Tankless water heater planning help. (pics)


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Old 01-02-07, 01:49 PM
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Tankless water heater planning help. (pics)

Hi DIY Members,

I bought a condo that has a gas water heater and gas heat, but the stove is electrical. My plan is to switch the gas water heater to a tankless electrical one to save money. I figure by not using gas, It will save me the $30 base charge for gas per month. When I was in an all electrical apartment, my highest bill was $50 in the winter time. Assuming $0.08 per kWh, $30 would break even at 375 kWh and I never used that much on my previous electrical bills.
I need your opinions if this can be done with my current electrical setup. I plan to buy the Titan N-120 SCR-2 water heater which has a max current draw of 54 amps at 220V. The current water heater is about 6 feet from the electrical box.

I looked at my electrical panel an it is rated for 125 amps max, but the main breakers are 100 amp breakers. Here are some pictures. I'm sorry for the quality, I thought I had my camera but I didn't so I had to use the cell phone.
http://www.4atl.com/panel/mainbreaker.jpg

My electrical panel looks like:
http://www.4atl.com/panel/panel.jpg
Closeups
http://www.4atl.com/panel/panel1.jpg
http://www.4atl.com/panel/panel2.jpg
http://www.4atl.com/panel/panel3.jpg

The cover with the diagram
http://www.4atl.com/panel/cover.jpg

From what I see, the range has double pole 50 amp breakers and has the thickest wires. The Dryer and AC have double pole 30 amp breakers. I think I will need to add a 60 amp double pole breaker for the water heater. In the panel3.jpg picture, it looks like there is only enough metal sticking out for a single pole breaker. What do I have to do? Also the diagram shows that the bottom breakers are only connected to either the A or B line. The Dryer, Range, AC looks like they are connected to both A and B.

Please help me determine if this is a good idea and what needs to be done to make it work. I think the 100 amp supply will be ok, but want to know if there are problems I may hit.

Thanks
 
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Old 01-02-07, 01:54 PM
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Your water heater is costing you $30/month in gas? Yikes. Are you replacing your gas furnace as well since you stated it was gas?

Gas water heaters are cheaper then electric and heat the water up considerably faster as well.
 
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Old 01-02-07, 01:59 PM
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Originally Posted by HotinOKC
Your water heater is costing you $30/month in gas? Yikes. Are you replacing your gas furnace as well since you stated it was gas?

Gas water heaters are cheaper then electric and heat the water up considerably faster as well.
Well gas is deregulated in Georgia and the passthrough fee is about $25 to the seperate gas companies and they each charge their own base fee of $6 and up. So it would be about a $30 base fee plus any gas I used.

I would save money by not paying a gas bill and save money by not heating the water 24/7.

Its not that cold here and I figure I could use radiant heat panels because the condo is small. If I resell, there will still be gas heat and gas supply available. Right now gas is $1.399 per therm on a variable plan.
 
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Old 01-02-07, 02:06 PM
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I can't beleive that "deregulation " has not brought the price down. Who would of thunk that? All the competition,surley it must be better.

Check into,electronic ignition for the new devices.
 
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Old 01-02-07, 02:06 PM
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With a 100 amp service you need a service upgrade before you can do anything.

Figure about $2,000 for this upgrade, maybe more, maybe less.
 
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Old 01-02-07, 02:33 PM
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Originally Posted by racraft
With a 100 amp service you need a service upgrade before you can do anything.

Figure about $2,000 for this upgrade, maybe more, maybe less.
How about a heater that has a 40 amp max. Would that work?
 
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Old 01-02-07, 02:40 PM
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I do not know all the details of your condo, so I cannot do a full load calculation, but I can tell you this: A gas water heater uses very little electricity, if it uses any at all. Ditto for a gas furnace.

I maintain that you risk running into problems now if you try to cook dinner in the oven in the summer with air conditioner running while also drying clothes.

You need a larger panel (physically and electrically) to add any sort of electric water heater and/or radiant heating.
 
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Old 01-02-07, 02:54 PM
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Electricity is very good for some things, bad for others. Producing heat is not one of electricity's strong points.

For a tankless water heater, your fuel has to get really hot, really fast for the on demand nature of a tankless. I looked into doing it with NG, but it was prohibitively expensive with the venting. Even then, there are several things wrong with tankless heaters that cause people to do things like install water circulators. In the end, I went with a tank mostly because it was $200 vs $2000 for the heater alone.

NG works well for heating water. The pilot isn't even a waste as it helps keep the water hot.
 
 

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