 good product |
| Review Date: February 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Matyas, |
| I am very happy with this product. Tankless water heaters use 1/2 or less gas than a tank type. I deliver propane and noticed this on my customers bills, so when my tank type went out I bought this one. This is my first one and I have found that you need to turn the hot water all the way on to get the unit to fire up, and control the temperature with the cold water. I live in a travel trailer with very small pipes which might explain why it is very sensitive to the water flow rate, so I need to go slow with the cold water or it will turn off the burner. But once you have the unit's flow rate adjusted right and get used to the sensitivity it works great, and the saving's on your gas bill will pay for it in a very short time. |
Great for outdoor shower in warmer climates!
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| Review Date: August 12, 2008 |
| Reviewer: L. Donovan, Texas |
I purchased this heater to replace a small electric tank heater I use for an outdoor shower. The electric was too small and I wanted more hot water without having a large storage tank. After consulting with an electrician and finding the electric or natural gas tank would be too costly to hook up, I was happy to find the LP version. I had a plumber all set up to install this and he never showed, so after a week or so of hesitation, I installed it myself in basically a couple hours (not including trips to hardware stores). The main issue for installation (since it was outside) was getting the right hookup for the propane tank. To use the regulator included, you cannot just buy a hose at Home Depot or Lowe's. I went (with the regulator) to a propane store here in Austin, TX and was set up with a 2nd regulator (I was told one at the heater and one at the tank, even with a short 2 foot hose, is safest), compression thingys and a nice flexible metal hose. It took a few tries, but I got it going.
NOTE: when I used the hose from Home Depot with the attached regulator that was near the tank and did not use the regulator that came with the heater, the pilot would go out within minutes. When I got the double regulator hose set up, it seemed not to work at first, then I realized I had left the unit "on" and slid the knob back to the "off" position to the left and let it sit for about 5 minutes and tried again. It then worked perfectly.
Set up now, I have a splitter coming from my outdoor faucet, one to a garden hose, the other line goes to the heater ( I used flexible washer/dryer hoses to hook up the shower with brass compression things to make them fit). The shower is from Target (the wood one - not sure if they still carry it) and just has one water line, so it's only hot water coming in. I have the heater turned to it's lowest setting and last night the water was the perfect temp! So, that means if turned up, it can easily be warm/hot enough for a shower where cold water is mixed in if you are in a warm climate. This shower will only be used in warm weather, after swimming or gardening, so I will not need it to heat very cold water. I would expect it to be sufficient for heating most water in the summer for this type of use. At full heat, the water is very, very hot, so I would expect there is enough power there to heat most summer water temps for a comfortable shower.
It is installed on the outside of my house (I had to get a masonry bit and additional hardware to attach it to my rock house - this took about half of the install time) and will be pulled down in the winter and stored to prolong its life.
I worked so hard on this and had searched the internet for info on an easy outdoor shower water heater. I'm handy, but knew the build-it-yourself solar boxes were not where I wanted to go. I hoped this would work and am thrilled with the results. If you would like to contact me about how I set it up or with questions, I will try to help. doshermanasjewelry@yahoo.com . Not sure if I'm allowed to give that out, but going into this, I would have loved a reference for what I was doing or if it would work.
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Good water heater; thoroughly vetted
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| Review Date: April 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Zak Rudy, California |
I wanted to wait until my heater was completely vetted and it proves wise as it had a problem after about 2 months that may come to help other customers. So the negs:
After 2 months use the heater all of sudden literally went from flame on working to stopped cold, pilot out. The only clue I had was that the pilot would come back on - only while I had the gas button depressed on - but the flame was very yellow indicating a gas rich flame (too much gas/air mixture). The solution was in the manual which you don't want to lose because they won't give you another you have to buy it. So the remedy in my case was to clean the throttle tube which is best done with automotive carb or injection cleaner. This is part of a regular maintenance cycle anyway but it happened soon on mine. Even a small amount of gas soot in the tube was causing an over-rich mixture of gas.
