Tankless water heater question.

I recently came across this website that sell tankless water heaters that are lightweight and portable. They seem pretty great and are relatively inexpensive, especially the portable outdoor unit. It operates on a propane bottle, garden hose connection and thats it. 12 pounds I think. My question is has anyone tried something like this and do you think it is a good investment. I would like this better than the typical tankless at the cost as well as the ability to custom fit it wher I want. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thanks guys.
http://www.eztankless.com/products/ez101.html
http://www.eztankless.com/products/ez101.html

I do not really understand why you would want to heat water out side the Cat It might look a good idea but all the extra bits you need to carry need some thought, Heater, pump, hose Gas bottle. I suppose it would be good if you where living in your Cat, on the same site with out moving.
Sean

Sean, yup that is the reason. I am living in my WC for a year to save money to build a house. The Navy shower will get old fast with only seven minutes of hot water at a time. I was considering running the plumbing, dedicating a seperate propane bottle and mounting the water heater itself it in a cabinet inside the RV with the exhaust vent through roof. It would supplement the current water heater and dedicated to the shower only.

Look at the Catalytic heater topic and you may could tap into the gas line just like that without having to have a dedicated bottle.
Run a electric cooking hot plate, and electric heat and save the gas for the hot water and occasional gas for the main heater on super cold nights.

Cost per Btu.

Take the price of electricity, per Kwh, and divide by 3412. That'll get you close to a cost per Btu.

Take the price of propane, per gallon, and divide by 91690.


Then you get to worry whether or not it's worth the money to go buy propane, in fuel/time/equipment.

Phillip, I will check out that topic for sure thanks for the idea. That is a good idea, just not sure of cost for electric vs. propane yet, as I have no experience in avg. monthly bill for elect. in RV.
Cardinal Bill, I was curious about the savings vs. cost of heating with space heater or furnace (propane). The formula is a great idea, thanks. I spoke with some fulltimers and they say the propane seems better than the cost of KW/hour charge for the heater. Propane seems good, but the price per gallon is a killer these days, factor in the hassle of refilling and frequenncy, and I wonder which is better. The rate of KW/hr of the park I am looking at is 10 cents per hr I think.

Cardinal_Bill wrote:Cost per Btu.

Take the price of electricity, per Kwh, and divide by 3412. That'll get you close to a cost per Btu.

Take the price of propane, per gallon, and divide by 91690.


Then you get to worry whether or not it's worth the money to go buy propane, in fuel/time/equipment.

Cardinal bill, does the price of propane, per gallon, and divide by 91690. give BTU
Sean

Sean,

Per Wikipedia, everybodys favorite (spelt korrectli ), says "91,690 BTU per gallon" down under the heading for "Energy content", en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane

Per another conversion site, www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter, the number I gave for electricity is correct.

At $0.10 per Kwh it's cheap. We were paying close to $0.15-0.18 per Kwh and the price was pretty close to $2.85 a gallon for propane. The price for propane was actually $2.69 plus close to 8% sales tax. It was a 5 mile drive, oneway, to the cheap propane place.

When we towed and spent a week or less at places we used our space heater/electric hot water as much as we could. We still do now during the summer since it's a 15 mile, oneway, drive and the price for propane is closer to $4.00 a gallon and the price of electricity is about $0.08 per Kwh (guessing because we don't actually get billed for it). A friend pays the electricity and I have to threaten him in order to get him to take money from me.

Would it be correct to assume that the electric heater is almost 100% efficient but the propane furnace is only about 60% efficient?

Cardinal Bill, here is some thing else for you to mull over,
How to convert Propane water pressure to Milli bar..
Sean

Sean,

If you go to that web site, www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter, on the left side is a button for "pressure". From there it will convert "inches of water" to "millibars", it's 1 inch of water to 2.490889 millibars. I seem to recall some folks talking about furnaces needing 14 inches of pressure, or 0.505782 psi which ain't much. When we got our WC one of the last things they did was to test the pressure at the furnace. It, the furnace, had failed twice in the first 4 days. Luckily we were sitting in a RV park about 100 yards down the road from the dealer waiting on our license plates/title/registration to arrive. FWIW the fixit guys said that the valve that was suspected of tripping in the furnace was a new design for that year and hence they were suspicious of it. But because the furnace failed so fast we went out and bought an oil filled electric heater the day after taking possession of the WC in early December in a Seattle Washington suburb. I might add that it's never given us any problems since then.

Thanks for that info Cardinal Bill I will check the site out. In the U.K we use Millibars of pressure on our gas installations. When I purchased our Cat someone over here had fitted a regulator for a European caravan and it did not have a high enough flow rate to run the furnace.
Sean

Shortly after posting about the 91,690 BTU per gallon someone I know posted a message elsewhere which had the number 84,300. I queried him about where that number came from. Here is where he got it: http://alternativefuels.about.com/od/resources/a/gge.htm

Now we/I have two completely different authoritative answers to the same question, which is why it must be a "standard".

