[Greenbuilding] Small hot water tank

[Carmine Vasile]

Leslie: You should consider an ECO Smart tankless heaters. I installed an 11 kW ECO-11 on 12/4/15 to replace our leaky, 20 year old 15 kW Accutemp C-150 that had been heating our house and hot water since 2/11/96. The ECO cost a fraction of the old heater. I was worried because the ECO-11 has a maximum set point of 140F compared to 180F for the Acutemp. We had plenty of hot shower water this past winter thanks to our 22-year old GFX Moder G-360 water heater booster. But when the outside temperature dropped below 10F, the house was too cold. Since I couldn't raise the set-point to 180F, I had to install a Taco 006-B4 in series with each of the existing Taco 008-BC6 circulator pumps to increase the flow rates in the water & space heating hot water loops. This solution was cheaper than buying a new Accutemp for about $1800. The ECO-11 cost less than $220 on sale from Home Depot. Unlike the Accutemp, it's heat exchangers are stainless steel, so our acidic, radioactive tap water will not erode the heat exchangers.
Best regards,
Dr. Carmine F. Vasile
www.gfxtechnology.com



Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device


-------- Original message --------
From: Leslie Moyer <unschooler at lrec.org>
Date: 8/1/2016 12:00 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Small hot water tank

Can anyone recommend a good quality small tank water heater (electric)--about 6 to 10 gallons?  It seems like the better brands don't put their nicer features into their smaller heaters. Just because I'm buying a small heater doesn't mean I want a junky one. I don't mind insulating it myself, but good insulation would be nice, brass drain valves, good anode protection.

And anyone want to chime in on size recommendations?  It will be used for a kitchen sink, bathroom sink, and dishwasher (Miele). Rarely, if ever, use them at the same time. With forethought, could be avoided altogether. Incoming water will be preheated by a large storage tank that is heated by waste heat from ground loop heat pump for parts of the year. When needed for winter guests (occasionally), we can turn on the breaker for the larger tank to use guest shower. I feel like 6 gallons would be big enough except for the fact that the water travels some distance & seems to take too long to get to the source. I'm afraid a few gallons get lost in the travel.

It's a rather complicated plumbing scenario in which this is the best solution, but we think it is.

-Leslie Moyer
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