MY NEW SHOP


KRAM121881

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Chad,

Unfortunately, when the DOE states on their site the heat loss associated with a tank type water heater and the advantages gained going to a tankless, the majority of the heatloss is the line loss.

Didn't I see something (might have been a few years ago) that stated the best location for the tankless heater was within a few feet of the faucet / fixture? (Which does not make financial sense, given that we have, in my home, no less than seven items that use the hot water line... and naturally they are not next to each other. This implies the need for 3 tankless heaters, spaced next to the closest junction for these diverse exit opportunities.)

Admittedly, this is not feasible. Setting up feed lines to all of these units, insuring adequate venting, and running heat source lines to all of these units - IMHO - outweighs the cost of insulating the lines from one unit and installing just one "central" unit. Then again, I'm debating a tankless heater versus my "dream" water system, which starts with a solar set up on the roof, runs to a converted 50 gallon tank in the back yard in a sealed cabinet, then runs inside to the storage tank. yes, still requires power, but - in theory - uses less of it because the sun is heating the majority of it for you. Ironically, the best location to test this right now is my father's garage... once it gets rebuilt. A shame it's not going to house the tools or the shop, however. (And nowhere near as nice as this new shop. Still very impressed with it, by the way.)

(Please make sure I don't do something stupid with water... it's not my usual field of operations.)

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Didn't I see something (might have been a few years ago) that stated the best location for the tankless heater was within a few feet of the faucet / fixture? (Which does not make financial sense, given that we have, in my home, no less than seven items that use the hot water line... and naturally they are not next to each other. This implies the need for 3 tankless heaters, spaced next to the closest junction for these diverse exit opportunities.)

Admittedly, this is not feasible. Setting up feed lines to all of these units, insuring adequate venting, and running heat source lines to all of these units - IMHO - outweighs the cost of insulating the lines from one unit and installing just one "central" unit. Then again, I'm debating a tankless heater versus my "dream" water system, which starts with a solar set up on the roof, runs to a converted 50 gallon tank in the back yard in a sealed cabinet, then runs inside to the storage tank. yes, still requires power, but - in theory - uses less of it because the sun is heating the majority of it for you. Ironically, the best location to test this right now is my father's garage... once it gets rebuilt. A shame it's not going to house the tools or the shop, however. (And nowhere near as nice as this new shop. Still very impressed with it, by the way.)

(Please make sure I don't do something stupid with water... it's not my usual field of operations.)

Actually, given the right system, solar thermal is by far the best ROI of any of the renewables. It actually has a just as good or better ROI than going from a traditional furnace to a heatpump. Here's the site of a friend of mine's system. I'm hoping to get this put in in the next year or so. Of course it's just my wife and I, so the ROI is farther out than it would be for a normal size family.

http://www.silkrdsolar.com/

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