Posted on 02/22/2015 8:59:13 AM PST by Mean Daddy
If it’s been a while since you took stock of the age and vitality of your water heater, now would be a good time to do so.
Mechanical rooms and homeowners’ appliance budgets are about to get more cramped after April 16, when the latest round of federal standards stipulating increased energy efficiency of residential water heaters takes effect.
The standards stem from a 1987 Department of Energy law called the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act.
Water heater manufacturers are responding with energy-saving additions like advanced electronics, more insulation and heat pumps, which means new units promise to get taller, wider and more complicated than their less-efficient predecessors.
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
“Would do it again in a heart-beat.”
Your experience mirrors ours. The Takagi is a superior unit. The trade off is you get 5-7 gals/minute forever as opposed to 10/12 gpm until the 40 gallons is gone! Problem here in CA at the moment is the water itself, there isn’t any!
Some older homes here in the Kalifornia low desert have "closets" in the interior to hold the water heater.
People have been know to switch, shut it down in summer, and use that for their cold water, and the 'cold' tap as their hot.
We’ve stayed with two different friends that had the tankless.....at both places, the house came up short at bathing time.
Changing to tankless isn’t just a swap of the heater. A licensed plumber will know that the vent on a tankless often has to be about 2.5 times the capacity of the vent on the plain gas fired appliance it replaces.
Vented gas flue is hotter and higher capacity — let’s not have anyone burn their house down.
I guess that’s why people refuse to leave that heathen place — climate. :0)
Thanks for the info..................
Our 20+ yo one kicked the bucket last year. It was a tight squeeze getting the new one in so hope it lasts as long.
Yeah, that's all fine till you are on an artesian hard water well. The capillary system would clog up so fast, I doubt it would last a year (at twice the money).
I replaced mine in June.
It had lasted since 1997, so I felt gud about that 1!
Water heater manufacturers are responding with energy-saving additions like advanced electronics, more insulation and heat pumps, which means new units promise to get taller, wider and more complicated than their less-efficient predecessors.
I’ve looked into tankless/on demand; one thing to know (and null and void alluded to it) is that, regardless of water source, the stuff that gets deposited inside the heater from the water itself will need to be removed on a pretty regular basis. A filter for the intake line might not be a bad idea, but it will still need PM.
In my area they require a stainless vent with condensation trap. The tankless plumbing distributor sells materials for installation.
There is a minimum run of vent pipe so that it cools properly before venting through the roof.
Ours is 13 years old and seems to be going strong but I do worry about it. We have it up on a metal stand out in the garage. So far so good. We are moving soon so hopefully it will be OK. We are going to go to an on demand system.
Get the anode replaced, that will do more to make the tank last long than anything else. You don’t even need to drain the heater.
You can buy one from nearly any supply house, they are inexpensive. Cheap, actually, compared to a new heater.
To replace it:
1: turn off both the input and out water on the pipes near the tank.
2. use a wrench, a socket wrench works the best, to remove old anode. The anode will have a hex head, like a bolt. It is screwed in from the top of the heater.
3. insert new anode, using pipe dope on the threads, tighten.
4. turn on water.
If the old anode is used up, make sure to install the next new one sooner.
later
That’s a good idea.
In general it is always good to talk to a master plumber, fitter or electrician about MEP changes in a house or building. The can tell you a lot of items to look out for in longevity, safety and replacement and operating cost.
Just on this item alone we have picked up gas service sizing check, drain pan with outside drain for over flow at failure, vent sizing for capacity and fire safety, checking usage costs for fuel cost, water softener effects on service life and the like.
The biggest thing I see from a contractor’s view is the line distance to the primary appliances. In a midwestern home with the heater in the basement if the main shower, dishwasher and washer are directly or near directly above the HWH the water run to get hot water to the user is reduced and you use less water and heat less water.. Now that I am in the Southwest I see garage HWHs and it’s a long run to the point use. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the sourced water is always coming in warmer than in the midwest due to water lines often not being buried very deep due to rocky terrain.
“”new units promise to get taller, wider and more complicated than their less-efficient predecessors.””
That’s not a pleasant thing to think about. Ours is ok for now but I’ve often wondered why on earth it was stuck in the crawl space instead of outside the crawl space on cement flooring in the subbasement as my husband calls it. I wouldn’t have any idea if a taller/wider one would even fit in the current space.
Having one on hand before 4/15 wouldn’t be a bad idea IMO!!!
Funny you should mention that. During Hurricane Andrew, the power in my apartment went out for a week, yet I still had hot water to bathe with every day because of my water heater.
Thanks to the internet, we've saved a ton of money on plumbers. We learned to troubleshoot them and replace parts (i.e. thermostats, heating elements and high temperature cutoff switch) in them over the years. They are actually pretty simple appliances and almost all of them have the same parts on the inside.
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