HELP! My wife and I are will sign a contract to build soon. Our builder is greatly opposed to using a tankless water heater (electric) as offered by CEC/Bosch/Aquastar. We think they are a good idea for many reasons. Does anyone have experience with these, especially electric. Thank you, Joe email: [email protected]
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If you run a search with "Aquastar" you'll get more reading than you want. It's at the bottom of the left hand column under all the threads.
Joe H
I've been heating my water with a tankless heater for close to 20 years. Been using a Paloma (japanese); the technology is simple and easy to maintain as long as you're conditioning the water.Hard water requires you to descale the unit once a year; though that's easy too! (2 beer job) Mine is a model 12,variable BTU 50 to 90,000; you turn on one faucet and it fires up at 50, you turn on the faucet, take a shower, fill the hot tub and it's really cranking ;90,000 BTU.This size unit also requires a 5" flue. A friend of mine has a car wash and he uses 4 model 24's (unsure of the BTU's) but i know that he's happy with his too.
Gas or Electric?
natural gas
Well, I honestly tried to make myself buy one for my house remodel. I wanted to go gas, but the gas input was roughly 100,000 Btu's and the heat output was from the flue was too much for my venting situation - all requiring major retrofits. Next time I build a house I'll try again starting with adequate facilities & location. For an electric model, keep in mind that it consumes VAST quantities of electricity. Make sure your electrical system can handle the load.
There are a couple of discussions on tankless heaters from a little while back. Look 'em over and see what people's existential pro's & cons have been. After reading them I still wanted to go ahead & do it, but as I said, systemic limitations prevented me.
The gas models work great! I have my own and we have 5 in the house and shower after shower.
Electric models are ok but need to be 10KW point of use for a soft shower ( been there)
If you have to have electric to heat water then use storage tank type with timer and make it big and well insulated. (won't help with heating the water but helps with heat loss)