Who has saved the most on utilities by

[bodman]

repalcing their old dryers with what brand and model new. Plus, anyone that replaced a working waterheater with multiple on demand tankless ones . and possibly some idea of your savings. We are always hearing from the dealers about claims of savings.(just like autos claims of mpg that are not real world figures.) thanks for your responses.bodman ps don't eat too much today. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[Howard]

Check the board for info on tankless - and then don't install them!

[jeffw]

There is a mat not to far from me that had them installed this summer and they love them. I don't know what they are saving but the cost of his boiler replacement was so hight that he had these installed. There are 3 of them hooked up back to back. He says that he has 120 degrees at the machines. That said they are only 85 to 87 % effi. instead og 99 % for a new boiler. Also he does around 6 to 8 thousand a month gross sales. So I guess it depends how you want to run your business. It would take 10 to 12 of these units for my Mat and many more if you are bigger. My 2 cents worth buy a good boiler.

Jeff

[Duane]

Everyone should note that once you chain wall units together you take the posted warranty (3-5, 7, 10?? years) down to one year.

A mat that only does 6-8 per month and is in Arizona may get away with 3 wall hung units, but then again a normal residential 50 gallon gas water heater would do the same for $250. You could even replace the residential once a year and still be ahead of the game.

Todays storage tanks are insulated so well that the extra gas it takes to make up for heat loss per month is probably less than a dryer turn or two per month.

Going with 87-88% efficiency wall units over a 95%+ tank unit will still cost you more to run over time.

[petefritz]

You are in FL the tankless are working here. The spouts from the northern owners are not relevant to the southern market. All my mats are tankless now. Short of solar I do not See how anyone would not use them, outside wall hung, no interior $$ space required, they only fire when needed. Is probably why they use tile roof here and shingle in New England, brick house in GA and lapboard north. Use the the local efficiencies available to you.

[bodman]

Hi Pete , question is did you notice appreciable savings in gas after switching. I have a 4 to 5 year old good working water heater and with propane costing 1.83 I would like to calculate the payback time . ( like my pu truck it is in good shape and paid for. so do i go spend 25,000 plus interest for a toyota prius to get 40 mpg vs 16 on my truck . I calculate I will spend $3345 more a year for gas If you take into account new car price and interest paid on loan . and gas at 3.00 I can drive the old truck for 9 years . to equal the cost of new car.

[Howard]

Bodman, the 40mpg for the prius is low. I have two of the older model prius (2002) and they average 45-50 mpg in real world driving - the new ones do better. But that has nothing to do with water heaters.

I know Pete likes instant hot water heaters, but they cannot work in a good size mat or in any store that has cold incoming water. Don't believe what I say or what Pete says - do the analysis yourself. Read the specs as to how many gpm they can handle at what temperature rise. Then calculate how much hot water in terms of gpm you actually need. You will find that you will either get warm water at best of have unacceptable flow rates.. Here is a simple example, if you have a 75# washer that uses 2gallons of water per pound of capacity it requires 150 gallons to do a complete wash using 5 fill cycles That means each fill requires 30 gallons of water. So, for the hot wash cycle it needs 30 gallons of hot water. If the tankless unit can provide say 3 gpm that washer will take 10 minutes to fill with water for that one cycle, or fill with warm not hot water. But remember that you have more than just that one machine to fill.

[jeffw]

Rheem has a program you can down load for free that you plug in your machines and it tells you how many you will have to hook up. you also put in your in coming water temp. But as I said there is no savings over a 99% boiler because these are at best 87 % effi. You are also talking about 8 to 10 gpm which is ok for a very small mat but.....
Have a great day
Jeff