Posted on 03/29/2014 6:23:09 PM PDT by virgil283
If you decide to install a water softener, you can keep your regular water heater. Period!
We need humblegunner to be on guard and vet each poster. I feel better with HG on duty!! Seriously!
Up here in NY I saw pipes freeze this past winter that haven’t in at least 25 years.
“Most of the grunge can be flushed out if drained regularly through the drain spigot, something that a lot of people never bother with. “
I’ve read this also - that they would last essentially forever if this was done every few years. I had one in Chicago (not exactly hard-water territory) leak in five years.
So I'm not the only one sick of his childish behavior?
Guaranteed you are not the only ones tired of it.
Different strokes, and you live in pretty country. But I'm wearing shorts this time of year. Bleak and searing as it is in August.
/johnny
Was ice fishing last week.
One lake here had 24” inches of ice during the dead of winter. We all bought cordless drill adapters for our ice augers. My 18 volt Makita did yeoman’s work this winter. Haven’t seen the ice this thick around here since the early 80’s.
Temps starting to moderate now as I’m figuring winter is finally letting go of us. Would not be surprised to see the ice on some of the bigger lakes there at least until mid April.
Keep in mind this is all about 60 miles north of NYC not someplace in far upstate NY.
Take Care my FRiend.
Just keep replacing the sacrificial anode and the damn things should last for practically forever.
Are they being flushed out?
Or something else?
Thanks for the post - they have an EXCELLENT write-up on tankless water heaters...and concluded EXACTLY what I concluded after a lot of hours researching it, and doing a bit of my own work...
I once did a semi-controlled experiment on just how much it costs to maintain a heated water tank. I was in an apartment, and the water heater was in the utility room, next to the kitchen. It was electric and I could hear it activate - kind of a swishing sound due to local boiling at the heating element (that’s what started me on the study, I wanted to know where the noise was coming from). The tank held 46 gallons. The temperature of the apartment averaged about 68F. No hot water was used from the tank, and I was present 24/7 for just over a week. The water heater had no extra insulation on it.
The water heater element came on twice a day, for 6 minutes at a time - 12 minutes per day, or 6 hours per month. The element consumed 7 kilowatts - so 42 kilowatt hours per month. So, under those conditions, the cost of keeping the water warm was $5 per month - and that was for an electric unit - figure closer to $2 per month for a gas unit. This is for a roughly 50F temperature differential in the water (relative to ambient)...if the differential is increased to 75F (probably the most that people will ever see), then add 50% to the above costs.
Interesting because one of the big selling points about tankless units is that you don’t have to “keep the tank heated”. In my case, I determined that I can much easier afford “keeping the tank heated” than paying the added cost of a tankless unit.
Now that’s not the only factor - the other main factor is the efficiency of its heating - and a conventional gas unit is around 70%, while tankless units (and fancy tank units) are 90% or more (for gas - electric is always just about 100%) - so you will save something there, particularly if you use a lot of hot water.
But don’t use too much...because and “endless” supply of hot water, to many people, means “endless” showers - and your savings can easily go down the drain.
I did a lot of other research on water heaters and concluded that cheap tank-style water heaters that DO NOT have electronic controls are best for many reasons. Tankless is clearly better when it comes to space utilization (they take practically no room - which is why they are popular in Europe, as many are retrofits) - that is their ONLY clear advantage. The energy savings from tankless units may or may not work for a particular household (due to the “endless shower” effect, above). But there are a solid half dozen bad things about tankless - starting with the fact that a loss of power (even for gas units) simply means no hot water - you don’t have 40 gallons sitting there for at least 24 hours, and indefinitely if gas is still available (for conventional gas units, of course).
that’s a great question. there is no specific maintenance schedule in either the user manual or installation guide.
There are maintenance instructions.
The furnace tune-up in the fall also includes a WH “inspection”. So far, nobody has drained\flushed the system.
I’ll be asking that question next week.
Many gas water heaters today have a fan to vent directly to the outside as more and more homes no longer have chimneys.
Also the obvious “electric water heaters”.
Also not everyone has city water, everyone with a well pump knows that when the power goes out, the water quickly runs out.
So if you have a tankless heater, you will have a lot of company being without hot water.
The first thing a”rookie” plumber learns is that “Hot’s on the left, cold’s on the right, $hit” flows downhill, and payday is on Friday.”
The second thing he learns is that there is no such thing as a “hot” water heater. It’s a “water heater”. You don’t heat “hot” water.
The third thing he learns is that there is no such thing as a “monkey wrench”. It’s a “pipe wrench”, plumbers aren’t monkeys.
“We must respect plumbers as we do philosophers as neither pipes nor theories hold water.”
BTTT.
You need to do your math again.
Highly recommended ...
No. I daresay there are plenty of fellow sufferers.
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