sacrificial anode

This is why IMHO the "technology" in those things is so archaic. In Europe they are at least a little step farther. In order not to have to run the heaters at elevated temps and waste energy just to keep bacteria at bay, they have what's called a "bacteria killer spike". At regular intervals the temp will be ratcheted up until all bacteria are guaranteed dead, then it drops back down. IIRC the interval is about a week, or at leat used to be.

unfortunately

If you replaced the valves you've done 90% of the job. The rest is just a bit of pipe. Cut and slash what's there and replace it all.

;-)

How is the carpet squishy if the water is outside?

ground

So you just have to heat more water. I don't see the gain.

unfortunately

You have not been under this house yet. I am not claustrophobic and not very afraid of other living things I might meet there. But I do get the occasional back pain and that is no fun at all. Running the blow torch down there to solder pipe is not so great either when you have no room to work in.

spotted

;-)

Ours are inside. If the leak is big enough the drip pan won't be able to cope. But having a drip pan is better than not having one. Except in the lower room we'd need an automatically engaging pump to get the water out.

ground

Huh? Why that?

I don't see the gain.

The gain is this: You can keep the hot water temp just about right for showers and stuff. Once a week or so the boiler goes into high temp mode, then back down. So on average you save energy which is a lot of Dollars these days.

unfortunately

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hosed.

rooms

bit

But you already did the hard part. You can piece pipe together anywhere. It's the valves and such that are the PITA.

spotted

;-)

The drip pan has a drain. A little 1/2" Tygon tubing and the drip is outside. The one in my AL house runs through the wall, from the attic to the outside, right next to the drains and coolant lines for the upstairs air handler. The one in this house only has to go through the wall to the outside. Check 'em out at HomeDespot.

ground

Colder water = more of it, to get the water to the same bath temperature.

My water heaters aren't even warm to the touch. There isn't a lot lost, there. No thanks. I'd rather not take the chance.

thermal loss is directly proporional to temperature difference but only to cube root of tank volume.

spotted

;-)

For the heater on the lower floor the water would then have to run upwards or I'd have to snake the tubing clear across a nice room. The utility closet is sort of "dug into a mountain side". SWMBO would be non-plussed by such a "solution" :-)

ground

Not really. We usually shower. Keeping a boiler consistently at a much higher temperature is always resulting in higher energy costs no matter what. Because you cannot have 100% insulation. For example, it does need a connection to the cold water pipes for the intake.

The best efficiency results if the boiler is kept at the water temperature needed. This is why the local utility runs regular TV ads to turn it down from hot to warm.

Well, with a smarter heater one does not have to take a chance :-)

spotted

;-)

outside.

I just looked at the pan drain in the AL house today (it's sorta hidden behind). It's not flexible tubing, rather 1/2" PVC pipe. It fits through a punched hole in the side of the pan.

I thought you had a crawl space?

unfortunately

had

ground

temperature

Never 100% but it's really good stuff. As I said, the tank isn't warm to the touch, even though the water inside is 140F. It's outside and has never frozen, either. ;-)

If the temperature is lower you need a larger tank to have the same amount of water at the same temperature. There's no way around that. Physics. I thought you Europeons had flash heaters (too complicated).

Best efficiency is a flash heater. In our first two houses, a coil in the boiler made the domestic hot water. It wasn't such a bad thing because it meant the boiler cycled in the summer so it didn't rust (big hunk o cast iron).

The water *is* being kept at

snail's

spotted

popular. ;-)

outside.

The

For the heater on the top floor we could do that. And when we get a new one I will. But out here one must take care to have some sort of block against critters such as snakes because it'll come out at ground level. A regular water trap ain't enough, has to at least be something mechanical. Some critters even pry off metal mesh, just like racoons opened a steel cabinet door at the neighbors' which required turning a handle about 4ft up.

Not in the room on the lower floor. That has slab and is built into the side of a hill, which contains mostly huge rocks. The rest of the house has crawl space but some is barely 1-1/2ft high with lots of obstructions. Every time I have to lay pipe out here it turns into some major project.

unfortunately

had

on

ground

temperature

Same here, they are not very warm to the touch. But all water heaters must have a cold water intake and that presents a highly conductive heat pipe. Only a thermally-buffered valve would partially fix that but don't expect anything this sophisticated in that industry for the next, oh,

The larger tank doesn't matter much, as you wrote above they can be insulated to the hilt. The leak via the intake pipe remains the same. But if kept at a higher temperature then more energy will leak out through there.

before

snail's

through

spotted

popular. ;-)

outside.

outside,

The

No 'coon is going to climb up in a 1/2" PVC pipe. ;-)

I don't think there's anything in the pipe at all, just a clear shot from the pan to behind one of the heat pump compressors. I think the one here is the same, though the WH is in the garage.

It doesn't have to be pipe. Plastic tubing should work. A leak really isn't a problem, either. Just get it away from stuff that'll be damaged by water.

Natural selection achieves things that you couldn't even consider engineering. Pretty cool.

unfortunately

or

had

on

ground

temperature

Plastic pipe isn't very conductive. The cold side isn't warm, either.

Larger tank == more insulation for the same R. Again, it's all plastic. You're overstating the loss in the pipe connection.

Come on. It's only 7c/kWh during heating season. ;-)

before

that

snail's

through

spotted

popular. ;-)

come

outside.

outside,

The

'em

No, that was just to illustrate how smart wild animals can be. What goes through the pipes are baby snakes and so on. Baby rattlers are especialy dangerous because they can't dose their venom yet, they always go full bore on that.

Garage is ok, house not so much. That's where ours unfortunately are. My wife hates anything that slithers, dashes, crawls or hisses. Except lizards, those are kind of cute. We try to catch and then carry most creatures we find back to the outside world in a humane fashion.

That's only possible via pump downstairs. Which may not be all that onerous, a small float switch plus a pond pump should suffice for a small leak.

unfortunately

or

had

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was

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temperature

bacteria

the

The water in there is. And usually water heaters are plumbed in with copper pipe. Not sure if plastic would be allowed here. Decades ago there was a trend to use plastic pipe inside houses. Then leaks sprung, followed by lawsuits, and so on.

of

How do you know that? The last study I saw listed the individual loss contributors. For old heaters it wasn't much but for well-insulated heaters the cold water intake standby loss was substantial.

:-)

Here nobody in their right mind would by anything electric that gobbles energy. Because then they'll fleece ya, big time. Just fired up the wood stove ...