The tankless water heater is in and hooked up (not fired up yet). Not shown below are the electrical connection and the remote monitor panel connection.

The Tankless Water Heater sans cover:

I have to say, I have intensly mixed feelings about installing this water heater.

On the plus side:
1) Space saver. No large water heater closet needed.
2) No vent stack needed.
3) Efficient. Costs MUCH less to operate over the year than its tanked brethren.
4) Geekiness. It has a remote panel that indicates water flow, inlet and outlet temperatures, you can set the water temp, and turn it off as well.

On the minus side:
1) Cost. It about 30% more spendy to purchase then it’s tanked brethren, although some of that is offset by the lack of need to buy and install a new vent stack.
2) Complexity. MUCH more complex than the old fashioned kind. Computer boards, electric ignitors, and miscellaneous sensors are involved. I’m just worried that it won’t be reliable and long lasting. Only time will tell. It’s an expensive experiment…

Back to the installation…

If anything at all scares me about this project, it’s how much all the little things add up.

Water heater? No problem. I know the cost and planned for it.

Hooking up said water heater? Youch! Three high-grade flexible hoses. A gas pipe and fittings. A gas valve and flexible hose. Several brass nipples. Various fittings. If I add in the isolater valves required…we’re in the $200 range…just in fittings to hook the durn thing up. Sheesh.

Moving inside…the tankless is fed from, and returns the hot water to a PEX manifold, which serves as a distribution point for all the needed fresh water plumbing in the house, much like a breaker box for electricity.

The Manifold and Filters:

Keep in mind all this will be embedded in a wall (framing is there) with cabinet doors for access…probably all beadboard for those that must know.

Advantages are no joints under the house or in the walls, quicker hot water to its usage point, ease and cost of installation, code approval, and more (discussed in a different article/later). The PEX manifold is fed from the main via the filters above.

Some will ask about the need for filters…I installed them as the tankless hot water heaters all recommend a good sediment filter be installed before them in the line. The heat exchangers are so fine that sediment could clog them up and also cause corrosion.

Well, if I’m going to filter sediment from the hot water, I may as well for the cold too.

Two filters…the first one courser then the second, which lengthens the change period to probably every 6-9 months. I’ll just do it every 6 months…ya know…when you’re supposed to change your smoke and CO detector alarms. Y’all DO change those alarm batteries every 6 months, yes?

Water sent to outside spigots will NOT be filtered (waste of media).

Now…if I can just avoid cross-wiring this cool looking thing to the new electrical service, ala “Three Stooges” … you know…water shooting out the chandelier and such…then life will be good!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

There are terrifying things afoot in this picture:

This picture was taken by the wife…catching me working on the water heater. There are scary things going on here.

That the wife caught me working is scary enough…but that’s not it.

The fact that I managed to use nearly $200 worth of parts to simply hook up a water heater is truly terrifying…but is not the point here.

See the pumpkins? The wife probably thinks I’m losing it…as in crazy…but they are stalking me. Yeah, the pumpkins. They weren’t there when I started…they just began showing up! First one…then another…then a third. Closer and closer they came…only moving when nobody was watching. The eventually crowded me out of that workspace.

And…I swear, one of them stole my pipe wrench…

And if a pumpkin with a pipe wrench isn’t a scary thing…I don’t know what is!

And oh…there’s more of their gourd-brained buddies waiting in the wings…

Halloween is coming! Spooky things are a-brewing at the Old Vic!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

All this actually means is that a hot water line broke…but yeah, I’m a geek.

Actually, in an ideal world I would have had the problem corrected before it started…but what can I say. The house got ahead of me.

We had a very minor water leak in the old plumbing since we got the house. The meter would barely tick over. I didn’t worry too much about it since I would be completely replacing the plumbing.

Shortly, I figured out it was on the hot water side, and that was even better, as we could shut off the hot water at the water heater and not leak anything except when we needed it on. The water is off to the house when we are not there.

Repair it? Yeah, I should have…but I had looked under the house and could find no leak. Wherever it was (perhaps underground), it was small enough that I could not see or hear it.

Not to worry…it was going to be replaced. It was not worth an extended effort at repairing something I was replacing shortly anyway.

I had promised myself that the house would not “get ahead” of me…as in, simply maintaining the current condition of the house would not take up so much of my time that I was not progressing forward on the rennovations.

The house got ahead of me. Sigh. The line let go. We drained the water heater of hot water in 10 minutes. I still could not hear the leak. We shut off the hot water plumbing.

We were still weeks away from being on the new water heater, and those cold baths are really COLD…cold as in…me screaming like a cheerleader on helium…cold as in…me telling the wife to put on a bra or “you’ll put somebody’s eye out with those things.”

With winter coming on it was only going to get worse…so I decided to have a look. A quick repair or a capping off a bad section could regain us the use of SOME of the hot water for the couple weeks we still need it.

My Dad came out for some much appreciated help on the house this weekend, so I headed under the house and had him crack the valve a few times…this way I could hear the spurt.

Yep, under the kitchen. Underground.

Dihydrogen monoxide venting device…

The pic above is the pipe I pulled out. New(er) CPVC coming from the water heater to the old iron headed for the kitchen. Can y’all spot the vent?

