Hey all. I haven't posted in AGES but since I've had some experience with blue-flame ventless heaters AND I recently got my greenhouse version 2.0 up and running, I thought I would put in my two cents. I've got a 30k btu propane ventless heater in my 8x16 gh, and it does a good job of keeping things nice and toasty. No problems with yellow leaves. The two biggest problems I've had (now solved) are 1) heater turns off due to internal sensor's detection of low oxygen and 2) 10-20 degree temp fluctuations between on/off cycles of the heater. Problem #1 is the biggie; no heat, no plants, right? Back when I first built my gh several years ago(version 1.0), it was 8x24, plastic on all sides, well sealed. The heater kept things warm enough but the gh was so big that the heater was on almost all the time. The oxygen was rapidly depleted (I could still breathe fine but the heater thought otherwise) and the heater turned off in the cold dead of night, plants died, etc etc. Now, I read about having a vent (read: gaping hole that let what little heat did stay in the gh out) *near* the heater, but experimentation (leaving door open a crack) showed me that that wasn't a reliable alternative. What I did was to seal off most of the air vents along the bottom of the heater except the large one on the back. Then I piped a dryer vent hose from the back of the heater to a one-way air exhaust (used for dryer installs, but in reverse) connector mounted in a hole in the gh wall. Thus, cold outside air only comes into the gh when needed by the heater, which of course is warmed by the flame, and the only air I'm consequently venting is the coldest air near the floor (going out under the door) or via the inflation fan for the double layer plastic. Since my solution's implementation, I've had zero problems with the heater cut-off. Problem #2: Temperature consistency. The ventless heater's designers seem to assume that it will be used in a relatively well-insulated space. This is to say that it's assumed that even though the temp will go down over time, it will do so in a slow and controlled manner. Therefore, the temperature-sensing bulb has time to come or go to whatever room temperature there is, and turn the gas on based on the thermostat setpoint. The occupants of this hypothetical room would probably notice things getting a little cool just as the heater turns itself back on. Greenhouses tend to be more lossy than an insulated room, therefore the temps drop more quickly than the heater's thermostat is designed to respond to. My greenhouse v2 is muuuch better at keeping in heat than the first one, but temps that *average* 65 degrees still really vary between 50 and 75 because of the effect described above. My solution is to have an electric heater as well, set so that it kicks on at a slightly lower temperature than the gas heater. The electric heater is just a Walmart special and puts out a fraction of the heat of the gas heater, but it serves to smooth out the bigger temp. dips... giving the gas heater's thermostat time to cool down and turn on the heat. Heat comes on, room warms up past the electric heater's setpoint and it turns off. The electric bill doesn't suffer too much and I have to make fewer trips to refill the twin propane tanks. It's good all around. :) If anyone's at all interested, I could post some pics of my setup. Thanks for letting me babble. It's great to be back into the swing of [green] things!

Sadly, I think someone *did* get rid of the cat by dumping her in the country. She's deaf, and when she was found, was near starvation and full of mites. She's definitely a handful, and I've come to believe she was dumped because of the way she freaks out when she wakes up and can't find me or the other cat. Like she's been tossed again. :( Nobody wanted her because she is deaf. I happened to be at a Pet Smart buying food and took her home. I heard a number of people say oh we can't have her because she's HANDICAPPED. She's a little darling. My other cat doesn't even know she's deaf. He calls for her to come play. Just a service announcement: if you have a pet you want to toss in the garbage, please take it to a shelter, preferably a no-kill shelter. Having grown up in the country, we were the recipients of so many dumped dogs and cats. In my grandparents' generation, it generally ended with a bullet because a farm can only support so many dogs and cats. In mine, I tried finding homes, adopting, etc. I'm not accusing anyone here of such a thing, just that a lot of city people don't understand that country people aren't just sitting around waiting to take care of the unwanted pets. Sorry, it's just a thing with me, and my heart breaks when I think of this little miss being dumped. She's a pistol, but so loving. And being deaf, she wouldn't have lived very long. Don't take this as a personal shot to you; I'm really sensitive to animals. And yet, I eat meat. Go figure.

Look at the cost benefit of going tankless, the cost will be much higher and payback may be years coming. May need a larger gas line, will need a new vent stack, etc. For the two of us the cost for tankless was not justified. I installed a 50 Gallon Bradford White, the tank cost was approximately $400. Normally with labor in the area it costs around $800 to install. Power vents not normally used where I reside. Guess with power vent cost to install $1000 assuming electrical is near. Tankless quotes here are between $3000 to $4000. Most gas lines need to be changed to accommodate gas volume requirements and the vent needs to be changed to handle the increased heat. Not a fan of Sears or their water heaters, Bradford White was rated the best by Consumers Reports. I am very satisfied with Bradford White. Looks like turning on and off reset the blower. My two cents.

I have a Triangle Tube Series 50 (45 gal.) in a 2,000 sf house with 2 bathrooms. My plumber said I should put in a smaller unit and I wanted a bigger one. We compromised on this unit, because he said a bigger one would consume a lot more energy. I take a 25 min shower with a 5 gpm shower head, and I get enough hot water from this unit, but it took some doing. The first thing I would suggest is to turn the temperature on the water heater all the way up. We have an L-shaped ranch with the water heater on one end of the house, and the master bath on the other (over an unheated crawl space). So we need to keep the water very hot to get enough hot water at the bathroom. The hotter the water is, the more cold water you'll mix in, and the longer your hot water will last. Despite this, I was still running out of hot water after about 15 min. As my shower valve doesn't have a volume control, I put a small valve on the shower arm which allowed me to slow down or shut off the water when I was soaping myself. This allowed the hot water to recover a bit before I finished my shower. The real breakthrough came last summer though, when I had a new boiler installed. The installer told me that the circulator pipes between my boiler and water heater were only 3/4", when they should be 1 1/4". He also set up the new boiler so that the water heater gets priority over heat to the house, and the boiler automatically heats up to 180 degrees whenever the unit calls for more hot water. Now I have plenty of hot water for a 25 min shower followed by a shave, even without turning the volume of hot water down during my shower. I think you should be able to get enough hot water out of this unit provided you use it to its full capacity. You may need to have someone do some work on your boiler though. One rule of thumb I live by, is to never let a contractor tell me how much water or hot water I need. Aside from this, do you have separate shower valves for your 2 shower heads, and are you satisfied with the water flow? Many newer shower valves limit the flow to 2.5 gpm or less. You can check your actual water flow with a 2.5 or 5 gal bucket and a stopwatch. If you're getting enough flow out of the shower arms, but not out of the shower heads, there are some places that sell shower heads with easily removable flow restrIctors.