Water heating suggestions

Douglass Somers
Electrician
June 28, 2013

High Efficiency Water Heater

My in-laws recently bought an all electric house in Florida. The current water heater is in garage, as far from the master bathroom as possible. It takes far to long to heat the water shower. My question is how efficient are all electric tankless water heaters? What other possible solutions are there to get hot water on demand at the shower in the master bathroom?

Thanks for reading.

Doug Somers

Answer:

Author

Rob Freeman

July 1

0 users voted0 users voted

Answer:

Hi Doug, thanks for your question. In my experience, at least up here in New England, electric tankless hot water heaters rarely are powerful enough to heat water, especially if that water is starting out cold, as it does up in Connecticut. I installed one with the following specs as a whole house replacement for a conventional gas powered hot water heater, and it didn't do the job:

220 VAC
60A/80A (8 elements)
Max output power: 14kW/19kW
Temp control range: 60-145F
Max flow rate: 4.5 Gal/Min

Down in Florida, it might be a different story, but the unit was insufficient to meet the hot water requirements in my home. I installed the unit in the basement as a whole house replacement, and it required installing a second electrical box. I was running 200 amp electrical service which was good, as the unit was a hog, but it still caused the lights to flicker whenever it was running, say when I was running a bath on the second floor.

You might consider a "Point of Use" hot water heater which is a smaller unit that can be installed in the bathroom itself. You'll need one that can accomodate 1.5-3.0 GPM for a shower... however if it's supplemental to your garage hot water heater, you might be able to make it work with less than if it's operating solely on its own.