I cut the pvc and the rest just broke off. Done for. We capped the line and now have hot water in the bathroom…

That will do until we are on the new system…which, by the way, we started installing!

The new tankless hot water heater is in, simply waiting gas and water lines, and we installed the main manifold this weekend. Should go pretty fast now.

The new PEX manifold. The water heater is externally mounted in a flush mount cabinet…you can see the back of it…the white cabinet in the lower left of this picture.

Not shown (of course, since I haven’t built it yet) is all the cabinetry that surrounds this area.

And for the non-geeks out there:

1. Dihydrogen monoxide is an incorrect way of saying H20 (water).
2. Majel Barrett is the voice of the ship’s computer in most of the later Star Trek stuff.
3. 40,000 btu’s per hour is the output of the old gas water heater.

More later. Nearly three inches of rain Saturday night and Sunday slowed us down a bit…but by golly…We have DOORS!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Anyway, “Getting near the end of the year” triggered some sort of “I’ve got to get this done” reflex…

That “reflex” conspired with my brain to schedule this last weekend for me to tear out the bad utility room wall and replace it, complete with moving the window and framing in for the new french doors (which involves a deck as well).

Heh…yeah…a “minor” project to be sure…

Of course my brain forgot one key thing.

August.

In Texas.

It’s still HOT! Duh!

Even if you’re used to the heat, an hour’s work time outside in the heat (and famous east Texas humidity) means some mandatory time inside recovering from the heat. There’s a really valid reason for siesta’s!

Thus, when your brain conspires to fry you to carbonized fiddly-bits with a massive project in the heat, you will get less than half of what you expect to, done. Ah well.

We are working on the utility room. It’s the first “major” piece, as when done, gets us a somewhat kitchen-y place (it will have a counter and sink), laundry facilities, and most importantly, the new hot water heater and plumbing manifold. The old water heater MUST go for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is it’s trying to kill me. Anyway, even though the house is currently occupiable, we may be moving into it “sooner rather than later” and the infrastructure really needed to be further along.

Soooo…this is the outside…the entire wall past the air-conditioner (which will go away later in favor of the original window), is a badly modified screened in porch. The wall leaks water, is unstable, and is not suitable for bearing the load required of it. It was simply put together a little haphazardly. Since I’m moving the window to the corner (where the screen door is now) and the door around the corner (a pair of french doors goes in there), it was simply time to rebuild it. The intent here on the exterior is to match the sunporch for the bottom detail, and then we’ll put fishscale up top for some character.

Here’s a closer view…everything with the horizontal siding to the corner needs rebuilt. If you look closely, you can see it buldging out a bit…at the junction between the horizontal siding and the vertical stuff below.

Here is the inside, facing the same direction. You can see the window, which will move, and the single screen door, which will go away. Directly ahead is where the double french doors are going in.

Annnnnnnd here is the mess that is the outside of that corner. The shed thing will go away and a deck/stair will go in the corner for the french doors.

Gad…what a mess this thing is. This area will look SOOO much better with this thing gone.

It’s ruining the side of the house above it too…flashing’s not right etc.

Inside again…the wall in question. Yes, we’re saving the window. It’s moving to the corner by the door. That wall will be cabinets and the washer and dryer.

Here we are…old wall gone, new framing in place. There are some pictures (somewhere) with no wall in place and only my rickety supports holding up the roof…but I think they are on the wife’s camera. I couldn’t bring myself to stop work for any reason whilst it was so unsupported.

The really observant of you may notice a spacing difference on one set of studs…before emailing me about my sloppy framing work, please know this is to accomodate the flush mount in-the-wall tankless water heater cabinet, which you can see leaning against the inside wall in the above picture.

From the inside

And here is as far as I got this weekend. The lower siding is on, which is vertical 1×3 tongue and groove, and matches the sunroom exterior lower wall as I intended. It breaks right where it currently ends (for the water heater cabinet again) and then will continue on to the corner and under the window. That top rail was a difficult cut! It lacks one piece of trim to match completely (a fancy quarter-round), well, that and primer and paint will make it look ever-so-much-better.

More to do…the upper will be sheathed in plywood, and then covered with fish-scale cedar shakes to match the way the front of the house is done and add some character to an otherwise boring wall. I have to frame from the end of my new wall to the corner (currently left out because we need that door/stair space for egress at the moment), and I have to frame up the french doors around the corner (before I frame that last section).

And just for those that may be curious…there are only two pieces of “new” wood in the entire construction. I reclaimed the rest from the tear out of this and other added things as we’ve gone along.

I know it looks a mess now…but there really is a plan. It’ll all come together soon! More next weekend!

I SOOO look forward to the day when things start looking better!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

This thread however, is about how the water heater was just filler. I couldn’t get it out of the box fast enough.

Yeah. The cat wanted the box. Since the cat is a 22 lb Maine Coon and five of his six ends are all pointy…well, yeah. The heater was just filler.

Apparently I paid something around $700 for a cardboard box.

It started small however…like these things do…

See, the wife got me a new pair of shoes. They came in a box.

