Really Boring Stuff Only III: Resurrection

[Adam]

Darn it. I'm waffling on it if I should connect the water heat to the dryer outlet or to the range outlet. The range is the better fit (50A versus 30A), but I'd have to move my range to get to it - which is always a chore because I'm so careful about not screwing up the gas line connected to it.

 

[fuzz092888]

Sitting here w

Darn it. I'm waffling on it if I should connect the water heat to the dryer outlet or to the range outlet. The range is the better fit (50A versus 30A), but I'd have to move my range to get to it - which is always a chore because I'm so careful about not screwing up the gas line connected to it.

I'm just here to let you know that I'm following along. I can't provide any insight or help, but I'm reading onetheless

 

[ImcLoud]

I feel like I was rode gently and put away dry.

Thats better than rode dry and put away gently, I guess?

 

[ImcLoud]

Not sure when you were clinical but rads is a 24/7 kind of a thing now. Too many high end emergent studies that didn't exist twenty five years ago. It's not like a simple trauma hand x ray any ED doc can read. It's CT scans for pulmonary embolism, kidney stones, appendicitis, , CT angiograms for stroke or GI bleeding, ultrasound on kids for appendicitis which the rad usually needs to scan himself. The CT angiograms usually have two or three thousand slices and need special workstations. My slow day yesterday had ischemic bowel, CT angiogram for bleeding duodenal ulcer followed by embolization of the bleeding artery, one subdural hematoma, the usual fractures and an unsuspected hydrosalpinx on CT. We are not even a trauma center. Went home at 10 pm. Back at 7 am.


I do remember an old attending telling me of the good old days in the 70s when there was no CT and little useful diagnostic studies available. He lived a block away and went home to his pool in the afternoon in the summer. The techs would bring him any stat xrays and he would hold them up to the sun and give a prelim report!

My wife worked in Pedi imaging and the complaint I heard most was about exposing kids for bone surveys because they fell playing outside and someone suspected abuse. 9 years of education, from pre med to fellowship and she works when she feels like it, a lot of responsibility and that leads to a lot of stress...

 

[ImcLoud]

Darn it. I'm waffling on it if I should connect the water heat to the dryer outlet or to the range outlet. The range is the better fit (50A versus 30A), but I'd have to move my range to get to it - which is always a chore because I'm so careful about not screwing up the gas line connected to it.

I wouldn't bother unless you were going to do it correctly, the review is going to be kind of useless, since no one is going to spend that kind of money to not follow the instructions, and properly install it, not to mention, if it does or does not work correctly for you, you can not in good faith give it a review since you haven't actually used it, what you are thinking about doing is dangerous and not worth the reward, if you just want to see it light up look on youtube. Hooking it to a 30 amp breaker will most likely heat up your homes cable and pop your breaker {some times they don't pop back}, hooking it to a 50a will result in it not tripping the breaker and could be very dangerous...

When reviewing a heating appliance you really need to either use it to failure or at least to its predicted life cycle, I have posted pictures of the mechanical room in my house, I have a rinnai tankless ru98 water heater, a 50 ga hybrid water tank, a Prestige wall hung boiler, 2 armstrong 98% gas furnaces, a full geothermal radiant system, 3 first co hydro air systems, and a coal fired 170K BTU furnace.... Its like the frankenstein of mechanical rooms, I have installed a lot of the equipment I used to install, there has been many different furnaces, water heaters, and boilers in that room, I install them try them until I either don't like them or I find another unit to try.

I understand this was my lively hood and you are doing this as a hobby, BUT I have always been in the camp that believes something worth doing is worth doing right...
I guess my point is since the review is going to be tainted, why do it at all, I could see if you were going to hook up all the elements and run a garden hose through it to test for GPM at temperature rise and duty cycle before failure, but to just get it to light up and heat a little water seems like a waste of time, not to mention you are putting yourself and home in danger...

just a word to the wise, if you need any advice on doing it either way I am here for you, just remember to BEE KAREFOOL...

I would personally go for the lower amp service vs the high, the units internal components are designed to function with a 40 amp circuit, in the off chance they pull more than that you want the circuit to break at 40, breaking at 50 could be the difference between flipping a breaker and calling 911...