There are only a few other minor issues with this heater such as the discrepancies between the manual and the heater: the cold water inlet is 3/4" and located facing the back of the heater toward the wall and the manual lists it as a 1/2". This really makes getting a copper heater hose on there a trick but I wouldn't recommend using anything smaller in diameter hose than that as your water flow is limited by that size input. Similarly the hot output which is the copper pipe hanging down exposed will limit your output quite a lot and I recommend increasing the size after the supplied 1/2" hose to 3/4 at least.
A very confusing marking on the heater is the temp control knob indicator: turning it CLOCKWISE increases the temperature by also reducing the amount of water it takes to activate the flame (activation rate). Turning it COUNTER-CLOCKWISE reduces the temp and increases the amount of water it takes to activate the flame. The indicator marker is reverse to normal hot water heaters: there is a widening strip of black above the knob but it widens toward the counter-clockwise direction whereas normally the widening of that strip marks hotter this one marks cooler (zoom the pic and you'll see). The manual is not very clear about this knob and it's key to understand the activation rate.
The last discrepancy is in the size of gas pipe you would use, the manual tells you not to use a smaller diameter than 1/2 but that is nearly impossible if you use the correct size regulator on your tank (74,900 BTU see my install tips below).
One last small gripe is purging this heater of air in the gas line is a very tedious process.
Now the positives:
I have run the heater with only a sink on the lower of the 2 flame settings with the temp control nearly all the way up. This gets the water hotter than I can touch it. And it will run for over a month on 5 gal. of propane with daily use. The heater itself is fairly easy to put together all in all once you have the vent installed the rest is basic plumbing.
Install tips:
Starting with the external regulator at the tank as others have mentioned you will want 1 that gives you exactly 74,900 BTU (this is common for hi-temp grills and the like Mr. heater products). My Mr. heater regulator output is 3/8" pipe thread which is the nominal gauge for this class of gas flow still considered low use. So 1 way or the other you're going to want to increase the size back to 1/2 which is how the heater connects. I used a 3/4" stainless flex tube to go between the inside and outside. Then reduced back down to 1/2 using a tee to make a drip leg with a 6" pipe nipple that drops straight down below the heater while the fuel line comes in horizontal. The one thing that can't be stressed enough is to keep your water lines as large as possible. Mine are 1" down to a 3/4 flex copper hose on the inlet and 3/4 rigid copper on the output past the 1/2" initial. Once you have the heater connected the only trick is to bleed the air out of the lines. The manual doesn't really tell you much about this process except that eventually when you hold down the gas and strike the lighter after a few min. it will light. Well there is an easier way but unless you have adequate venting you don't want to attempt it. My heater is in front of a window so I can open it and crack the flare fitting of my flex line. You really only let air out anyway and the minute you smell consistent gas (strong garlic an onion as Lp has no odor so it's scented) you shut it down. This puts out no more gas than an oven lighting up and is a much quicker route to getting air free. It still may take a few tries at lighting by striking every few seconds and holding the gas down but it's better than doing that for several minutes.
All in all this is a good heater for a sink and a shower, if I were to add a shower I would definitely continue the raised copper lines which run through my ceiling and a shut off valve so that the water would not sit cold in the lines. A great trick with this heater is when you open a water valve it lights up and heats the water that flows through it. So by opening a valve to the shower you would have nearly instant hot water. I also make use of a very small 25W electric water heater that sits right in front of the Bosch and this keeps water hot straight up to the tap. |
Almost Perfect product
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| Review Date: August 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: W. Glidden, Maine |
| I purchased this heater for an island camp that does not have reliable electrical service and to which propane must be carried by hand. Thus high efficiency and reliability is a must. The delivery was fast and heater arrived in good shape. Installation was straight forward. Instructions were fairly clear if you take the time to read them several times carefully. The only drawback I have found is that the tray designed to catch incandescent particles that may fall from the burner seems to have been improperly designed with regard to the supply and output lines the enter and exit the bottom the unit. I have simply positioned a cookie sheet under the unto to serve the same peurpose. No big deal The unit fired right up and has been working reliably since installation. |
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