Water Heater Advice for New House

Users who are viewing this thread

Jake Smith

New Member
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Maple Valley, WA
I'm currently building a house in western Washington. Came across this forum when researching the best water heater for my house. The house is 3700 sq ft, with 2 1/2 bathrooms, and four people (me, wife, and 2 kids) living in it. Based on what I've seen in this forum, I'm leaning toward a Phoenix Light Duty water heater in either 50 or 60 gallon size. Might be overkill for us, but this should be our last, or at least long-term house. We're not excessive water users but want to be able to take two showers simultaneously and/or up to four consecutively. We will also have a large tub, but it will probably be used rarely. I'd also prefer not to wait too long at the faucets/showers for hot water. My questions are:

1. Do you agree that the Phoenix Light Duty is a good water heater selection?
2. Would it be worthwhile to put in a recirc system system to ensure hot water is available quickly at each fixture?

Thanks for any input you all can offer. I've found a lot of good information already on this forum.
 

Dj2

In the Trades
Messages
2,611
Reaction score
258
Points
83
Location
California
For 4 people with 2-1/2 baths, a 50 gallon or 75 gallon residential water heater would be just fine. Depending on the locations of your fixtures, a recirculator will come handy.
I was wondering why you were pondering and leaning towards a commercial water heater.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
For 4 people with 2-1/2 baths, a 50 gallon or 75 gallon residential water heater would be just fine. Depending on the locations of your fixtures, a recirculator will come handy.
I was wondering why you were pondering and leaning towards a commercial water heater.

Just a WAG here, but...

The all stainless condensing Phoenix LD will outlast a glass lined (standard or condensing) gas-burner by at least 2x in a residential application, and the modulating 25,000- 76,000 BTU/hr burner guarantees rapid recovery, but isn't insanely oversized for the application like many/most commercial water heaters.

It's also enough burner to run a hydronic air handler (or micro-zoned by room with individual fan coils) heating system for a tight 3700' house in Maple Valley with burner to spare for water heating. This is well worth pondering during the design & construction phase of the house, keeping tabs on an aggressive room by room Manual-J heat load calculation. It might take a slightly larger-burner Phoenix to do it all if it's a fairly lossy house with a code-maximum window area using code-minimum windows, but if built to IRC 2015 code minimum or better with a "reasoable" shape and "reasonable" amount of glass it's likely that the true heat load will come in under 40,000 BTU/hr, and you'd still have 36,000 BTU/hr of burner to spare for heating hot water, which is roughly the burner capacity of a typical standard 50 gallon gas-burner. It would be key to not oversize the air handler's heat capacity by a whole lot and/or use a modulating air handler- you don't want it to hog the burner capacity just to have enough to heat the place to 70F when it's -25F outside (an outdoor temperature than hasn't happened in Maple Valley WA since the last ice age.)

For the record, I heat my place hydronically with modulating tankless water heater set up as a boiler. The biggest zone (by far) is a 1-speed air handler that delievers ~38-40,000 BTU/hr at the ~125F water temperature I'm feeding it via a 48 gallon buffer tank (that has an internal coil heat exchanger for the potable hot water.) Even though tankless the water heater is capable of delivering well over 100,000 BTU/hr, as-operated it never exceeds ~60,000 BTU/hr, even when somebody is taking a long shower when all zones are calling for heat. (My 99% design heat load is between 35-40,000 BTU/hr, and at showering temps I'm radiation limited to about 45,000 BTU/hr out of the air-handler, radiant floors, and radiators- yes, it's micro-zoned.)

Doing it with a Phoenix LD would have been simpler, cheaper, and at least as effective but it didn't exist back when the system was designed.

A recirculation system might be worth it for a 3700' ranch house with the kitchen & laundry on one corner and the master bath on the opposite corner with very long runs. But if it's a 2-story house running the hot water with smaller diameter home-runs to a manifold near the water heater keeps the lengths & wait times well bounded, and is generally more energy efficient.
 

