What's new

Tankless Water Heater Owners

ibspuds

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Messages
76
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Location
Central Missouri
Anyone in the Kansas, Missouri area have tankless water heaters that service the self serve bays? I would like to visit your wash and check your system out. I have a 4 bay self serve with cold water rinse and would like to eliminate my Raypac boiler.
 

Randy

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
5,860
Reaction score
2,211
Points
113
The trend here is to remove the tankless water heaters and go to a 80-100 gallon commercial tank type heater. I?ve got about the only S/S that still has tankless water heaters. When they die I?ll switch over to a commercial tank type heater. I use very little hot water, the only thing heated is High pressure soap. I can only think of one car wash that has a boiler and it?s been turned off for years.
 

Sequoia

AKA Duane H- 3 bay SS
Joined
Sep 2, 2007
Messages
623
Reaction score
76
Points
28
Tankless

Randy,

I'm curious about why owners are switching back from tankless to a regular type water heater?

I just replaced my 90-gal water heater with a new 90-gal unit, and didn't go tankless mostly because nobody near me seems to deal with them much. (I'm in a rural area.)

I was wondering if I made a mistake by not going tankless .....
 

Twodose

Active member
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
657
Reaction score
86
Points
28
Location
NE Pennsylvania
We use these in a 7 bay Wash. We just finished replacing them all, replaced 5 about 2 weeks ago, and the other 2 in 2001. I used the Paloma PH-24-mdn's. The old one's were 25-28 years old, same model.

The only thing I ever had to change in any of these heaters were the diaphragm's, they seem to last 3-4 years and they are very simple to replace.

When this wash was purchased in 1986 it had these heaters installed, they were initially plumbed with a dole dual solenoid valve and directly to the pumps, the way it was set up was you had to starve the pump just a little to create suction to pull the soap and wax into the water stream, this created cavitation problems with the pump heads (cat 530's)., so eventually we replaced that setup with small ss holding tanks, one for each bay, I mounted them on the wall a couple inches above the height of the pumps so the water is now gravity fed and this eliminated the head wash problem.

I wouldn't hesitate to use these heaters in any car wash, they are cost effective and easy to work on, and the last a long time, plus you are only heating the water when it is needed, also if you had a problem with a heater it would only be one bay.

They are mounted on the wall directly behind the pump stands, you have to leave enough space to work on the heaters and to mount and service the tanks. Behind the pumps are the best place to install them, otherwise you would have hose running all over the place.
 

ToFarGone20

Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2007
Messages
92
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Mine are good so far

I have 6 Rinnai's running at my wash (3 auto's, 6 s/s car bays, and 2 truck s/s bays). 5 of the heaters run my car bays and truck bays. These replaced a 1.35 million btu raypak so my gas usage is far less. The other keeps my hot water tank for my autos at 120 degrees. It turns on and off with the help of an aquastat to keep the temp constant. This stops my other 1.35 million btu raypak from turning on. I have replace one inlet water servo and it was a snap...they overnighted me the part (under warranty) and it went in very easy. These units only require a screwdriver to disassemble from top to bottom.

I am in southeast iowa....maybe to far for you....anyway .....I had pics on this board some where before it changed.
 

bigleo48

Active member
Joined
Sep 6, 2007
Messages
1,887
Reaction score
0
Points
36
I have 4 Rinnais and running my floors, water and fan coil for heat at my 8 bay SS. They have dropped in price considerably in the last year. One nice thing is that if one boiler breaks down (not happened yet) , you're not completely down.

I built another wash with Kiturami boilers (Korean). What I like about those is the fact that they can do both the floor heat (glycol) and the domestic water from the same unit (even has an expansion tank built in). Nice and simple little unit.

I am now planning on replacing my home tank with a tankless. I beleive that in 20yrs, tank water heaters will only be used in special applications.

BigLeo
 

bepco1

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Bigleo48
where did you find kutrami boiler sound good that you can use for radiant and dhw at the same time
alan
 

bigleo48

Active member
Joined
Sep 6, 2007
Messages
1,887
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Kiturami Details

Bigleo48
where did you find kutrami boiler sound good that you can use for radiant and dhw at the same time
alan
This is the unit I have.

http://www.krb.co.kr/english/products/gas_boiler/world3000/feature.php

I'd call around your area to see if anyone is a distributor (or wants to be). Or you could contact Kiturami direct and see if they can point you to one.

I also have a PDF of the manual if you are interested (send me a PM or email)

Big Leo
 
Top