greeting all,
I have a client with a condo and only serviced with electric, no gas, I have installed a few gas units but don’t know a good electric unit, looking for whole house not point of use one.
thanks
Orba
greeting all,
I have a client with a condo and only serviced with electric, no gas, I have installed a few gas units but don’t know a good electric unit, looking for whole house not point of use one.
thanks
Orba
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Replies
Those often require 80 to 120 amp feeds. Can the condo supply that without upgrading the service?
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Unless space is a really critical issue the electric tankless is a non-starter.
How come? I don't know much about them and with our hard water wouldn't install one anyway but had a customer ask me about them just today. She had a brochure from a company I'd never heard of, Servisco maybe.
Too much current (high install cost). Too limited in hot water flow. Too expensive.
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Well the OP is in San Diego and if florida is in Florida they will have warm water so the temp rise is not as critical as it is in the frozen north..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
You're right about that. Our water is probably 75 or so before it hits the water heater. In the summer we need a water cooler instead.
Say just 3 gal per minute
Heat up from 50F line to say 130F shower feed = 80F rise, about 25# H2O = 2000 Btu/min or 120,000 BTU hr: Divide by 3412 is about 35kW-- means a 150A input -- that's why they do not make much sense.
OK, Guys - I OWN an electric tankless. Sorry, but you all are all wet (Pun intended).It is a SEISCO out of Houston, TX. Buy off web. We only have a 200Amp svc. It requires two 60 Amp, 240 V ckt breakers. Call them for any questions, they are happy to jaw jack w/ you all day. Forgot - we also have a dual fuel heat pump - electric/propane. Electric svc has never given us a bit of trouble. Have the pwr usage well balanced across both legs of svc. Never blown a brkr.When you have a lot of lights on in house, like during winter, they dim briefly when heater turns on & draws max current. Lasts about 3 seconds, then everything is normal. Designed to NOT use full current continuously. (Every time this happens, I think of an old Mickey Rooney prison movie - they're testing the chair for Killer Mears!)Let's talk maintenance. We have had two failures of the system. First one croaked the system - had a water leak above heater, dripped into heater & shorted it out. SEISCO had a new heater in my hands on second day. I installed it myself in about an hour. Two water connections, 5 electrical. Second one was a failure of a temp sensor. Called SEISCO & talked w/ their maintenance guru, Mike. He talked me through what was beyond the manual that comes w/ it. Sent me a new sensor overnight UPS.Device cost about $600 for what I think is a 28 kw device. Being an electrical engineer, I like it & do not see any unusual problems. It works like a charm & I can fix it, comfortably. I do not feel comfy messing w/ gas. Takes up a spot on the wall of mechanical room about 2 ft square by 8 inches protrusion from the wall.Has no problems w/ collecting mineral deposits - heating tubes are a polymer that will not collect minerals. IIRC, it uses standard heating elements.We have it limited to 120 degrees, F. Will scald the living excreta out of you otherwise. Will service shower, washing machine & dishwasher simultaneously. Never run out of hot water, no matter how many teen aged granddaughters take showers.Any questions, I'll be glad to answer. I know plumbers hate them - they just like what they know - gas fuel. I like what I know - electricity.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Yeah, but I'd bet you ran your own double 60 A feeders in 'liberated' surplus conduit and recycled 6 AWG <G>
Poor average homeowner adds those trades installed feeder costs to the $600 and you are talking big bucks?
Oh yeah, another reason for 4 kW tank heater - if there are teenagers around - a 52 gal elec tank set at just 115 F keeps the showers down to under 20 minutes <G> -- Unless you are a real gremlin and have piddly little 1 gpm shower heads <GGGG>
Junk: You are a man after my own heart! I have a 35X90 steel bldg WE BUILT that we store my junk in. Wife is very tolerant.Nope, didn't use any "Liberated" or "Surplus" 6 AWG cables or conduit. Water heater is but about a 6 ft run from service panel. When we built house, Cu was a Heckuva lot cheaper than now. I also did my own wiring. Costed out at ten cents an hour for labor, it cost next to nuttin to get it installed.My daughter (An ER Doc in her night job, & an electrical engineer by eddycashun) wired the upstairs in our house - w/copious references to several Taunton pubs - & did a pretty decent job. I talked about her "Running" the wiring & she always corrected me. She said it was "Crawling " the wiring because of the low overhead in the attic spaces. Being only 5'3", she could get places I couldn't. The inspector crawled up into the attic & was awed by her neat layout. All wires were in those 3M wire holders & ran parallel & weren't twisted around one another. She labeled every wire w/ a tag so you could trace things when something went wrong. Even put Sharpie arrows on cables to show direction of Poynting vector. At my advanced age, DW & I enjoy wallowing around in hot water. We are on a well & septic tank, so we return the water immediately after borrowing it from Mother Earth. As to the 1 GPM shower heads - run a tapered, helical sharp-edged wedge designed by Piffin through 'em!<BSEG>DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Eh, well if you have a well (and a place for the water to go) , consider building yourself a WSHP (pump and dump), saves 30% over a commercial air-air 15 'seer' HP when temp is in low 30s. I switch automatically from air-air HP to the WSHP when it is about 45-48F. Only took a couple of weekends to build.
