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Re: Tankless whole-house water heater

To: "Darrell Walker" <darrellw@ipns.com>,
Subject: Re: Tankless whole-house water heater
From: "Marknsuz" <marknsuz@pacbell.net>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 00:06:39 -0800
A note of warning to anyone considering an electric tankless water heater: 
make sure that your incoming electrical service can handle the load.  I 
recently put one in the house I just built, after upgrading the electrical 
service from 100 amps to 200 amps.  Thought it wouldn't be a problem, as the 
heater draws 'only' 116 amps at peak flow (and startup).

Problem is the utility had my house and one other served from a 10KVA 
transformer.  Oops.  The heater alone is 28kW.  I got them to change it out 
after a bunch of fighting with them, as the lights in both our houses 
flickered as the heater's control system dialed in its current draw.  But 
they only put in a 25kVA unit, so I have to continue the fight with them 
until they put in a decent sized transformer.  The problem is their 
transformer sizing charts are based on typical draws, not large relatively 
instantaneous changes in current flow.

Mark Miller 




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