My house doesn't have a gas line... oil only for heat, and electric for the stove. We have a tankless water heater (sorry, I'll have to look at home to tell you the make/model as I didn't buy/install it and don't know that off the top of my head). The tankless heater is nice though, and honestly it seems to me like the more demand that's put on the system, the hotter the water I get at once. So if the dishwasher and forced-air heat are running at the same time, I get hotter water in the shower. It's especially noticeable in the winter. If the only thing using hot water is the shower, the water only gets warm, not hot, but if I shower when the heat cycles on, I get scalding hot water.
We put in a Bosh unit some time ago. Been very happy about it all along, it cut about $10 off our monthly gas bill. I'm with Airport kid on this, I would hope that the tankless heaters soon become the standard. Oh ya, that little hang on the wall unit takes up a lot less space than a 50gal tank of water. As Evan mentioned, the Bosh units require a minimum flow of water to kick it on, but I never ran into a situation where the heater wouldn't run.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Nov 26 2007, 10:26 AM) [snapback]544226[/snapback]</div> No. The pipe does say "Nortiz" on it. It's whatever the unit is rated for. The plumber seems to think that the old tanks are dinosaurs on their way out. He thinks they'll be coded, mandated or in some other way forced out and the future will be with the tankless. Electric units draw a lot of power. But If I ever need to install one in the future, I'll just put a few more pv panels on the roof and I've got some circuits in the breaker panel that haven't been assigned to anything yet. (But one of them better be used to turn my bathroom wall heater back on!)
"(But one of them better be used to turn my bathroom wall heater back on!)" You're in San Diego, how cold can it get?! I don't think you'd last long in MN....Where toilet seats in January feel like a block of ice.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Nov 28 2007, 04:22 PM) [snapback]545401[/snapback]</div> Keep in mind that in San Diego they didn't put insulation in houses until relatively recently. My house was built in 1922. It's lathe and plaster inside and wood siding outside with only wood studs in between. I'm not sure what the low has been at night but when I leave for work it's in the 50s outside and probably not that much warmer inside. It will get colder. We can get below freezing at night. I know that may not sound bad in MN but everyone seems to think because it's San Diego you can run around naked 24/7/365. Sorry but I consider it unacceptable for the INSIDE of my house to be in the 50s. My furnace still doesn't work. After $3.00 worth of line and compression fittings the pilot is back on. But still no heat. I've replaced my old (10 years?) programmable thermostat (that I never much liked) with a new one but that wasn't the problem either. Still no heat. So I'm looking at $50.00 for a new thermocouple. I have to replace that at least once a decade. Don't remember when the last time was so maybe it's due. It means crawling under the house yet again. Oh, joy. But all in all it's still cheaper than calling the plumber for something I can fix, have fixed before and will have to fix again (and again and again.) As soon as the furnace is fixed I'll be calling the electrician to fix his screwup. I am enjoying really nice hot baths, though. Love the new water heater. (And it's so quiet!)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Nov 29 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]545561[/snapback]</div> Not that I am there with you... but usually you need the thermocouple to be in good shape to maintain the pilot light. So, if you have confirmed the pilot is on, then I would think the thermocouple is ok. (Trying to save you $50....)
I have two Bosch heaters and one 35 Gal Electric tank. Both units vent out the wall and have been trouble free since I installed them a few years ago. They replaced two tank heaters, but the distance between the kitchen and the bathrooms forced me to go with a smaller electric tank. The Tank though is very efficient though, we tried an electric tankless, but got ver little hot water at the cost of a lot of electricity. The tank heater that replaced it supplies all the hot water for the kitchen, the tankless supplies the hot water for both ends of the house, we have a long ranch with master bedrooms at both ends. Our propane usage went down quite a bit since replacing the one water tank which did the whole house. We also have two 98% efficient furnaces for the house.
