Instant Hot water

[katabust]

Hi,

I own an Ultimate Groom mobile. I'm thinking of installing an instant hot water system. Has anyone ever done this before? If so, how do you like it? Was it difficult/costly to install.

Thank you for your input.

[Doggone]

I don't own an "U. G .M."but to me it's ultimate,lol! I have two water heaters in my van,one for the fresh water and one that is in the tub.Both are what you may call quick recovery and love it!

[Curtis Hanvey]

Been there done it....

We tested a tankless instaant electric hot water unit and it did not last very long. one tank of water.
This particular unit was ... hmmmm... can't remember the name. It started with and "E". It utilized a wire heating element.

It worked great until the tank ran empty. I figured thinking like "house plumbing" that when the tank ran out the pump would lose prime and stop pumping. Water that was still in the heater unit would prevent the element from buring out....WRONG!!!!!

The diaphram pumps we and just about everyone use, they can also pump AIR. Soooooo.... when the water ran out in the tank, the pump started pumping air through the system and even a small air bubble will burn out the element in the heater. I could not find a way to prevent the air from getting to the element s gave up on that idea.

There are some that don't use the thin coil elements and actually electrically heat up the copper tube itself. This one won't burn out the same way but it is 240 volt and high amps to boot so it is not a good idea in mobile.

The only tankless hot water heaters I know of that work are what I designed that are about the 1" thick, 8" long and 3" wide(small) but you have to have access to the vehicles coolant system to operate these. They also work great to heat the entire tank to a nice warm bathing water too. But the bad news is, these hot water units are not sold without the Sprinter/van attached to it. HeheHeheeee.

If you can find a way to assure that air can not get to the heater in the water, the tankless units will work but that will be a hard one to crack.
BTW... Check valves, by-passes, reserve tanks, non-diaphram pumps don't work to fix this issue.

One thing I did not do.... put a float switch in the tank so the power to the pump is killed if the tank is near empty. This would keep the tank from going empty in the first place.

The one surprise..... the replacement elements were only $18(about five years ago). I thought that was a good price.

Curtis

[catgirl]

a lot of variables

i was looking at the instant hot water when my pump broke recently, but there are a lot of factors that you must consider, mostly negative for a mobile application. Many are built for in home use or in RVS, my concern /problem with these heaters is that they have a long recovery time almost an hour to get another 4-8 gallons, a major problem if you are doing multiple pets or very dirty dogs. the second issue is that they only increase the water temp a limited amount. so if it's winter and you're water temp is 20 degrees, it will only warm the water i think an additional 40 degrees to 60 degrees, still pretty cold. this is my understanding based on the specs sheets i read. this is just from memory but i know that that was a problem for me. also you STILL need a pump and these just heat the water. and if they run out of water they burn up. it would be great if they could refine them or maybe make them stronger. i think a propane hot water heater works best. I had looked at marine/boat websites and rv sites. there is a posting and a reply from Doug in mobile groomer section from me: catgirl.