[Jeff Ivers]

When I built my shop a number of years ago, I installed a bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower and a water heater closet to the left of the bathroom. My thinking was that I wanted a place to use the bathroom and wash my hands without running to the detached house. I also thought that if I ever got nasty chemicals on me, I wanted to be able to jump into a shower to rinse off. I figured I could do all this with cold water and eventually install a water heater as a luxury.

view of bathroom and closet:


interior of closet:


Over the years I had decided I did not want to install a traditional tank water heater for the infrequent use of hot water, due to ongoing costs. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to acquire the pictured tankless water heater for $200. It is new and has never been installed. It is an Eccotemp 45-H NG.

tankless heater:



After getting it home, I discovered it is intended for installation outside. The instructions, however indicate any freezing of the water lines could damage the unit. Here in Oklahoma, we can have some pretty cold spells. Since it only takes about a minute to wash hands and I don't do that very frequently, should I go ahead and install this in my closet and use it? Or, do I need to sell this and find a different unit. My closet is vented for a water heater sized flue and I could make that a powered flue.

 

[Fixin'Stuff]

One of the features of that unit listed on Amazon is "Built-in antifreeze circuit". The manual may give you some indication of whether they're using an electric heating element or firing up the NG to keep it warm. One other problem that you may run into is that most on demand heaters of that size need a pretty decent amount of water flowing before the heater will kick on. So you may have to turn the hot water faucet on full blast to get it to start heating. With a rating of 6.8 GPM that beast is big enough to supply hot water for 2-3 showers at the same time.

The standby losses of a modern tank water heater are pretty low, so one of those should not kick on very often to keep a few gallons hot and ready. It may be a better choice to use one of those.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

The only issue...and it's a BIG ONE...is if the heater doesn't not include provisions for external venting it would be impossibly dangerous to install it inside.

I think it just has like a grate on it, that lets the combustion byproducts waft into the outside air, right?

Google "Vitas Gerulaitis". Tragic story of a guy who got too close to an improperly vented gas appliance.

Sooo...you could use it if you mount it outside as it is designed to be mounted...or not at all. Sorry!

Phil