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Subject - tankless water heaters
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BASE
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Has anyone had any experience with these? They say that it saves on the power bill, but the one that I just hooked to had 2 forty amp circuits to heat the water. I understand that it doesnt't stay on all the time, but it would seem that when it is pulling,.....IT IS PULLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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eleccon
| I did one of those a few years ago, I think it was a 50 amp 240 volt circuit. I thought if it worked we would see more of them.
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kbsparky
| I had 2 of these in my house, and had installed a watt-hour meter to monitor the amount of electricity used.
Each one used 9kW and required a 50 Amp circuit to operate. They both used 75 Amps together while heating. We used a #8 copper SEU cable to feed each unit.
After a couple of months, we determined that they saved approx. 25% on our water heating energy vs using a 40 gallon storage tank unit. That's a significant amount.
The drawbacks are: Inconsistent water temperature, it varied by flow and pressure; longer time required to get hot at the faucet, since it starts out "cold" each time you use it; and if your utility supply is marginal, you will notice the lights blinking somewhat when those babies kick in. We were on a 25 kVA pole pot, and could tell when that 75 Amp load started. Also, if you were not drawing full flow, the units would start to cycle, which caused the lights to blink brighter and dimmer.
So you are using 4 times the energy to heat water, but for less than 1/4 the amount of time as a standard storage tank heater would. You will save electricity with them, if you are willing to put up with the drawbacks
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