I have a new Rinnai in the house I purchased 2 years ago-(installed just before we moved in) I echo all the comments about the wait for hot water to reach the tap, and temperature not being that hot, and the requirement for a water softener to be installed in Calgary- I like the fact that I don't run out of hot water, but in general I'm not sure It's worth it, I'm not sure if this one failed that I would get another one-I would definitely look for one with a re circulation pump.
I just had the installer come and service it for the first time last week, it was $100 plus tax and I had him raise the temp for us(from 120- 130)
Interesting your Rinnai doesn’t have a temp adjustment. On the outside of mine I have temp buttons to adjust on my own.
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I’ve considered going tankless. Related question for those with conventional tank heaters: how do you decide when to replace a tank? Is there a test to determine if it’s about to fail? It seems that waiting for it to fail is a bad strategy.
I’ve considered going tankless. Related question for those with conventional tank heaters: how do you decide when to replace a tank? Is there a test to determine if it’s about to fail? It seems that waiting for it to fail is a bad strategy.
When your basement is flooding.
Joking aside, we noticed a very slight burning smell coming from our vents/mechanical room and it was our tank just starting to fail.
I’ve considered going tankless. Related question for those with conventional tank heaters: how do you decide when to replace a tank? Is there a test to determine if it’s about to fail? It seems that waiting for it to fail is a bad strategy.
I have a Zigbee water leak sensor under mine that's connected to SmartThings. That sensor has saved us twice; once from a foundation crack that hit critical mass during that wild rainstorm a couple years ago, and once from our water tank.
One night this past winter around 10 PM, we were alerted on our phones that the leak sensor detected moisture. Aaaaand yup, we had a leaking tank on our hands. Quickly closed the valves, put some towels down to catch the water that was leaking, and connected a hose to drain the tank. It took ~4 days from failure to replacement, which sucked.
That's the problem with conventional water tanks... if they 'go', it might be something minor that inspires you to change the thing, or it might be finding your basement submerged. The tank was 13 years old (it was installed when the house was built in 2008) so we squeezed every second of usable life out of it. Should we have replaced it sooner / proactively? Almost certainly, but no one wants to replace something if they don't need to.
Mine is about 15 years old, and I'll be doing it this year. No signs of problems, but I'd like it in a different location, and want direct vent so I can tear out my stupid space hogging chimney.
Tankless would be great, but the drawbacks would irritate me too much.
I’ve considered going tankless. Related question for those with conventional tank heaters: how do you decide when to replace a tank? Is there a test to determine if it’s about to fail? It seems that waiting for it to fail is a bad strategy.
If it works for the Economy it can work for Water Heaters goddamn it!!
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I must be missing something, but I'm fairly certain the heat pump hot water heat just uses the air from the room where it is located in order to heat the water.
I had thought they used external air, but if they just use air in the house, well, you don't get something for nothing. You still heat that air with your gas furnace. I know heat pumps are efficient, but is that more efficient to heat the air, then use that air to heat the water? I can't see that being true. Note that my understanding of thermodynamics is limited to what Homer Simpson taught me.
Yeah, heat pump water heaters don't use any outdoor air. There is no combustion or anything going on. Think of them as kind of like a reverse-refrigerator. Your fridge takes heat from the contents inside the fridge and dumps said heat into your kitchen. The heat pump water heater takes heat from your mechanical room and dumps it into the water inside the heater vessel.
Heat pump heaters are a great idea in warmer climates, because they essentially work like an air conditioner that dumps the heat into your water rather than dumping it outdoors at a condensing unit. In more humid climates they tend to be very helpful in keeping the basement dry too, as they act just like a dehumidifier.
In our climate we need to add heat to our houses most of the year, meaning it's taking air you've already had to heat up to keep the house warm and dumping it into the water. Your water heating system is essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul, making making your space heating system work a little harder. It also dries out your already arid basement even further, meaning your humidifier needs to work harder.
As such I think they're a crappy solution for the average Albertan.
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Has anyone ever done this and used the Canada Greener Homes Grant to offset some of the costs? I've been thinking of switching to tankless, and wondered if anyone has used the grant for it.
Yeah, heat pump water heaters don't use any outdoor air. There is no combustion or anything going on. Think of them as kind of like a reverse-refrigerator. Your fridge takes heat from the contents inside the fridge and dumps said heat into your kitchen. The heat pump water heater takes heat from your mechanical room and dumps it into the water inside the heater vessel.
Heat pump heaters are a great idea in warmer climates, because they essentially work like an air conditioner that dumps the heat into your water rather than dumping it outdoors at a condensing unit. In more humid climates they tend to be very helpful in keeping the basement dry too, as they act just like a dehumidifier.
In our climate we need to add heat to our houses most of the year, meaning it's taking air you've already had to heat up to keep the house warm and dumping it into the water. Your water heating system is essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul, making making your space heating system work a little harder. It also dries out your already arid basement even further, meaning your humidifier needs to work harder.
As such I think they're a crappy solution for the average Albertan.
I would be very curious to see some numbers on this.
Alberta doesn't have cold temperatures all winter (chinooks, etc), and you probably have 8 months out of the year where the temperature would be around 10 C? In that situation you aren't actually using a lot of energy to heat your home, and taking the ambient air from your utility room to heat your water shouldn't actually really be removing THAT much heat from the air.
I get that the warmer the climate, the more efficient the get, but I wonder what the line is.
Also, if you have this thing in the basement, and you have floor heat, the radiant heat coming out of the slab in your utility room should really help, and I would think the utility room doesn't have to really be that warm, so its not like you need to recover the heat it pulls out.
