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Has anyone here installed or lived in a house with an on demand gas hot water heater? We’re buying a house that needs plumbing upgrades and a new water heater. Just me and the wife, no kids (yet)….and we’re kind of european in our bathing habits. Seems a waste to have all that hot water just hanging around eating up heat, especially since gas prices keep going up. I was wondering how well they work and if any brand stands out. How do they compare to a regular water heater, efficiency wise?
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Rod, this has been posted a few times in the last few months. Check the archives using the search.
walk good
*Rod, I lived in Australia for years where these water heaters are common. Mostly electric ones in apartments and gas ones strapped to the outside of houses. I got to like them quite a bit, that nice combo of only heating what you use and of course NEVER having the water run cold just as you shampoo. The elctric ones I have seen here (Canada) are nice and small and incredably easy to plumb in. I haven't seen any gas ones here. The main downside of these seemed to be water pressure. The shower is not going to blast you across the room. They were also very suseptable to other people using the system in the house. One quirk I remember well is that if you wanted hotter water, you turned the hot water tap down, which slowed the water through the heater and so heated it more.If you need to heat your house anyway then a HW tank is just as efficient as any heat loss is into the rest of the house. Cheers
*Rod that style of water heater is a good choice,because they can save you money on your gas or electric bills,but they are also expensive and if you ever have a problem with it it may cost you more than what you save.
*Please consider installing some sort of sediment filter before the heater.
*Finally finished installing my new instant water heater. Took out the old electric tank. its been in two hours and its three long showers old already!! Working great!!! Installion was easy, just me dragging my feet.
*Nigel -Which brand did you go with ?Is it a gas model ?
*I've been doing some research on this subject and so far the Bosch natural gas product seems to be the best (see website link below). Haven't used one yet so like you, I have the same questions. http://www.controlledenergy.com/
*Alan, Bosch aquastar 125b and its gas fired.
*I have a aquastar and a takagi k1 in two different houses and I love them and they have been totally trouble free. I like the aquastar better because it is simple and cheaper. We had twenty guests last summer and they all took showers one after another!plus are nergy bills dropped noticably after changing over. I would never go back.
*Technical question here, does "....and we're kind of european in our bathing habits."translate to "Infrequent"? Just curious, Joe H
*I sense a bit of jabbing and sarcasm.Perhaps they mean not standing in the shower for 30 minutes with the water blasting away non-stop.And maybe only once a day instead of 2 - 3 times a day as many Americans would.
*Bob and Nigel,I'm curious whether these new heaters are suseptable to other people using hot water around the house while you're having a shower.
*Other water use in the house does effect the shower BUT that happened with the old heater too. One of these days I will change the valves to pressure balanced types. The only comment made by the family has been "no more waiting for hot water" and the biggest plus no complants about it from the Mrs! She always finds the negative.
*DavidW: Most on-demands are not sized large enough to keep up with more than one fixture. So the shower gets distinctly cooler if someone runs the faucet or dishwasher. A very luxurous appraoch is a hyrbid system where a on-demand feeds through a tanked electric. Set the thermostat of the electric fairly low so it rarely turns on - only during high, multiple-user times. But with 50 gallons of volume, any temperature flucuations from the on-demand are completely evened out. While there will be some losses from the tank, they are not nearly as much as from a tanked gas heater (which has flue losses all of the time). The electric tank can be further wrapped with insulation. So you burn cheap gas to heat 95% of your water, greatly reduce stand-by losses, have infinte shower length, very even temperatures, AND multiple fixtures can be run at the same time. -David
*David and David, I can't speak of any other heater but the Aquastar as that is all I have used in the last ten years. The AQ125 has a pressure regulator that balances the flow and temperature between 2-1/2 to 4 gal/min. or close to it depending on delta T of water. I run mine at about 110degrees. I have a low flow shower head on my shower, but other wise the plumbing is conventional. Sinks and dishwasher do not affect my shower, unless I turn them all on at the same time. Then I am drawing more water than the maximum. The washer and laundry sink are a different matter. I do not try to shower while running a load of wash. I am not sure why, but I can shower with the tub running. The tub flow reduces in volumne but not in temperature.The most important consideration in using on-demand water heaters, for that matter any system, is to carefully identify your needs and use habits. If you want or need 10gallons a minute of 140 degree water, a single residential on-demand heater is not going to help. But if you can keep your water requirements under 4gal/minute at 120 degrees or less than I know the Aquastar 125 will serve your needs fine.walk gooddavid
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Has anyone here installed or lived in a house with an on demand gas hot water heater? We're buying a house that needs plumbing upgrades and a new water heater. Just me and the wife, no kids (yet)....and we're kind of european in our bathing habits. Seems a waste to have all that hot water just hanging around eating up heat, especially since gas prices keep going up. I was wondering how well they work and if any brand stands out. How do they compare to a regular water heater, efficiency wise?