Straight Talk About "On-Demand Tankless Water Heaters by A.O. Smith

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dimprov

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I'm sure noise is a "who cares?" topic for most people. Too bad for them. Ignorance isn't always bliss. I care about getting an accurate noise measurement because I care about getting quality sleep. Yes, quality sleep. Ever wake up tired after a full nights sleep? There are many possible reasons, obviously, but one very real possible cause is environmental noise. Now, I know you tough guys will wave this off, but I'm serious. Wikipedia says threshold for noise producing sleep disturbance is 45 dB(A) or lower. You can prove it in a sleep lab. I've seen the video. It's real.

Anyway, that's why this is more than academic to me, especially in a scenario where tankless might be used for hydronic heating. I have a typical 4 bedroom house, and no matter where I put it, it could bother the sleep of someone in one of those bedrooms. Plain-vanilla tanked would be the quietest, but I'm exploring tankless alternatives for unusual reasons that I won't bore you with. I might be able to build a custom muffling enclosure, using soundproofing materials, if I used a zero-clearance closed combustion tankless. However, it's not as easy as it sounds. If you nail or screw the tankless to a framing member (in the attic say), then noise will conduct through the nails/screws, bypassing the soundproofing. You still get some benefit, but not as much as if it were fully isolated. The intake/exhaust vent pipes can also transmit/transfer noise from the tankless--not to mention the water pipes themselves. Has anyone thought this through and arrived at a solution? If necessary I'll re-invent the wheel, but I prefer not to.

David
 
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Sjsmithjr

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You might look into something like "isotrax" for an interior wall. Off the top of my head I haven't got a clue as to how to isolate exhaust noise on an indoor unit.

Outdoor unit mounted using isolation hardware?

You might want to start your own thread to keep your topic out of the weeds.
 
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Redwood

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I'm sure noise is a "who cares?" topic for most people. Too bad for them. Ignorance isn't always bliss. I care about getting an accurate noise measurement because I care about getting quality sleep. Yes, quality sleep. Ever wake up tired after a full nights sleep? There are many possible reasons, obviously, but one very real possible cause is environmental noise. Now, I know you tough guys will wave this off, but I'm serious. Wikipedia says threshold for noise producing sleep disturbance is 45 dB(A) or lower. You can prove it in a sleep lab. I've seen the video. It's real.

Anyway, that's why this is more than academic to me, especially in a scenario where tankless might be used for hydronic heating. I have a typical 4 bedroom house, and no matter where I put it, it could bother the sleep of someone in one of those bedrooms. Plain-vanilla tanked would be the quietest, but I'm exploring tankless alternatives for unusual reasons that I won't bore you with. I might be able to build a custom muffling enclosure, using soundproofing materials, if I used a zero-clearance closed combustion tankless. However, it's not as easy as it sounds. If you nail or screw the tankless to a framing member (in the attic say), then noise will conduct through the nails/screws, bypassing the soundproofing. You still get some benefit, but not as much as if it were fully isolated. The intake/exhaust vent pipes can also transmit/transfer noise from the tankless--not to mention the water pipes themselves. Has anyone thought this through and arrived at a solution? If necessary I'll re-invent the wheel, but I prefer not to.

David

I have heard comments about the noise from panel mounting being transfered to the frame of the house in other threads on forums. Isolation mounting would be highly desireable for this reason.

I'm convinced that we can't get any subjective statements from either Greg or Laddy Boy on this...
One offers an estimate based on his ear comparison to a vacuum cleaner I think it was and the other was a guy that the airlines would love to have measuring the sound level of their jets taking off at an airport with noise limitations... "It was pretty quiet on the DbZ scale 10 miles away!":eek:
 

dimprov

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Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I think I'll price out a CMU or ICF exterior structure. They look fairly easy to build.

By the way, 60 Minutes did a show sometime in the last year or two on sleep deprivation. A sleep lab used intermittent sound to disrupt the deep sleep of young test subjects. In no time at all the measured health of the test subjects declined dramatically. If I remember correctly, they actually had to halt the experiment early because the health effects were more extreme than anyone had predicted. What was especially interesting is that when interviewed the poor bastards said they thought they were sleeping just fine. The truth wasn't revealed to them until after the experiment.

So just fyi: even if it's killing you, chances are you don't realize it.

Sweet dreams. :D

David
 
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Sjsmithjr

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Best of luck to you on your project David, whatever the heck it is! :D By the way, based on your location, you might want to look into dry stacking with a bonding coat. Send me an IM if you want to discuss it further.
 
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