 

[Adam]

I wouldn't bother unless you were going to do it correctly, the review is going to be kind of useless, since no one is going to spend that kind of money to not follow the instructions, and properly install it, not to mention, if it does or does not work correctly for you, you can not in good faith give it a review since you haven't actually used it, what you are thinking about doing is dangerous and not worth the reward...

I'll agree to disagree. I may act like one, but I'm no fool. I'm a competent engineer and fully understand what I'm doing with this unit. 30A or 50A isn't a huge deal to me - I'm going to do the calculations for what power is required. If the unit heats up the water as it should, and it can run off of one power line as they say, then that's valuable to me. Reviews on some of their other units indicate that they are faulty to begin with - I'd like to see if it works.

I'll bet you your house versus my house that I don't cause a fire using the 30A line. That's what the breaker is for. Well, the breaker and my uncanny ability to do math. The only way I'll cause a fire is if they didn't install cables per code. I can flow almost 2 GPM at a requested temperature rise of 24 degrees F with 30A at 240V. I don't plan on getting close to that. I only need to flow 0.25 GPM for the unit to start heating per the manual, and my plan is around 0.5-1 GPM.

 

[Adam]

Btw, Irv - I wasn't trying to argue. I really do appreciate all of your advice on this! I just have an idea of what I'm going to do for the review, and I think it'll end up having some merit. Of course, it's probably days of work for a review that two people will ever read, but that's how it goes sometimes...

 

[GO-NAD!]

I'm just here to let you know that I'm following along. I can't provide any insight or help, but I'm reading onetheless

I'll agree to disagree. I may act like one, but I'm no fool. I'm a competent engineer and fully understand what I'm doing with this unit. 30A or 50A isn't a huge deal to me - I'm going to do the calculations for what power is required. If the unit heats up the water as it should, and it can run off of one power line as they say, then that's valuable to me. Reviews on some of their other units indicate that they are faulty to begin with - I'd like to see if it works.

I'll bet you your house versus my house that I don't cause a fire using the 30A line. That's what the breaker is for. Well, the breaker and my uncanny ability to do math. The only way I'll cause a fire is if they didn't install cables per code. I can flow almost 2 GPM at a requested temperature rise of 24 degrees F with 30A at 240V. I don't plan on getting close to that. I only need to flow 0.25 GPM for the unit to start heating per the manual, and my plan is around 0.5-1 GPM.

Fuzz and I need to make some popcorn and watch this unfold...

 

[Adam]

Fuzz and I need to make some popcorn and watch this unfold...

I'll sprinkle some popcorn around the heater. It'll pop just fine as I'm carrying Niki out of our burning house.

 

[Adam]

I was going to put off going to Home Depot tonight, but now I feel like the gauntlet has been thrown.

Don't worry, all. I've already put Niki's care into my will.

 

[Adam]

Now I'm mentally back to not going to Home Depot.

My new spin on the classic - Pride and Laziness.

 

[ImcLoud]

I'll agree to disagree. I may act like one, but I'm no fool. I'm a competent engineer and fully understand what I'm doing with this unit. 30A or 50A isn't a huge deal to me - I'm going to do the calculations for what power is required. If the unit heats up the water as it should, and it can run off of one power line as they say, then that's valuable to me. Reviews on some of their other units indicate that they are faulty to begin with - I'd like to see if it works.

I'll bet you your house versus my house that I don't cause a fire using the 30A line. That's what the breaker is for. Well, the breaker and my uncanny ability to do math. The only way I'll cause a fire is if they didn't install cables per code. I can flow almost 2 GPM at a requested temperature rise of 24 degrees F with 30A at 240V. I don't plan on getting close to that. I only need to flow 0.25 GPM for the unit to start heating per the manual, and my plan is around 0.5-1 GPM.

I wasn't insinuating you were a fool and I agree as I previously stated in my post the 30a will not cause a fire but the potential for a 50a breaker being the only safety on a 40a device is not what I would consider safe. You being an engineer should agree that water and electricity together should be respected...

I have installed more water heating devices than I care to recall, maybe more than 90% of other techs twice my age, I can tell you first hand that you can do everything to code and by the book and still have a danger there. About 8 years ago installing a normal 50 ga electric water heater the breaker failed and it cost {insurance} over $25K to repair the damage. It was only a replacement and I always replace the breaker when I do a new tank, then chances I got a bad breaker along with a faulty upper heating element were 1 in a million BUT it happened, after they investigated it they found a faulty breaker and the upper element was not properly seated in its housing, after a few times expanding and retracting it shorted, the breaker didn't flip and it melted the tank {full of water} which caused more damage...

Also I have to disagree about 20 amps not being a big deal, 30-50 is a big deal, its a lot easier to take my word for that than prove me right .... Now 10-20 amps may not be a big deal when dealing with 1200 amps, but when dealing with 40 and stepping it up to 50 that is 25% past the units designed shut ofF!!! If the other reviews are correct and these things are faulty, I would hate to see you find out the hard way while holding this thing and running a garden hose into a bucket... UNLESS of course you video tape it and it ends with you screaming like an 11 year old school girl and peeing your pants while not suffering any permanent physical injury , of course...

PS again, not looking to bust your balls or saying you are not capable, your own words were you haven't played with home high voltage much, so just a word of warning from someone who has, your playing with fire, literally...

 

[Adam]

I wasn't insinuating you were a fool and I agree as I previously stated in my post the 30a will not cause a fire but the potential for a 50a breaker being the only safety on a 40a device is not what I would consider safe. You being an engineer should agree that water and electricity together should be respected...

Oh, I wasn't offended at all. You probably should insinuate it. And, yeah, I totally agree that water and electricity should be respected - together or not. I don't plan on flooding the area and then plugging it in. I'm going to make sure that all of the plumbing is good and not leaking before I get the plug anywhere near the outlet.

Also I have to disagree about 20 amps not being a big deal, 30-50 is a big deal, its a lot easier to take my word for that than prove me right

I probably came across wrong on that one. I meant that I'll tailor my usage of the heater so that it won't exceed (or get close to) 30A if I use that line. If I use the 50A line, I'll still stick around 10-15A max, but the heater shouldn't be able to even draw 50A unless its control logic is flawed _and_ its internal fuse doesn't work properly.

One bonus to using the range outlet is - I don't already have a range power cord. I'd like to buy stuff that I could conceivably use for something in the future instead of buying it just for a couple of hours of use on this. I have a gas range right now, but maybe I'll get an electric one at some point in the future.

 

[ImcLoud]

Why buy a cord at all, shut the breaker, open the receptacle box, take the red and black off {l1 and l2}, ground the neutral, and just use some wire nuts {grey for 50a, red for 30}... $5 and you can have it wired up...

I wish you were closer, I could have that properly wired and installed inside an hour, I have rolls of cable, boxes of breakers, and easily 15-20K in plumbing fittings....

Are you going to have to return that unit or do they let you keep it?

I Installed a pair of EH-40's {made by slant fin, 140K btu each} electric boilers in a customers house, they were primarily solar powered with tons of storage {the owner was an electrician and specialized in solar installs}, they house was enormous, it was around 8000 sq ft heated space... Them boilers had their own panel, 16 double breakers, 6 ga wire, it was impressive and that system ran better than any fuel fired boiler I ever installed, SILENT and FREE!!! He installed a solar field and had a separate building for the mechanical and electrical utilities, it was impressive...

Anyway electric hydronic devices are getting more popular and working better and better..

 

[Adam]

I wish that I was closer, too. That would mean that I was rich.

I bought the cord to save me effort and to reduce risk. With the cord, I don't have to worry about shutting off the power and screwing around inside of the receptacle box (which is behind either my dryer or my range). It was under $25 - no biggie. Plus, now I have a spare dryer cable...yeah, I'm going with the dryer outlet. I had to get adapters for the water lines because they are NPT and I'd like to just hook it up to the washing machine line (you're good suggestion) which is hose thread. Plus, I can hook up one of my existing garden hoses and route the water to the kitchen sink or outside.

I'm just about $50 into it after going to Home Depot just now. It's a project, so I don't feel bad about the money. I've learned things, too. First, I learned that washing machine hoses have the same threads as garden hoses. I also researched electrical systems and learned some good stuff about how houses are wired. I also learned the difference between neutral and ground. Yeah, I could have researched that stuff on my own, but I wouldn't have had a reason to without this project.

I almost surely get to keep the heater. The company can ask for the unit back, but in about 6.5 years in the program, that's only happened to me once...kind of. It was a Moen faucet design that arrived damaged twice, so they asked for both of them back to inspect them. They then shipped me another one with new packaging, so I still got it.

They offered me the heater, I accepted it, and it's all with the understanding that I'll use and review it. So, I'm going to use it. I'm not going to do a full install, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm pretty sure that it would be $250+ just for the raw materials (breakers, cables, boxes). I'd be shocked if I could get that all installed for under $250 in labor. So, $500+ to install it - and I don't want to replace my gas water heater. If/when it fails, then I certainly might consider installing this because then the install will cost about what a new water heater would cost.

 

[Adam]

Oh, and some of that $50 was spent on wiring nuts and electrical tape, neither of which I had. So, about $10 of that was stuff that I had wanted to get anyway.

 

[ImcLoud]

I wish that I was closer, too. That would mean that I was rich.

I bought the cord to save me effort and to reduce risk. With the cord, I don't have to worry about shutting off the power and screwing around inside of the receptacle box (which is behind either my dryer or my range). It was under $25 - no biggie. Plus, now I have a spare dryer cable...yeah, I'm going with the dryer outlet. I had to get adapters for the water lines because they are NPT and I'd like to just hook it up to the washing machine line (you're good suggestion) which is hose thread. Plus, I can hook up one of my existing garden hoses and route the water to the kitchen sink or outside.

I'm just about $50 into it after going to Home Depot just now. It's a project, so I don't feel bad about the money. I've learned things, too. First, I learned that washing machine hoses have the same threads as garden hoses. I also researched electrical systems and learned some good stuff about how houses are wired. I also learned the difference between neutral and ground. Yeah, I could have researched that stuff on my own, but I wouldn't have had a reason to without this project.

I almost surely get to keep the heater. The company can ask for the unit back, but in about 6.5 years in the program, that's only happened to me once...kind of. It was a Moen faucet design that arrived damaged twice, so they asked for both of them back to inspect them. They then shipped me another one with new packaging, so I still got it.

They offered me the heater, I accepted it, and it's all with the understanding that I'll use and review it. So, I'm going to use it. I'm not going to do a full install, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm pretty sure that it would be $250+ just for the raw materials (breakers, cables, boxes). I'd be shocked if I could get that all installed for under $250 in labor. So, $500+ to install it - and I don't want to replace my gas water heater. If/when it fails, then I certainly might consider installing this because then the install will cost about what a new water heater would cost.

I would imagine your $250 estimate is accurate, but you can do the labor yourself... The invent of shark bite style fittings turns any diy Joe into a plumber, lol...

PS, do yourself a favor and shut the breaker before unplugging any double line appliances...

 

[Adam]

I would imagine your $250 estimate is accurate, but you can do the labor yourself... The invent of shark bite style fittings turns any diy Joe into a plumber, lol...

PS, do yourself a favor and shut the breaker before unplugging any double line appliances...

Oh, I can do the plumbing part of it - but I'm not going to run the electrical lines through my walls and attic. If not for the electrical part of this, I might have had the thing installed the day after I got it.

Thanks for the tip on the breaker, but why do you recommend that? Just in case I touch the leads?

 

[adk highlander]

I have not shaved in 5 days.

 

[ImcLoud]

I would imagine your $250 estimate is accurate, but you can do the labor yourself... The invent of shark bite style fittings turns any diy Joe into a plumber, lol...

Oh, I can do the plumbing part of it - but I'm not going to run the electrical lines through my walls and attic. If not for the electrical part of this, I might have had the thing installed the day after I got it.

Thanks for the tip on the breaker, but why do you recommend that? Just in case I touch the leads?

Where is your electric panel? Why would wires run through the attic? You could put the water heater next to the panel and run pex to the water hot and cold, pex is much cheaper than cable...

As for turning off the breaker, its a good practice, even in an unmarked panel finding the 220v range or dryer breaker is easy and won't take but a few minutes, when you pull the plug in and out you can move the cables and contacts inside the receptacle around. A handful of years back I pulled a range plug out in a kitchen I was remodeling a little by the wire, it flashed and blinded me for a minute, put a burn mark on the wall and flipped the breaker, and gave me a scare... After checking it out, the contacts had welded/corroded themselves to the plug contacts and when I pulled the plug out it broke the internal plastic contact keepers and caused a short inside the box.. My electrician friend checked it out for me and said it was common, and to always shut 220v breakers before messing with them... So I do...