Got a closeout 4T copeland scroll compressor from Grainger, built own tube n tube evaporator, used a scrap 7T carrier coil for condensor. Getting a COP of 5.6 with 54F water in, 43F water out !! Saves me enough a month for a couple cases of beer!
If I come across another decently priced compressor, thinking of an all vapor compression cycle water heater using propane as the refrigerant.
So what's your monthly electric bill? Or you got your own Mr. Fusion?
Got my own Mr. Fusion, along w/ Doc Brown to help maintain it.No natural gas where I live; propane costs an arm, leg & ransom for first born. W/ essentially an all electric house, highest was last month - $209. We own our 300 gal propane tank. Re fill every other yr & shop for lowest price, usually in Aug.The Taunton greenies would croak at the amount of lighting we have.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
What is your kw hr rate?
Dunno - not specified. We pay about $200 for 1900 KWH. Depends on the month of the yr.Rural electric Coop in Nawth Jawja woods.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Question: I've contemplated install of a point-of-use electric heater in bath at far end of house. With an electric unit installed, if I turn on hot water will the unit sense incoming water temp and turn off when hot water from existing gas water heater reaches the heating unit?
All tank type water heaters have a thermostat in them that cause the burner/element to turn on when the water in the tank is below the setpoint.If you have incoming water that is above the setpoint then it will keep the heater off until the flow stops and the water in the tank starts to cool..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
WoodY: It should. The SEISCO has 5 temp sensors IIRC. Input at first stage & output of all stages. Mine is a 4 stage heater. If temp exceeds what it should be at any stage, it turns off. You can adjust output temp w/ a "Rheostat." Realize that the SEISCO is fully digital except for one item that I cannot recall. Power output of all stages is modulated by control board & individually controlled, so if your water comes in at near desired output temp, the stages are controlled to keep from getting any stage too hot. If all you want is to cover for heat losses between tanked job & point of use, this is an expensive way to do it. SEISCO sells a two stage job that uses modules of the 4 stager. All heating elements are common to all models - the control boards rival the guts of a TV set, & are peculiar to the output of the device.When I talked w/ "Mike" at SEISCO to trouble shoot mine, I was surprised at the level of sophistication in the design & operating philosophy of the device. I are an EE, but predate digital stuff, which I consider black magic. I'm also of the BIG electron tube generation, so the solid state stuff eludes me. My #1 Son is an EE of the integrated electronics generation - we cannot even talk to one another - we speak two different languages that have zero translation between them after you say "Resistor, inductor & capacitor."Hope I helped. If not, ask away. If I don't know the answer, I'll make one up! <G>DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
The long lag to hot water is the problem which I'm attempting to solve, point-of-use or water recirculation are the two options I've been looking at. Tankless hot water heater (gas) appeals to me but it still doesn't solve the hot water lag problem and associated water waste. Recirculation combined with tankless gas heater is not compatible for the long term, at least that's what I've been led to understand. There is a tankless unit that combines a small holding tank with the unit that I've been told will work with a recirc pump but unit cost makes me wonder about the long road to break even point (if ever).
Woody: If you are considering the electric tankless, the cost will eat you alive. The big one we have is about $600 plus installation. The heater half that size is about half the cost. You can Google SEISCO & find their site & get exact costs. Depending on the run from SVC panel to heater you could get eaten by the cost of #6 Cu wire & conduit. I lucked out there - my heater is but 3 ft from svc panel. I also ran it myself, saving a bundle. Installed heater myself, also.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Good math OB1.
This one I did sucks up 36kw's of 3 phase juice.
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Junk: Just re-read your post using numbers. We live in Nawth Jawja. well is over 400 ft deep. Water is about 55 degrees, year round. Sounds like we'd be better off using water for cooling than for heating! Well doesn't give us big flow, unfortunately. Probably wouldn't support a heating/cooling system, but does just fine for other water uses.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Yep, I pull 10 GPM or so, about the same 55F water temp as you at 60 ft, dont need cooling here or would just pump the water thru coils.
Junk: My well only does about 4GPM steady state. There's a huge storage capability in bottom of well, due to 6" dia casing & water level at about 300 ft. w/ bottom at over 400 ft.You are lucky.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
From an energy savings standpoint when building Energy Star homes I learned that the electric tankless weren't recommended.