Best Water Heaters
This model is well suited for heating up to 2-Gallon per minute, which is the equivalent of one shower head (with a 1.5 gpm flow) and one sink with a low inlet water temperature of 67°F and an output setting of 105°F. The ECO 11 requires a minimum 125 amp electrical panel for installation with (1) 60 amp double pole breaker connected to (1) set of #6 awg wire. This model is well suited for heating up to 2-Gallon per minute, which is the equivalent of one shower head (with a 1.5 gpm flow) and one sink with a low inlet water temperature of 67 Degree F. Digital Temperature Control allows you to set your temperature in increments of 1 Degree. Never run out of hot water with an ECOSMART tankless water heater.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I have two of these units, one for DHW (Domestic Hot Water) and the other to operate our whole house hot water baseboard system. We have ours connected to our main 150 service, and can get away with it because everything else in the house is "green" and we can operate everything else with the 37.5 amps available if the heater is running under full load. The heat exchangers inside the heater are 3 copper pipes, cross connected in series with about 1/2" dia. However, they will not tell you how to get 160 or 180 degree water. There are internal jumpers in the heater that allow you to limit the maximum output temperature to 105 degrees (handy for the elderly or where there are small children playing with the knob), and it is also possible to set a wattage limit across the 3 heating elements. Most hot water heating systems operate best in the 160 degree area, and the older oil fired boilers actually used a setpoint of 200 degrees. Clearly, a heater with an upper limit of 140 degrees could cause poor performance of most baseboard hot water systems, and many of the newer hydronic systems. At 3 GPM this unit can give you a 110 degree shower with incoming water of only 49 degrees. At 2 GPM this unit will provide the full 140 degree setpoint with 50 degree incoming water. In boiler service, obtaining 160 degree water will require incoming water of at least 114 degrees. Most hot water heating systems operate with a differential of less than 20 degrees, so this unit is just loafing along while providing 160 degree water to your baseboard units. Also, most standard hot water heating systems have a design of either 1 GPM or 4 GPM. Again, most hot water systems operate with a differential (or "Delta-T") of around 17 degrees, often less. In any other situation, two showers at once, someone in the shower, someone else doing laundry, etc., I have yet to hear a single complaint. The days of my wife complaining about no hot water for the dishes because I took a long shower have ended! The only way I've ever been able to tell if the unit is running is to actually look at it - The display is only lighted when the unit is operating. Hope this helps to quash some bad information and get accurate information posted."
"Upon receiving the units and reading the enclosed warranty, it was apparent that there were strict requirements to qualify the units for the warranty; warranty cards had to be returned within 30 days, and the installation had to be by both a licensed plumber and a licensed electrician, whose names, phone numbers, and license numbers had to be noted on the warranty cards. I returned the 3 warranty cards within 90 days, once the units were installed, and retained the customer half of each card, as was required. So when one of the units failed recently, I contacted customer service, and during 3 emails and 3 phone calls over 1 week was told that Ecosmart only sends out repair parts for these units, not replacement units. With the life of these units being about 3 years, and since the units have unique, non-industry-standard electrical and plumbing connections, which makes quick replacement labor-intensive and/or impossible, you should buy a spare of these to keep on hand when one fails. Incidentally, the new unit has the same internal copper tubing design flaw as the old one, and still has an incoming wire clamp connector that wont meet electrical codes because electrical conduit, not unsheathed #8 wires, is required for the installation; the cable entrance hole in the panel is not large enough to accommodate a conduit connection for those wires."
The Stiebel Eltron Tempra 24 Plus Electric Tankless Water Heater is designed to replace a conventional tank with no inconvenience to the users hot water needs. The Tempra has several advantages over a gas-type tankless water heater. Advanced Flow Control technology works by automatically adjusting the flow of water to eliminate unpleasant temperature fluctuation. Save at least 15-20% on the hot water portion of your electric bill.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The house we installed this in is our Doomsday house in Texas which has its own stand alone photovoltaic solar system and massive sunny island battery bank (see photo). When we needed to replace our system in Georgia (old fashioned tank system), we discovered that Georgia Power were going to charge us $5k to upgrade the line to the house so we had enough amps, it just wasn’t cost effective."
"My electrician freaked out when he saw that we needed four 40 amp switches -- which is not readily apparent in the specs."
"Only had it 2 days, but its far better than the Titan I had that failed after 5 years."
"One of my smarter purchases."
"Update- occasionally it will just turn cold, vary random and vary infrequent."
"Fantastic product, simple install even for the DIYer, we love it."
"Does not work right for some reason with multiple things going on."
"October 2010 - 2 new Tempra 36 heaters installed in a large newly built home (family of 5). Several thousand dollars more were spent to accommodate installation of these two heaters (extra electrical panel, beefier electrical cable from the street transformer, a larger street transformer upgrade and labor, of course) compared to regular tank heaters. Conclusion – ZERO tolerance for any kind of variation in water quality is built into this heater; which of course would be very logical and practical to do (unless you want to milk stupid and “rich” Americans). Just was running into the attic to reset the thermal cut out switch about 10 times a day. I thought they were simply defective as I have seen plenty of SE water heaters when we lived in Germany that were 10 and over years old. To make a long story short, I spent 3 hours on line looking for some water treatment device to inject acid solution into the water stream to lower pH to about 7 (neutral). The root cause of the problem is the SE heating element not turning off when the water flow was cut off. I do not know what is the connection between the corroded heating element and water flow (two absolutely separate parts) but there is a definitive pattern. To my question why SE will not engineer the unit to tolerate higher levels of water pH I received an answer that most likely units engineered with such high tolerances will be prohibitively expensive (???). Of course, SE refuses to replace the heaters or the heating elements since now my water was found be "bad"."