Lalit

Engineer in Home Appliance industry
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
India
I am just curious to know why don't you consider whole house electric tankless water heater? This can give you instant on demand water with low maintenance requirement. and If you want to go for gas heater then you must understand the pros and cons with it. It looks cheaper only in first glance later it will have a lot of cost attached to it.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
I am just curious to know why don't you consider whole house electric tankless water heater? This can give you instant on demand water with low maintenance requirement. and If you want to go for gas heater then you must understand the pros and cons with it. It looks cheaper only in first glance later it will have a lot of cost attached to it.

The incoming water temperatures in that location average about 6-10C (sometimes colder in winter) which takes a HUGE electric tankless to support any reasonable flow volume at 40-45C output.

The extremely high but intermittent power draw of an electric tankless takes a toll on the distribution grid infrastructure, and requires building in higher capacity to the grid. This has costs to all users of the local power grid, which makes electric tankless water heaters lousy public policy.

In some places (not Maple Valley, WA, at least not yet) utility companies are beginning to apply "demand charges" based on the highest 15 (somtimes 30) minutes of power use during the billing period to cover the infrastructure costs for supporting intermittent but high power draw uses. A 10-12 minute shower or tub-fill at 30,000 watts can end up adding quite lot to the power bill, even though the total energy use is the same as if it were drawn from a tank that is heated at 4,500 watts over a longer period. Even if the homeowner isn't paying for that infrastructure directly on their own bill via demand charges, the costs of the grid infrastructure needed to support those types of load gets distributed to all ratepayers on the system.
 

Jadnashua

Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
Messages
32,770
Reaction score
1,190
Points
113
Location
New England
IMHO, electric tankless only makes some sense in a single, point of use application where the flow volume is small. Otherwise, the power requirements just end up being insane.
 

Dana

In the trades
Messages
7,889
Reaction score
509
Points
113
Location
01609
A 27 kilowatt tankless such as the EcoSmart ECO 27 is a downright miserable choice for this location! A power rating 27,000 watts means it maxes out at about 92,000 BTU/hr.

With a ~40F mid-winter incoming water temperature and 105F water at the shower head is a 65F temperature rise. Raising it to 110F for a bathtub fill is a 70F temperature rise. At the 70F temperature rise you're limited to 92,000/70F= 1314 lbs/hr fill rate, or (/60=) ~22 lbs/minute. At 8.34lbs/gall0n that's 2.6 gpm. An average bathtub in the US is between 35- 50 gallons, so you'd be taking a MINIMUM of 15 millions to run a bath.

It's enough to run a single shower in winter with a hint of margin at this house, but not much more.

And an intermittent 27kw load for 15-20 minutes requires significant distribution grid infrastructure to support.
 

Reach4

Well-Known Member
Messages
38,892
Reaction score
4,436
Points
113
Location
IL
An average bathtub in the US is between 35- 50 gallons, so you'd be taking a MINIMUM of 15 millions to run a bath.
I think you are not compensating for body displacement.
 

Jadnashua

Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
Messages
32,770
Reaction score
1,190
Points
113
Location
New England
Electric tankless is a peak power hog, and unlikely to provide whole-house hot water unless you can accept what most people would consider substandard functionality. They can work as a point of use device for some applications. Most houses do not have enough power to allow them to function well. If you have really low expectations, maybe.
 

ruffryder

New Member
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Fall City, Washington
You can get the Phoenix Light Duty from Home Depot. I believe they are currently on sale.

I purchased one a while ago and am finally getting ready to install it. We have two adults and three kids in our house (only 1500 sq. ft.)

From all my research it should be a great unit. Also, might need to put a shower timer to turn off the hot water for teenagers .. lol

Here is a couple of links from someone else that was in a similar position.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/water-distribution-re-plumb.59287/#post-446983

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....stion-powered-direct-vent-water-heater.59061/
 
Last edited:

Master Plumber Mark

Sensitivity trainer and plumber of mens souls
Messages
5,538
Reaction score
357
Points
83
Location
indianapolis indiana - land of the free, home of
Website
www.weilhammerplumbing.com
What is the matter with just a plain old fashioned 60 or 75 gallon Rheem gas hot water heater??
Simple and easy to service, parts are easily available....?? What is the reason everyone wants to
make this decision so complicated for>?
you would think its going to be installed in the next space shuttle
the moon....instead of just in your un-sexy old laundry room

Electric tankless heaters all suck big time and
with some people its like you are talking politics or religion with them...
I just tangled with someone who wanted an electric tankless heater and I told him he was crazy to
go with one, and before I could get another word out of my mouth he hung up the phone on me
and gave me a bad review on Yelp.... he gets on there and says I was dis-respectful and dishonest.

