Lowboy water heaters

[Jensen567]

Anyone have any experience with lowboy or other short water heaters? I currently have a 55 gal electric unit, but need more capacity, however I am very limited in height so I was thinking about going with dual 50 gal lowboy units in parallel. Is this a reasonable thing to do?

The best ones I have found so far are AO Smith 48 gal units, but they are from Lowes and I have not heard great things on here. Anyone have other suggestions? I can't fit much more height wise. I considered tankless but dont have natural gas or propane available, and electric tankless doesnt seem like a great option.

https://m.lowes.com/pd/A-O-Smith-Si...uble-Element-Electric-Water-Heater/1000216825

 

[Dj2]

Lowboy is low, tall tank is tall. Think car batteries: they all doing the same thing, while they come in various dimensions.

AO Smith from Lowes is left over American Whirlpool WHs, which AO Smith took over about 2 yrs ago. If not AO Smith, what else will you get? Rheem? Bradford White? Any brand name out there in your area would be made by one of these three.

To me, an appliance that is expected to live 6 years, is just that, an appliance.

Replace the WH with the lowest price unit(s) you can find. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

You should get 2 RHEEM low boys and hook them up in series... Series is best because no matter
what happens you still get 100% of the water to your home instead of some restriction in the top
of one of the units hooked up in parallell... also if one goes out in 10 years all you got to do is replace it
in series and it does not make a flow difference......

series is best....

also A.o.Smith from Lowes are dog shit...

 

[Jensen567]

In series the first heater in the chain would be doing almost all the work though wouldn't it? Unless I used all of the hot water in both tanks, the second heater would always be getting hot water into the inlet. At that point I would think just a single heater with a second storage tank would make more sense, then have a recirculating pump on a thermostat to feed water from the storage tank back into the heater if it cools off too much.

Rheem doesnt seem to make lowboy heaters, they have shorts, but those are probably too tall at almost 48in. They have point of use up to 30 gallon that would fit, but I would like more capacity than that, 40 gal would probably be minimum, 50 is preferred. I may be missing something on their website however, so if you have a series or model number in mind let me know.

 

[Jensen567]

Bradford White does have a 47 gal lowboy model, a bit more expensive, but it isn't from a big box store, and from the photos it at least has a metal drain valve which leads me to believe it is likely at least a bit better quality.

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

In series the first heater in the chain would be doing almost all the work though wouldn't it? Unless I used all of the hot water in both tanks, the second heater would always be getting hot water into the inlet. At that point I would think just a single heater with a second storage tank would make more sense, then have a recirculating pump on a thermostat to feed water from the storage tank back into the heater if it cools off too much.

Rheem doesnt seem to make lowboy heaters, they have shorts, but those are probably too tall at almost 48in. They have point of use up to 30 gallon that would fit, but I would like more capacity than that, 40 gal would probably be minimum, 50 is preferred. I may be missing something on their website however, so if you have a series or model number in mind let me know.

I have installed them both ways over the years and always found the the series way is fool proof
because you know for 100 % sure both heaters are in the game... Many times in parallell one unit
always seems to go out long before the other one does because of the unions corroding shut on one
faster than the other one does ,,, or the simple fact that the pipes are not perfuectly plumbed the same and
it draws off one more than the other ....

.In series , it does not matter which one does all the work because you are gonna for sure draw close to
100 gallons of water off the units... for sure.. You can even make the first incomming unit be the pre heat
unit and the outgoing unit do all the real heating if you so desire...... and they dont have to be identicle tanks.

Rheem makes a low boy short heater... about 36 inches tall.. I just installed one of them last week.....y