T-KJR2-INNG Features: -Tankless water heater.-Natural Gas.-Can be converted into a direct-vent unit.-Indoor installation only.-BTU/hr: 19,500 140,000.-0.82 Energy factor.-Flow rate: 6.6 GPM maximum.-Cost-efficient and environmental friendly.-Perfect for light residential and radiant heating applications.-Energy star. Enter your model number to make sure this fits.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"After reading many reviews and research about this product last summer, plus getting local advise from friends who also have tankless water heater systems installed. The major downside of buying this product on Amazon and DIY install is that you loose the warranty aspect, but like everyone else said that these things are rock solid and easy to maintain. Other than what I mentioned above, after doing it once, I'm very confident in doing it again and install this in just a few hours now that I have the proper tools and knowledge in knowing what simple things to get that kept getting this project finished earlier."
"I need hot water, my current one had died and I had already read several item about these type of water heater but really never consider them until I logged on to Amazon, I looked at their offering then went to Consumers Report plus consulted with a local plumber friend who, in the past had installed Rheem tankless water heaters but was not particularly impressed with them. I cut 6 copper pipes and soldered these to the existing water pipes after disconnecting and removing the old water heater that was in a basement area. It took about 1 hour to make the water and gas connection (remember the water and gas are turned off at the main). I could not smell any gas so I turned the gas back on and using soapy water and a small paint brush soaped every gas connection while looking closely for any kind of bubbling. I then went upstairs, turned on the kitchen hot water and in about 5 seconds I had hot water. The Takagi water heater has now been installed for approximately 2 months and continues to works perfectly with no problems at all so far. He did mention that most tankless water heaters he had dealt with, specifically required horizontal venting rather than vertical as I had done using my old water heater's vent pipe, which ran to the roof. Takagi "requires" that the water heater be vented horizontally to a side vent. I then ran the vent pipe from the water heater vent to the hole in the cinder block wall and connected it to the cover and mounted it to the outside wall surface. Basically it is where hot water left in the pipe from the previous use, is sandwiched between cold water that comes through the water heater during the first 5 seconds before it has heated water to your preferred temperature. This 5 seconds of cold water can be quite disconcerting during the winter if you jump into the shower and start running the water over your body. You get a few seconds of warm water followed by about 5 seconds of cold water then followed by the warm water that was heated on demand. I get into the shower, turn the water valve all the way over to all hot water, wait about 10 seconds, then back the water valve back down to a warm water mixture before turning on the shower. Also be aware that in the mornings where usually no hot water had been turned on for hours, when you go to sink or shower you get about 8-10 seconds of cold water before the hot comes out. But if you can't deal with this issue there are small 1 gallon water heater that can be installed and the first gallon of water is always from the tank and only when the relay is kicked in to release hot water from the tankless does the 1 gallon tank refill and heat up and stand by. This does require a reheating the same water over and over again if no one has used hot water in a while. One other phenomena worth mentioning is that my water bill has gone up a bit, my best guess about that is that people tend to take longer showers when they know the hot water is endless. Over all it is still a great product and I would never go back to a old style water heater that keeps heating the same water over and over again."
"I set the temp at 110 for a nice hot shower and only turn on the hot water, I don't have to mix down over heated water with cold water. I set the temp at the maximum 167 when I run the dishwasher and the dishwasher finishes in half the time since it is not waiting to bring water up to temp."
Best Water Heater Replacement Parts
Natural Gas Pilot Assembly, Works On The Following Water Heater Model #'s: 6-30-Yors, 6-30-Yors-d, 6-30-Yort-d, 6-40-Yort-d, 6-30-Yort4, 6-50-Yort4, Temperature Setting 190°ree., Please Make Sure To Use The Corresponding Pilot Assembly To The Water Heater, Refer To The Tag On The Original Pilot Assembly To Match With The New Pilot Assembly. Reliance Water Heater #9003542 NAT Gas Pilot Assembly.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I Googled it again and found out I needed what is called the pilot assembly. You are working on a gas hot water heater so if your not comfortable with your reading directions ability and handyman skills you might want to call a plumber but you will probably pay $200.00 or more if he is honest."
"Thank you Youtube and Amazon!!"
"I had a plumber come give a free estimate and he claimed I needed to replace the whole thing, quoting 950 for a new one. I rate the difficulty of installing as a 2/5 if you have never messed with things like this before."
"when it finally stopped working I found that the pilot was but a mere gasp, not enough to power the thermocouple."
"When my State water heater went out I ordered a replacement thermocouple assembly from local wholesaler based on unit model & serial numbers."
"After install which took a while for me, im a honeydo'er it fired up just fine with no leaks (not a product problem anyway) I would order again and it was cheaper then other advertised sites and arrived quicker."
"I bought the 12 dollar universal thermocouple from the hardware store first, and found my ignorance was in the TCO type that my water heater took, plus the size of the universal thermocouple head being too big to fit through the door..."
"I called the manufacturer and they gave me the item number for my model which is the same as this reliance Water Heater. I vaccumed with an attachement for narrow places, they also suggested using a flexible cleaning brush (like the kind for a baby bottle)."