On-demand hot water heaters

Since I've got the laundry room ceiling out and having a new HVAC put in tomorrow, I'm looking to update the water heater in the next week or two before I button it back up.

I've been looking at this unit: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Ec...PIPHorizontal1_rr-_-203404946-_-203404940-_-N

Reviews seem to be good for it on both HD and Amazon and installation should be pretty easy at this point. The inlet/outlet lines match up to how my current heater is configured too.

They've got a little larger unit, but thinking it would be overkill since we only have two baths in the house anyway.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rheem-Ec...nkless-Gas-Water-Heater-ECOH200DVLN/203404946
 
Learned something today after someone asked me about calcium build up on the tankless units. Got me to thinking about the adapters I bought for the bottom of the unit, which each had a service port on it (garden hose connection). Turns out these are used to pump water and vinegar through the unit to descale it.

Found this kit on amazon, but someone in one of the reviews said it was overkill, a small fountain pump with a garden hose attachment will do the job...
http://www.amazon.com/Tankless-Wate...sr=8-2&keywords=descale+tankless+water+heater

These are the connectors...
http://www.amazon.com/Rheem-RTG2022..._sim_60_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1Q11J6DV8TWYCA0487CJ
 
Thats interesting. I guess one of the harbor freight 12v pumps would do the job too.

http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-marine-utility-water-pump-94639.html

Yeah, the comment said something even as small as 200 gpm would work, someone else mentioned it was a 1/6hp sump pump in the kit above, HF carries those too... http://www.harborfreight.com/16-HP-Submersible-Utility-Pump-1350-GPH-68422.html

Also may want to put a filter inline too. The unit I have has a sediment filter on the inlet, but wouldn't hurt to have another.
 
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I run a pot of straight vinegar through my coffee maker a couple times a year just to clean it up. Makes the whole kitchen smell Vinegar fresh :whistling:
 
Never heard of doing this here in Japan, maybe we don't have hard water?
We certainly do NOT have those flush valves on our system, and turning the gas off to your unit would break a seal they put on the valve which could land you in BIG trouble here.

Interesting for sure.
 
Probably so, different areas around here require different systems. We're on city water, so it's pretty good and shouldn't need to do the flush often. However my parents well had water that if it was any harder, you'd be able to skate on it. :rolleyes:
 
Well, not the way I wanted to spend my Fathers day, but got the unit installed and working today. Still have a few things to button up and tidy up, but works like a charm. I had planned to run the gas line in solid pipe all the way, but didn't have the size I needed and store had closed, so re-used my flex line I used to temporarily connect the old tank last week when I re ran the gas line for the new unit. Also need to run the drain line off the relief valve.

2015-06-21 21.45.41.jpg

The larger section of pipe on the top intake is a condensation trap. I still need to drill and tap a drain line onto it, didn't have a 1/4" mip tap handy.
2015-06-21 21.45.52.jpg

Some of you may remember the pic of the water arrester/ballast that sat above my old water tank. I pulled it off today and it was full of water and rust, looks like the bladder went bad. I couldn't find another at the borg, so thinking back to what dad would have done. He used to put a 3/4" x 30" pipe off the main line at the entrance to the house for houses that had water/pipe banging issues, usually due to builders not putting water arresters at the faucets. So that is what I did and it works well.
2015-06-21 21.46.09.jpg 2015-06-21 21.46.01.jpg
 
Still worked this morning and tonight, so looks like the work paid off. The water arrester seems to be doing the job too, not heard any bangs from any of the faucets. :thumb:
 
Interesting what u did for water arrester, on my first home when still a bachelor, i added a geyser to the house (original was tiny) and we had a device that got attached to end of water line to do same thing. It was expected that one install them on both lines. At the time i did it i never gave them a second thought but i think they were more for pressure balance so u could flush a toilet and not scold the person in the shower, always been my pet peeve. Dads home had a flush system that would suck the pressure out the cold line and boom i would get scolded in the shower. Lol not funny at time.

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Yeah, I could see that being the case. I had considered adding one on the hot water side, but decided against it. We've got the faucets that auto adjust to pressure changes, so no one will get scolded in the bath. As a mater of fact I still had the hot water side disconnected and wanted to get the air out of the cold water side so we could flush toilets and such. The cold water side on those faucets wouldn't even run without pressure on the hot side.
 
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