Now understand, Maine Coon’s can talk. If you have one you know. If you don’t, well…just take my word for it.

The shoes. They came in a box.

“Casper”…the forementioned 22 pounds of fur, muscle, and sharp points, said, “Ooooo! A box! Gimme gimme gimme!”

I put on the shoes. Casper put on the box.

It seems it’s much the same process.

My big ‘ole feet don’t fit into shoes easily…

And a 22 pound cat just does not fit in a shoe box.

Except that somehow…they do:

Quite contentedly, he wedged himself in and would not be removed.

That was…by golly…*HIS* box.

And then the doorbell rang. The magic Fed-Ex fairy delivered a NEW box…and more importantly…a MUCH BIGGER BOX!

I clearly heard, “What? Oh? . . . . OooooooooooooooOOOooooOOOOooooo Muhahahahahahahaha!” from the box of fur on the couch.

He chased me into the kitchen to get the box cutter. “Open open open open open open open open open open …”

He chased me back into the living room to “help” me open the box.

“Open open open open open open open open open open …”

When I wasn’t moving fast enough he swatted me on the ankle.

“Cooooome ON! Open open open open open…Put your back into it now!”

Soon, I had the filler (the $700 water heater) dumped out on the rug.

“MINE!” Kaslooooomp! One cat, instantly installed in one box.

Hours later…still there.

And now…I’m left with a shoe-box to put my water heater in for the trip to the Old Vic. I’m not gonna try to reclaim the big one…would you?

Hmmm…I can’t wait till some of the big boxes show up…

Hey, if the new lightbulb uses 1/10th the power…I can put in 9 extra lightbulbs, yes? LOL!

Victorian “attitude” is what we are striving for…so, while we will have modern amenities, to the degree possible, we will attempt to have them blend in or look the part.

On that front anyway…the Victorians were innovative and had no hesitation in adapting themselves and their homes to the latest technologies available.

Anyway, one example for us…hot water.

There will be 3-1/2 baths in this house when we are done, along with a well equipped kitchen and laundry/utility room. We need plenty of hot water.

Tankless or tanked…that is the question.

A year ago, the tankless units just didn’t make sense from a cost standpoint. They are much more efficient, yes, but they were also so much more expensive that the cost put the recovery of the difference in price on utilities at something over 12 years. Doubtful that the unit would last that long without service, so there was no break-even point, and probably even a loss.

Efficiency at a loss is not gonna happen for us.

Of course there are other factors. The tankless have advantages over an tank model…if properly installed/sized, endless hot water, and more importantly for our purposes, the tankless ones don’t need a large water heater closet taking up your ever-so-scarce-storage space in your old Victorian!

The current water heater is installed in the master bathroom with no closet…not only ugly and in the way…and taking up space that could be better used…it must have a closet and external venting to meet current building codes. Heh…the current water heater vents into the attic (!!!) as well…but that’s an entirely different discussion.

Now, whilst we are not obligated to meet any current building codes…I do believe in doing so if it does not alter the fundemental character of the house.

If keeping a tank model, a new water heater closet and proper vent stack would be installed in the new utility room.

Tank at lower cost, or tankless with better space usage. The space for the water heater closet will be better put to use as a linen closet

Hmmm…tough decision. As usual, when I have tough decisions to make, I put them off as long as I can whilst more information trickles in. Not really procrastinating…I know from experience that things change fast if you are keeping your eyes open…

Rather suddenly, the price point on the tankless heaters has dropped enough to make them cost-effective.

We bought this one. The magic FedEx fairy dropped it off in our entry hall yesterday. For some reason I had to sign for it. Not sure why…they’ve left a thousand dollars worth of books on the stoop (in the rain) before. Is there a “sign here” threshold? Dollars per pound? Dollars per cubic inch of packing?

On a side note…the magic USP and FedEx fairies must really be getting to hate us…the size, shape, and weight of stuff they have to deliver here is varied and … interesting …

This unit mounts outside (saving me space), needs no vent stack (saving me money), and was only a couple hundred dollars more than a 50 gallon-tank model. Since the stack for the tank model would have cost another couple hundered or so…well…Sweet!

I splurged and ordered the remote control/information panel as well. The geek in me loves that. You can view incoming and outgoing water temperatures, set the peak temperature, turn the unit on or off, and see any diagnostic warnings.

Not shown…the steel cabinet that allows it to be flush mounted in an exterior wall, thus, not detracting from the appearance of the house. The cabinet has not arrived yet. I will, of course, post pics of the install…well…that and the wall I have to rebuild for the install…

But hey, it’s “period” anyway! The new tankless water heater is just the modern, survivable version of the old monster that was once used here:

Oh, and I gotta say…this is my most very favorite “universal” label EVER:

I can imagine the screams…or the little guy yelling, “WEEEEeeeeee!”

I’m still wondering whether to take it as a warning…or instructions for the sort of thing that starts off with me handing somebody my beer and saying, “Hey y’all, watch this!”

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Another fun thing is we get to torture the UPS man with all the wierd and wonderful stuff that shows up at our doorstep.

This showed up yesterday. Anybody care to take a guess?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer