
Tankless Water Heaters
* used in Europe since the 1970's
* save space, save energy, and never run out of hot water
* last a really long time- 20 years or more is common, as long as you perform regular maintenance
* can be mounted high to create extra space underneath
General Maintenance
* required every 2 years if you have a water softener (1 year if you don't, depending on usage)
* consists of a 45-minute de-scale / de-lime flush & a 5-point inspection
* cost for this service: $105 per unit
Electric Tankless:
* Although gas tankless heaters give you the most gallons-per-minute for a certain energy cost,
some good electric options have recently come to market
* To learn more about Electric Tankless Water Heaters, click here:
Some Pics:
Top of the line, all stainless steel pipes & heat exchanger, built-in recirculating pump, 15-year warranty on heat exchanger
put as many together as needed for unlimited power when you need it- and no wasted energy when you don't.
Put them nice and high so you can increase storage space underneath. Separate controller-keypad can be installed lower for your convenience, and most newer units are controllable through your cell phone.
remove your old water heater & platform to pick up a closet worth of space
We are constantly taking training classes to stay up to date on all the current technologies & techniques.
Some of our work:
removed old water heater and installed new Tankless. Was able to preserve the old recirculation system thus saving the customer a significant amount of money
installed exterior tankless in a tight spot to service a Casita
Many Problems! Hot & Cold Valves switched, safety-release valve on the wrong side, safety-release valve not attached to a dedicated pipe of proper material
Hot & Cold valves now in the correct location; difficult soldering job came out great; PVC drip line isolated & moved to the side; safety-release valve now attached to proper CPVC Pipe & on its own dedicated line
Fixed improper installation, & general service
Many Problems! Hot & Cold Valves switched, safety-release valve on the wrong side, safety-release valve not attached to a dedicated pipe of proper material. Service ports oriented 90 degrees to the right making it very difficult to attach service hoses.
had to move the gas line in order to get my hoses in, but managed to do a proper de-scale & de-lime treatment. This had not been done in many years, solution was very quickly changing colors. Normally we recommend this gets done every year, & generally only costs about $100. We also removed the Inlet Water Screen & cleaned it out.
Igniters should be removed, inspected, and if needed cleaned with some very fine sandpaper. This is to insure a good strong spark.
We discovered a tiny pinhole in the Intake Pipe, had to special order the part from Rinnai & get it by Next-day air
In order to remove the Pipe we had to pull the Manifold Cover. This was something we were going to do anyway in order to clean it. As you can see, a Tankless Water Heater has a lot of scary-looking parts, sort of like a combination of a computer & a car engine.
Removed the Fan & used compressed air to blow out debris & dust. In some restaurant applications the fan is often covered in sticky goo & needs to be submersed in degreaser. However this fan was only dusty.
used compressed air to blow out the manifold cover. In restaurant applications this is often covered in sticky goo & needs to be submersed in degreaser, but in this case it was only dusty.
used compressed air to blow out the manifold. In restaurant applications this is often covered in sticky goo & needs to be submersed in degreaser, but in this case it was only dusty.
Here is the pay-off for doing a deep clean of the fan, manifold cover, & manifold: a nice blue flame. This indicates that the unit is functioning well. An Orange flame would indicate that not enough oxygen was getting to the unit, meaning that parts were dirty & clogged. This blue flame is exactly what we want to see.
Now comes the challenging part. There was not a lot of room to work, and the lower pipes were fixed & not accessible. I had one chance to get this right.
A tankless water heater has valves that allow for yearly cleaning by giving a cleaning port. In addition the red valves come with the safety-release attached. This is why it is essential that the red valve is always on the left. Hot is always on the left in plumbing.
This tool really helped to polish & clean the ends of the Copper. I highly recommend it.
After cutting the valves out and cleaning them with wire brush, they are now re-installed in the proper location. I oriented them 45 degrees out to make it very easy to access the service ports in the future.
Custom cut & polished the unions, a lot of deburring required to make them function after being cut. The special fabric seen in the pic is heat proof to 1500 degrees. It helps to make a nice clean job. I don't like to see excess solder splattered all over the place and burn marks on the walls.
This came out about as good as could be expected given the tight working conditions. My tip to those who solder: spend extra time polishing & deburring the fittings, do a dry fit first before applying flux, and apply heat on one side and solder on the opposite side from where the heat is, this helps eliminate drips and also makes sure that you have enough heat all around.
drip line & safety-valve looking good, nice neat organized service area.
Had to cut an exit for the safety-valve line, thought it would be an easy job, I thought wrong! Burned my 2.5" hole saw, didn't know that besides the stucco I had to go through a layer of metal, 2 layers of ply, and a 2x6!
with the hole drilled large enough to accommodate a 90degree elbow, just have to purple primer & then glue the fitting and this pipe, then lift this pipe 1/2" put in the fitting and set it back down. Then magic foam, and stucco repair.
Fits perfect now just add the glue pull up on the top pipe and fit them. Then add magic foam to fill the hole & stucco patch the outside.
All done, to code, safe, descaled, delimed, deep cleaned, ready to make hot water for another 10 years. The average life of these units is 20-25 years. With good service, they can last even longer.
Point-of-use Commercial Project
* old single-faucet tank-style water heater not performing well
* faucet & drain completely rusted & rotted
* New Rheem 29Amp single-faucet Tankless Water heater saves space & never runs out of hot water
* New faucet & drain installed, new stainless steel braided supply hoses installed
old single-faucet standard tank water heater was 12 years old and not performing well; commercial faucet & drain was rotted and rusted.
New Rheem single-faucet Tankless Water Heater installed. 29Amp unit is more powerful than 15A, and makes as fast a flow as expected from standard tanks. New commercial faucet & drain; new stainless steel supply lines. Significant space savings.
ready for another 30 years of service!