Cardinal_Bill wrote:Shortly after posting about the 91,690 BTU per gallon someone I know posted a message elsewhere which had the number 84,300. I queried him about where that number came from. Here is where he got it: http://alternativefuels.about.com/od/resources/a/gge.htm

Now we/I have two completely different authoritative answers to the same question, which is why it must be a "standard".

Does BTU stand for British Thermal Unit
Sean

Yep

Ken,

I've never seen figures for the efficiency of a propane furnace. That's an interesting twist on this whole thing! If it is anything less than 80% it changes things dramatically, at least for me down in Arizona, since propane & electricity are running neck and neck on a per BTU cost.

BTW, I agree with the number for electricity. But, I watch the power settings on the heater, low/med/hi, since if it's set to hi and the microwave is used suddenly things get dark and quiet. And then I have to reset all the clocks.

Cardinal_Bill - I'd be surprised if the propane furnace is much more than 60%. Just check how much heat is being lost in the exhaust that is being dumped to the outside. I know that the natural gas furnace for my house is rated at about 65% efficient which is typical for older natural gas furnaces.
The propane water heater dumps alot of heat to the outside as well so I doubt it would be any more efficient.
If your cost per BTU for electricity or propane is about the same, it seems logical that using electricity would be better due to the efficiency factor.

Ok, I made a decision...I installed the Eccotank tankless WH, on the exterior of the FVER next to shower. It works great for what I need. It warms the water just fine in normal winter temps (60's daytime, 40's night time). We will see how it does in harsh weather. I have insulated the exposed lines (in and out) and limited the amount nof hose used exposed to the outdoors. So far I could not be happier. Total cost to install with parts I had laying around in garage $150.00

[img][/img]

Have you had to drill holes in the side of your Cat, if so how have you sealed them, and does it just lift off for traveling, is there any heat transfer onto the side of your Cat.
Sean

Sean, I drilled two hole for mounting with small screws and anchors with liquid nails around the plastic anchors. The unit only weighs about 12 pounds when operating with water. The heat is not an issue at all. The exhaust vent is adequate and it never heats the side of the FVER more that the normal weather would. I ran a shower for 30 minutes to test heat and it was minimal. I will simply remove and store when I travel, so it will be easy to install. the only thing I may do is build an insulated cover for it for extreme freezing temps. I don't plan on using it in temps lower than freezing, so it should be fine.

If you guys need more pics of fittings, or explanation of plumbing, let me know and I can post.

By the way, the pic is a little decieving. I plumbed it so the outside shower works, but the white hose with red tape actually hooks to my PEX hot water line for all the plumbing.

I might have to get one of these it could save a lot of hassle when we return from the beach.
Sean

Yesterday, I happened to see the person who sold me my Cat. She told me that there are going to be some nice changes in next years models. One of the options will be a factory installed tankless water heater. I'd love to have one, but I think I'd do the mod ENGR55 instead of trading for a new one. I can see the DW now if I told her I was trading in already.

Go for it BobnPi, $150.00 is money well spent especially to keep the DW happy..=) Seriously, it is the best mod I have done. It does come with it's drawbacks, but the benefits far outweigh that. If you do it make sure to run a filter (seperate than your normal one for the heater). I have heard these units are very sensitive to hard water deposits.

Great looking mod. Something to consider for sure but we have never run out of hotwater so our habits would have to change to justify it.

DW loves long hot showers. I can't install this mod unless we have full hookups. She'd fill the greywater with one shower.

BobnPi wrote:Yesterday, I happened to see the person who sold me my Cat. She told me that there are going to be some nice changes in next years models. One of the options will be a factory installed tankless water heater. I'd love to have one, but I think I'd do the mod ENGR55 instead of trading for a new one. I can see the DW now if I told her I was trading in already.

The tankless water heater is STANDARD on all currently built Wildcats, including eXtraLite travel trailers and the new Sterling Edition fifth wheel. Wildcat is the first manufacturer to go standard with this great feature (after 2 years of testing). See more info here:
http://greenrvproducts.com/girard-tankless-rv-water-heater/

I can understand why some people would like the Tankless water heater, But me for one, would not buy a unit fitted with just the tankless system. Due mainly to the fact 50% of my camping is done with sites that have electric available, so why would I want to pay to have mains power then have to use propane to heat my water.
I think that a lot of people have not thought about that yet.
But obviously it does not matter if you go into the wilds with no mains power, you would have to use propane.
Sean