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electric tankless water heater

livingonthepier

16 years ago

I am looking for the best whole house must be electric tankless water heater. Read a little about Sets, stiebel and powerstar but I don't thing it can will be able to get 5 gpm with a rise that would handle the water coming in which can be around 40 degrees in the cold winters in the northeast. Anyone have any input to this issue would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments (7)

dadoes
16 years ago
Does anybody ever really run hot water at 5 GPM? That's filling a 5 gallon bucket or drum in one minute. A pretty fast clip!
paulowens001
16 years ago
Does it have to be electric? I just had a Rinnai 2520FFU installed-natural gas. Here are my readings shower 1.4-1.7 gpm. Washer (hot) 2.3 gpm, dishwasher 1.5 gpm, faucets-1.5 gpm. Tub 5+(whirlpool type tub) I live in the northeast and max gpm is about 5.0 in early june. In the winter I expect 3.8-4.0 still enough for two showers.
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Kats_Meow, I'm in TX, SW of Houston. I'm on a private well, semi-rural area at edge of my town. My pump tank is in my (detached) garage. My well and (submerged) pump is wayyyy around on the other side of the property due to logistics and requirements of sufficient space for both a well and septic, so it's a long (but underground) run from the pump to the tank. During the occasional cold snaps like this past winter, incoming water temp can drop to less than 40Â°F. In heat of the summer it may be 80Â°F or a tad more. My electric tankless is a 120amp unit. It doesn't have any problem generating 135Â°F to 140Â°F output when I (occasionally) want that high a temp for washing a load of whites. Otherwise I set the tankless at 100Â°F to 102Â°F in summer, 104Â°F in winter for normal use. That low temp is fine for dishes, my dishwasher has on-board heating and can work with a cold input. My tankless unit varies its power draw per the input temp, output temp, and flow rate. It may operate at little as 5% of full power or at 85%+ ... so obviously it doesn't always pull 120 amps, but the circuit must be able to supply full power when needed.
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To achieve 4 GPM at 60 temp degree rise it with require about a 30 KW unit. Which should be adequate for two 2.5 GPM showers set at 105 degrees. At 240 volts (most homes have 215-230, so even less output) it will take 120 amp service alone to heat the water, even on a 200 amp service, doesnÂt leave you enough to run heat pump, dryer, range/oven and lighting. In addition you mention turning off gas at furnace so will you be adding more electric coils to the ductwork for when the heat pump canÂt keep up when itÂs cold out? If you hate gas that much, install a 60 gallon plus electric water heater, pull furnace and install air handler with electric resistance back up heat, and then complain about the high energy bill while the rising electric costs continue to climb since they are closely tied to Nat gas costs because of production. Most people donÂt have a concept of how much input or energy is required to heat water with electric, especially on-demand units. Look at the gas units, instead of a 40 gallon tank with 40,000 BtuÂs the gas on-demand units are 200,000 BtuÂs to meet the draw demand.
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Tankless heaters have used as a marketing idea that they will increase efficiency by not having hot water sitting around in a tank all day not being used. It's an easy concept for consumers to grasp, but it's not true. On an electric heater, the difference in the energy factor is very small between a tank and a tankless heater. A tank heater will be in the area of 0.93 and a tankless might be 0.95 - not enough difference to talk about and certainly not enough to provide payback. That represents the amount of heat lost through the walls of a well insulated tank. With gas heaters it's different. The vast majority of the efficiency gain is in the lowered flue temps. Second is not having the heat loss through the center of the tank. For your situation, what you should know is that a properly installed and operating electric tank heater is extremely reliable and efficient. Get yours replaced or repaired and the TPV properly routed to the drain so that it doesn't cause damage. Since you have lost confidence in your heater, I would just replace it rather than repair. Make sure that you are addressing thermal expansion issues that might have caused the TPV to open. If you want more space, consider a stacking washer and dryer and eliminating the sink. The front loading LG's are full size (huge inside) stack and don't use much water - eliminating the overflowing washtub issue. That would be a cheaper way to get space than a tankless heater and they are great machines.
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livingonthepier
Original Author
16 years ago
It has to be electric, no gas in our building. Just worried that I would not be able to get two hot showers at the same time. We live in the Delaware River and the water coming in could get as cold as 40 degrees on a cold winter day. Would Sets be a good product or is there a better product out there.
Thanks
User
16 years ago
You'll need more electric service than you probably have. Electric tankless units use from 80-150 amps. Typical home construction usually now has 200 amp panels, and you'd need to upgrade brand new construction to more capacity, much less an older home or apartment building. 20 years ago, 100 amps was "normal" service to most homes, and there are still plenty of places that only have 60 amps of service. Upgrading your electrical service will be costly, and even more costly if your bulding itself will need an upgrade of it's feed to be able to supply you. That is, if your building will even allow you to upgrade anything at all. Many will not. The first thing you need to do is to determine the capacity of your electrical service, and the capacity of your bulding's service. That'll tell you right there if it's even feasable to spend a couple of thousand upgrading your individual service. If the building itself will require more service, expect the fees to be in the tens of thousands of dollars in your particular locale. Because if they allow you to request and pay for an upgrade, they'll probably want to size the building with the anticipation of everyone in the building demanding an upgraded service.
redwood39
16 years ago
Unless you own your own hydro electric plant you probably will not find a payoff in electric tankless. As stated above you will need a larger service. Go with a plain old electric water heater!
toad08
16 years ago
In my new house I installed an electric tankless water heater.
To shower and shampoo my hair it takes 3kw of power x approx $0.10 per KW = $0.30 for a good shower. To run the dishwasher it takes 4kw on the longer cycle x $.10/kw = $0.40. My electric tankless water heater runs off 220V (2 pole, 60 amp breaker with min of #6 wire). The brand and model is Titan-SCR2 which cost about $230 plus the cost to have it installed about $200.
It has already paid for itself in 9 months of use.
speedymonk
16 years ago
You'll need 130 amp service for the SETS if you use Model 280, their largest. Mine works fine after a few tweaks.

There are also models by Seisco and one at AmericanTanklessWater.com. That particular unit is the only one that purportedly doesn't use a flow switch. Thoise switches last about 5 years. SETS, though, has a olifetime warranty on parts so that replacement is free.

SETS has a temp control that you can adjust upward to compensate when water temps get colder.

I haven't tried running two showers simultaneously so I don't know how that would work. Dishwashing, clothes washing and showering have been fine.

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