Yes, if the pilot light is on then you do not need a thermocouple. If you ever need a thermocouple they are sold at Home Depot for a fraction the cost from a furnace supply. I returned one I bought for $47.50 at the Heating Supply store after finding one at Home Depot for $6.95. It has been running for four years now so it must be a good one.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(John in LB @ Nov 29 2007, 03:31 AM) [snapback]545584[/snapback]</div> It's not a gas thermocouple. It's actually a millivolt generator. Here's an ebay auction for one. It has a white and red wire going to the control. The pilot stays lit at all times, but the burners won't turn on. I've had to replace it three times, about once every 7-10 years. I'm pretty sure it needs another one. I am happy with my new programmable thermostat though. It's a Hunter and is compatible with a millivolt system. My original manual thermostat was "portrait" and when I replaced it with a programmable the only ones they had were "landscape" so I've been turning my head to the side for 8 years to read my thermostat. Not very convenient. The new Hunter is a 5-1-1 programmable and can fit right side up on my old thermostat. And yes, I did check the wiring before hooking it up. The wires are labeled and it's hooked up exactly the way the directions say and the way the old one was hooked up. That configuration worked for years so no reason to think it's the wiring. BTW this is a very old system, it is NOT hooked up to the electrical service in any way. So the fact the furnace isn't working now that the pilot is on has nothing to do with the bathroom wall heater that doesn't work. *That* doesn't work because it was disconnected in the upgrade.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nwprius @ Nov 29 2007, 05:50 PM) [snapback]545873[/snapback]</div> Home Depot does not carry what I need. Neither does Lowes. Neither does Ace Hardware. The average Home Center doesn't have any parts I can use. They only carry thermocouples for gas water heaters. They didn't have the aluminum replacement pilot feed line either. They had large, yellow clad gas lines for water heaters. And they had copper tubing. I know better than to use copper as a gas feed. This furnace is at least 60 years old. It is a huge box that sits in the crawl space under the house. It is a simple and primitive system. There is no blower or electrical. The gas line feeds into a control box and then to the pilot and the burners. The pilot splits the blue flame and part of it hits the thermocouple or millivolt generator. As long as the pilot is on, the furnace will work. There is a white and red wire going from the millivolt generator to the control box. There is also a white and red wire going from the thermostat to the control box. If the pilot is on and the thermostat tells the furnace it's cold, gas goes to the burners and I have heat. This does not happen when the millivolt genrator goes bad. The pilot is on, but "nobody's home to turn on the burners." At least that I got the feed line and couplings at Ideal. Cost me $3.00. But even Ideal Plumbing didn't have the millivolt generator. A. O. Reed claims they do. I'll know in an hour. I'll be taking the eBay auction page to A. O. Reed with me. If they try to charge me $50.00 I'll tell them I've been without heat this long and I can wait another week for the eBay seller to mail me THREE generators for the price of their one. This has happened three times since I bought the house in 1987. The pilot stays on but the burners don't come on even though the thermostat shows the temperature in the house is lower than what the thermostat is set to. Every time I've fixed it it has been to replace the millivolt generator (which I was told was called the thermocouple.) I'll let you know if that is the fix this time. I just hate having to crawl under the house every day. It's taking me a week to fix a job that should have taken a few hours. And the reason is that I work all day and only have an hour of daylight left by the time I get home. When I have to go get a part, like today, I have to wait until tomorrow to do the fix. So crawl under the house today. Crawl under the house tomorrow. I'm getting really tired of crawling under the house. But not enough to call a plumber to crawl under the house for me. Not for a $3.00 gas line. Not for a $18.00 millivolt generator.
Update: I have heat. The new 750 millivolt thermopile generator is working fine and the house is now toasty. How to identify your gas system: http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/gassystem.html How a millivolt system works: http://www.managemyhome.com/mmh/answerwidget/ViewAnswer.action?uid=d3bc44f3-f3e6-11db-ba94-55610003df63&topic=Heating&topicBasedSearchStr=coil&contentType=AskTheExpert
I haven't taken the time to read through the entire thread, but is the tankless water heater you had installed electric or gas? The reason I ask is because I'm having a house built by Imagine Homes who claims to use tankless heaters as a standard feature, however they do not have gas lines in this particular neighborhood so they went with tank heaters instead of an electric tankless heater. I asked why, and their response was that the tankless electric is not reliable enough yet and only lasts for a few years, and they won't install a product that they can't stand behind. Just wondering what your thoughs were on that, I was pretty excited to hear that I would get a tankless heater standard and here I am stuck with a tank.
Mine is gas. The only reason I went with gas is because the line is there. I have PV on the roof so could have accommodated an electric. They suck a lot of juice but they are also more efficient. And since they don't need the venting, cheaper to install. I think your builder was handing you a crock about unreliability. Are they putting solar water heating in? And what about Photovoltaic? I think they don't like the tankless because whether it's gas or electric it isn't passive...it uses energy. In 7-10 years when your tank goes.....you can put in a tankless then. Start reading up now. Are they shortcutting on anything else?
A tank type electric hot water heater is a perfect candidate for solar conversion. It will make the biggest impact on the environment and save you the most money. Also solar increases the life of your heating element.
Re: I've gone tankless. I thought I'd resurrect this old thread, hoping to get more updated information on tankless water heaters. Technology has surely improved in this area in the past two years. I know solar power is an alternative option; but I don't feel like waging a long, uphill battle with our HOA regarding their placement. Our water heater is almost 10 years old and likely to need a replacement due to the ultra hard water here in Phoenix. I'm considering replacing with a Rinnai system. With competitive pricing on eBay and federal incentives, the tankless system seems like an attractive, viable alternative.
I went tankless today too (took off the wife beater). My back got burned like crazy but at least it will get rid of the farmer's tan. I don't want to look like some kind of hick.
