The heating elements in standard water heaters are always on and always cooking the minerals out of the water, which causes sediment to build up on the heating elements.

Video Transcription

Teresa: Most homes in America have one of this, a tank water heater. Now one of the problems with this type of unit is it’s always on. The heating elements are always cooking the minerals out of the water which causes sediment to build up on the heating elements. That makes this unit less efficient which cause you more money and energy cost. So what we’re going to do today is replace this tank water heater with a tankless water heater. This is called the ESI 2000 and it’s from Envirotech Systems. Now this has a microprocessor inside that only turns the unit on when you need hot water. Therefore making this unit more efficient and saving you more money. It’s going to save you 40 to 60% more on your water heating cost. Now this tankless unit will never leak and you’ll never run out of hot water. So joining me today on this project is our technical advisor, Rodger Thayer. Good morning Rodger. Rodger: Hi! Teresa. Teresa: How are you? Rodger: Pretty good. Teresa: All right. Rodger: You want to go and shut the water off. I’ll start draining it and you can disconnect the lines upon the cap. Teresa: Okay. Okay, the water is off. Rodger: Well Teresa I’ve got the gas line disconnected here. How are you doing up there? Teresa: Okay, I’ve got this flute pipe out and the water lines are disconnected. Rodger: Okay I got all the water all drained out. So it should be a lot later. You want to grab it either on that side. Teresa: All right. Rodger: Are you ready? Teresa: Ready. Rodger: You know what Teresa, there’s a lot to consider when you’re putting in a tankless water heater. One is cities have codes to follow, some will require a permit. So we’re going to need a qualified electrician and a plumber. Also, you need to see if you have enough power to run the unit. Teresa: That’s right Rodger because you need to make sure you have 200 in’s of service to power this unit to make it run efficiently. Now what we’ve already done is hire a qualified electrician. He came out the other day and run power from this panel up the wall across the ceiling and then down on the other side where we’re going to install the new units. Now he’s already put up a manning board and a subpanel. Rodger: And what’s nice about Envirotech, they include a subpanel and the breakers for the electrician. We supply the electrician with this. Let’s go see how he did. Teresa: Okay. Rodger: Here’s the subpanel Teresa and you notice right next to the water heater. So if you have a problem with the water heater, you have to disconnect right there. Teresa: That’s right Rodger and this is the way it needs to be installed to meet code. Rodger: Exactly. Teresa: Now these are the wires that the electrician ran from the subpanel through the wall, through this opening to make the connection. Rodger, Envirotech Systems also offers in-wall manning bracket so that if you want to install this in the wall between the studs, just like your medicine cabinet, you could. If you choose that particular installation, you need to use the knock out at the bottom to run your waters up through there. However for this particular home, we decided to flash mount this unit. So what’s the next step? Rodger: All we have to do now is take some measurements and plum the water lines into the unit. Teresa: Okay let’s do it. Okay Rodger, I’ll go ahead and cut this piece of pipe off and when determined, that needs to be five inches shorter. So I’ll use this pipe cutter and all you have to do is slide it over the pipe and line it with the mark and then give it a few turns. John: But you know what Teresa this is really a job for advanced DIYer. And if you’re not comfortable with sweaty pipes, you really should call a qualified plumber. Teresa: That’s true Rodger. But I know you’re the expert at what you’re doing so I know I’m not going to have any trouble. All we need to do is finish cutting and sweating these pipes so that we can hook up our water lines. Rodger, I’m just about finish here but it’s important for people to use two wrenches when they’re tightening their connection because if they just use one wrench to tighten this, they run the risk of possibly twisting this pipe and breaking the seal here which would cause leaks or even doing damage to the water heater. I am finish though you want to turn on the water and we’ll see how it works. Rodger: Are you ready? Teresa: Aha. Rodger: Here it comes. Teresa: Okay good. We don’t have any leaks. I’m going to go ahead and turn on these breakers. Rodger: Teresa, what I like about this tankless heater is it has a digital read out, let the homeowner see what it’s actually doing. It even has a flow sensor. Teresa: Rodger that is a really neat feature. The way that the flow sensor works is it measures six to eight times per second how much water is flowing through here. Now let’s say that there’s already one tap open and someone opens another tap. This will immediately power up enough energy to maintain the temperature of the water. Whereas most other tankless water heaters, you will notice a temperature drop if you have more than one tap open. Rodger: And how it can do that is it has four elements in there. Each one of the stainless steel doesn’t collect sediment. Teresa: Let’s see how this works. Rodger: Okay I’ll go and turn the tap on the bathroom and then I’ll go to the kitchen sink. Teresa: How’s the temperature? Rodger: It’s getting hot. Teresa: Well let’s see how hot it is. I’ve set the unit to 125 and I brought in a heat gun just so we can test it and it reads 114. Rodger: That pretty normal Teresa. This is the furthest tap away from the tankless water heater. Even on your old heater, you’ll going to have a heat loss like that. Great thing about this is when I turn it off, the heater shut off. I’m saving energy dollars. Teresa: You are because if we still have the other one even though it’s off, that one will need to continue to run for 30 minutes at least to an hour costing your money. Rodger: So your system is working great, I’m gonna clean up our mess. I’ll see you next time. Teresa: Okay Rodger thank you for your help. The ESI 2000 from Envirotech System cost $799.00 but remember, this is not a do it yourself project. You’re still going to need to hire a qualified electrician and a plumber to install this for you. But it is more energy efficient therefore saving you money and you will never run out of hot water. For more information on the ESI 2000 by Envirotech Systems, visit them online at tankless.com or give them a call at 1-800-251-6612.