I wish I could have found this thread last week and texted him a link to it....
it has not ended with this fellow yet....





 

Master Plumber Mark

Sensitivity trainer and plumber of mens souls
Messages
5,538
Reaction score
357
Points
83
Location
indianapolis indiana - land of the free, home of
Website
www.weilhammerplumbing.com

thanks terry,,, I hope that your review stays on my front page for a while... You have 7 yelp reviews so it might stay on the front page for a while... People with a lot of yelp reviews have more staying power and clout than little yelpers with only one review...

This guy I am talking about named Charles really hates my guts for basically telling him he is crazy to take out a 80 gallon electric and installing a electric tankless heater....
I sort of get the feeling that he is off his rocker...or he is some sort of Yelp arm-chair commando... he is man enough to call me dishonest on Yelp, but
he wont answer or return my calls .....

This all went down last wednesday, when I told simply him to stay away from electric tankless

and then on this tuesday I get a nasty text from
him telling me how much he dislikes me and then he texted me a picture of a GAS tankless heater some other plumbing company installed.....

So he gets mad at me for telling him I dont install
electric tankless heaters then he goes out and gets a gas tankless from someone else and then sends me a "gloating text" ???? LOL......

see if you can find anything wrong with the install this other plumber did.

I went ahead and critiqued the installation on Yelp in my reply to this guy
just to rub some salt into the wound........

Terry, do you see anything wrong ....??





 

Attachments

  • 20171004_142645_1507142011621_1507165892946.jpeg
    20171004_142645_1507142011621_1507165892946.jpeg
    73 KB · Views: 322
Last edited:

Jadnashua

Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
Messages
32,770
Reaction score
1,190
Points
113
Location
New England
Looks like the gas supply line is probably undersized, but maybe not, depending on the system pressure. Don't see any isolation valves so it can be demineralized next year when it will need it, either.
 

Master Plumber Mark

Sensitivity trainer and plumber of mens souls
Messages
5,538
Reaction score
357
Points
83
Location
indianapolis indiana - land of the free, home of
Website
www.weilhammerplumbing.com
Looks like the gas supply line is probably undersized, but maybe not, depending on the system pressure. Don't see any isolation valves so it can be demineralized next year when it will need it, either.

Thanks for your input.... I know the gas line should be supported better and should not have a 2 foot arm just coming
off the bottom of it.... just hanging there attached to the yellow track pipe coming down from the ceiling...
That needs to be strapped up to the ceiling with bailing wire or holy iron at the very least.....
and odds are its probably undersized...

Cant say for sure from the picture if they installed isolation valves on the bottom or not
but it does not look like they did... cant see the t+p valve either....

I had to be a dick and point this out to him........:D:D:)
 

GTOwagon

Member
Messages
101
Reaction score
4
Points
18
Location
Ballston Lake NY
We have a Rheem power direct vent seventy five gallon WH and it uses something like ten to twelve gallons of propane a month for the two of us. We don't run out of hot water when we shower, or do laundry or run the DW... I buy my propane during the summer and fill my inground tank. I think I paid a buck forty five a gallon. I will never have a tankless WH. I agree with Mark.
 
Top
Hey, wait a minute.

This is awkward, but...

It looks like you're using an ad blocker. We get it, but (1) terrylove.com can't live without ads, and (2) ad blockers can cause issues with videos and comments. If you'd like to support the site, please allow ads.

If any particular ad is your REASON for blocking ads, please let us know. We might be able to do something about it. Thanks.
I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks