What home improvement work did you do today?

Coming along nicely.

 

It really is. Thankfully the hard part is done for the building and now it is all the other ones that are just down... but I am plumb worn out so I will get to them....

and thank you!

 

Moved our PRV before our water softener and Moen e-valve. Guess I never noticed that when I plumbed in our eater softener, I plumbed it before the PRV. Wasn't until I installed the Moen valve and it sent me a high psi alert that I realized my mistake. Moved it down right next to the water shut off, ran some new pex and got it all done. It's leveling off at around 72...I'm gonna bump it up to 80ish

 

The Flo system is nice to have, especially with the remote leak sensors.

 

Yup. We've got a mix of Govee and Ring (Also our alarm and camera system) sensors. Gives the wife a sense of comfort when we're not home for a few days.

Adjusted the PRV as much as I could..got up to 81.5psi....I'll take it.

 

Yeah, sounds similar to us. We have Moen leak sensors on toilets, ice maker, laundry, etc. I'm surprised you got your PRV past 75. A lot of residential ones are limited to that as over 80 is considered a code violation. I had anxiety when ours got near 80 off and on so I dropped it to 60.

 

Mainly for my curiosity, what types of trees do you have on your property?

 

Well shit. I guess I jinxed myself. I hate when that happens. Looks like I'm on the hunt now ... Gotta figure out what to buy (tankless is where we're probably going).

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I have a state tankless that I would buy again. I'll get a pic of it for you. I've also heard good things about Rhiani. Are you on propane or electric? Because I'm far enough away from a city to shop around I've also had good experiences with this place for plumbing and heating supplies.
https://www.supplyhouse.com/

 

Black pipe, natural gas into the house. The closet with the water heater ("WH") and furnace in it are about 25 linear feet from where gas comes into the house.

I've got 1.5" black pipe running to just overhead furnace and WH. There's a 1" shared line teed off that larger line, running down to individual sediment traps, then to each appliance. (The 1.5" line continues along, then up through a chase, to the attic furnace 20ft above, which feeds our upstairs)

I recall someone saying something prior about needing a specific diameter black pipe for tankless, only reason I mention all this.

 

Changed out my trash can drawer's slide in my kitchen. It was starting to drag, grind, and bearings were crapping out. I believe it was installed with a simple one and not one to handle the weight of the big drawer with double trash cans loaded up full. Went ahead and switched it to soft close while at it. It's got a 200lb capacity set now, so that should help a lot!
Original made it almost 9 years....guess it could be worse
No pics, sorry

 

I do know it has to be vented properly and to code since it's gas. Usually code will be listed in your county permiting rules, at least that where I found mine.

 

3333

On the property... so far, confirmed:

1. oak trees to include water oaks, live oaks, grandfather oaks and angel oaks.
2. Hickory
3. Maple
4. Palm
5. Magnolia
6. Pine

That I am taking down... water oaks only......

 

Sorry this took me so long. I got sidetracked. Wife is out of town so I had to go get my daughter from Basketball practice then come home and make dinner.




This is installed in my crawl space under the house. The sticker has minimum clearances posted as well as serial number.

 

Venting, not a problem. Proper vent lines are pre-existing due to both appliances being in that spot.

Thanks for that. I always see people talking up Rinai, like it's the Cadillac unit to get. I hadn't even heard of Slate before.

We've got the $$ to spend, knowing we want this to be one-and-done. Just not sure what to buy, unit, recirc, etc. This may end up being a job I just hire someone else to come in and handle. I could swap in a new tanked WH no prob, but we'd love to reclaim some closet space and move into the 21st century now the tech is fairly tried and true.

 

Recent (Gas) fireplace remodel.

Original builder kit fireplace in every other house in neighborhood. Nothing wrong with it,; keeping the woman happy.....


Demoed and new frame / concrete backer installed to ceiling. Going to have a raised hearth.



Brought in the pros for the rest.



Morter & Mantel



Completed about a week before Christmas.
Still debating hanging our picture or not.

 

Mine is 14 years old. Definitely get the clean out valves installed.

 

I want post a few pictures of our installation. It’s 3 years old now and has worked fine. I showed a copy of the label and the clearance requirements are there. When we had our old home and maybe 10 years ago the water heater redo, we looked at tankless. BUT the ventilation was to be stainless steel, so our run to the roof would have been expensive. Note the venting now is PVC, a lot cheaper. I also showed the gas connection and the final connection to the tankless system. It is larger than what I had for my old tank water heater at the old house. Anyways, the tankless system is good for 4.5 gal/min on this model of Rinnai

 

You’re in good shape.
Most WH only have a 3/4” line and that’s not enough for a full size tankless with any kind of pipe run to it. You’re way overkill there so plenty of capacity.

venting can be a challenge too - tables are high BTU and so need a lot of makeup air AND exhaust. Standard WH duct isn’t enough.

 

My Rinnai R85 is now 19 years old and running like a champ. I had absolutely shit luck with Bosch before they finally just gave me my money back and I got the Rinnai.

 

That venting is dual vent pipe - it’s an inner SS or AL pipe with a separate outer PVC. The inner is the exhaust and outer is intake air. It’s expensive stuff, and Rinnai is particular about total distance and total fittings, but makes for a very compact installation.

I don’t see flush/drain valves under your heater - that’s too bad because they make the periodic HX flushing process so much easier (I do mine about every 18-24 months).

 

If your house isn’t currently piped for a recirc, it may be a challenge to add. The little under-sink ones that return through the cold water line aren’t well suited for tankless for a variety of reasons (tankless operate on a flow sensor and have a minimum flow and minimum BTU output). But if you can access your piping to add a return loop, then they are nice to have.

The recommended way to do it is to add a small (~5gal) TANK heater downstream of the tankless - isolated with a check valve so it can’t flow backwards into the tankless. Run the output off the tankless into the “cold” into the small tank and also tee in the return from the recirc on that side. Then the “hot” out of the tank goes to the regular hot supply. Set the tank to be right about the same as your tankless output temp. This way the tankless isn’t running to heat a trickle flow at less than ideal efficiency, but you aren’t paying to store a big tank of hot water either - Rinnai specifically would void the warranty on older units like mine if they weren’t piped this way for recirc.

Even without a recirc, using a little 5 gal tank works as a buffer to eliminate the “cold water sandwich” effect for things like washing dishes.

 

I ran one network line in the basement.



On a serious note...son bought a giGANTIC video card for his gaming rig...and didn't realize he couldn't fit both his WiFi card and his video card. LOL

Installed the UDM SE in the basement and the U6 IW WAP in the living room...and ran a Cat 6 line from the UDM SE to his room. Throughput went up slightly from 300 down/20 up to 1000 down/60 up. LOL

 

Ok, I thought I saw oaks in those pictures. We have a ton of them in the area I live. I guess I never really knew that there were oaks in Florida, that's why I was curious.

 

Makes sense. We have a lot of oaks here and most of them are protected. When I lived in the city, it was a fight and a half to get one trimmed up to cut back. We love our oaks because they have such a large root system that typically holds tight and absorbs a lot of moisture.

That was also what made that last two hurricanes so significant. With all our rainfall, the ground was saturated and the winds knocked these beasts down roots and all. It was scary to see these hundred + year old trees laying on houses and cars.

 

I’m stalled on progress due to being sick but this is my kitchen power in the shop feeder.

 

Thanks for your input. Any extra eyes I can get on this, any input, is all welcome. New territory for me (tankless). I'd shot the shit casually with @FrenchToasty and @Festerw (IIRC) at one point, thinking I had years. Obviously not the case.

This is current setup, with WH/expansion tank/furnace, see pics.

Gas:
Note the black pipe run overhead is 1½" OD black pipe, tees vertically down one 1", then splits in 1" and 3/4" respectively to each appliance (3/4" goes to water heater, but I've got a good volume to tee from). Sediment traps, I recently added.

Exhaust:
Vent off the WH is obviously small, but dumping into what I believe is 6" (possibly 5").
Vent off the furnace is 4" and you can see where it jumps up to the 5" or 6" just before the WH dumps into it.
Where it disappears into the insulated wall, above 4ft forward from that point, it goes up through a chase to the attic.

Spacewise, I'm thinking the back wall may not have clearances required, so we may be sticking it on the wall to the left. Bummer, leaves us with less closet space than I'd like if that's the case.

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So I just went through this as we are building (almost done) with our house. Our plumber, who can get any brand, says go with Navien hands down. I also asked other plumbers/companies in my construction groups for work and about 8/10 said Navien. I also have a buddy who owns an HVAC company and they install Ruud/Rheem and he has Navien in his own house.

Navien has all stainless interior parts, as well as pretty high efficiency. It is the Toyota of the tankless world. From what I can tell they seem to have overtaken the tankless world for best/most reliable. This may vary by region.

At our house I actually did 2 tankless water heaters. Yes sounds crazy but hear me out. With one water heater in the corner of the basement, it was about 130 foot run to get to the other side of the house to the master bedroom. You can run recirc kits, but by the time you run it that long, get the correct kits, etc... you are at the same price for a 2nd heater. So we have one for each side of the house. The first one has the 2 kids bedrooms and the kitchen, the other one run the bonus room, master suite, laundry room. We do not have any recirculation setup and 15 seconds is the longest it takes to get hot water anywhere.

We also have a line with valves running from one tank to the other. If one of the heaters goes out, I can flip a valve and the whole house will run off of the 1 heater in a backup situation. I have 2 of the Navien 240S2 199,000 BTU heaters running on propane.

I thought my plumber was crazy for suggesting 2, but now that I did it I am really glad I did!

 

The gas line is not an issue other than perhaps some reconfiguring.
The exhaust run and piping, as well as the need for an intake line, might be an issue. I’d consult with a professional there.

I’m having a really hard time believing that the cost of a second WH was a “wash” with putting in a recirc loop unless they were really cheap on the second WH or absolutely screwing you on the pipping quote.
Not saying it’s not awesome having a second unit, but I can’t math that one out.

 

Definitely calling a professional. I'm getting a wild array of info, everyone pointing to Rinnai and Navien. MIL is a designer, three of the half dozen GCs she asked recommended the Rinnai RXP199. One said Navien NPE240. Other two are n/c at this point. Both brands have US manufacturing, lots of support, good warranty. Navien guy said I should get two units? The hell? Rinnai dudes said one is fine.

Guess I'd like to find a Rinnai expert locally, from what I'm reading online and from friends, all the plumbers push Navien for some reason. I can't get discounts from CR on Navien, apparently that's reserved for licensed pros only? Another turnoff for me.

Dealing with it tomorrow. I'll make some calls.