Tankless boilers and water heaters......again!

[lighthousecarwash]

Hey everyone, I'm looking at purchasing a second location and wanted to get some input on floor hear boilers and tankless water heaters. This location has a very small equipment room and is using 2 large Raypak boilers. I'm intending on closing down the wash to do renovations and was looking into replacing the boilers to save some space and hopefully money in the efficiency department. Here are a few questions that I have:

1. Can tankless boilers be used for the floor heat and how do you begin to determine what size and brand to look at?

2. How do you determine the size and amount of tankless water heaters to use? This will be 2 autos, 4 SS bays. Do I need one for each bay or can a couple of them daisy chained together take care of the demand?

3. Are these things really a better option than the Raypak boilers, or just better for the space savings. If there is not a dramatic decrease in the gas bill, is it even worth the trouble?

4. How dependable are these things? My Raypaks at my current wash, just work, and work, and work. Knocking on wood right now

Any help would be appreciated. I've searched and searched the forum, but lots of differing views and opinions have me more confused.

Thanks,
Lighthouse.

 

[2Biz]

I started a thread 3 years ago about using a tankless demand heater for floor heat. You'll find answers to most of your questions there plus lots of pictures of the install. I couldn't be happier with the system I designed and installed. It has worked flawlessly and has saved me tons of money.

http://www.autocareforum.com/showth...s-Water-Heater-For-Floor-Heat&highlight=floor

 

[2Biz]

Here are some stats I posted back in March, 2015....When I first bought the wash, it had a 350K btu Jarco that was so inefficient, that when I tried to run it, it never shut off plus would not keep the floors ice free. Using it only a week cost me over $800. So I turned it off and started researching for something new. Here are the results with tons of supporting information in the thread. Hope this helps....

Date Range: Feb. 11th thru March 12th (29 days in Billing Cycle)

Temperatures:
21 days Max. temp was below 32°
29 days Min. temp was below 32°
19 days Min. Temp was below 15°
7 days Min. temp was below zero
Coldest night was -15°

NG usage in this billing cycle was 449ccf for a total of $440. The floor heat ran 100% of the time below 33°. I also added a 199K btu NG Water Heater that I didn’t have last winter. This usage includes the floor heat, 199K btu WH, 40K btu ceiling furnace, 2 burner wall heater that I run 1 burner below freezing and 2 burners below 15°…