Infinity Eco-Green 12L tankless water heater

[Frank]

Aloha,

Has anyone here used this particluar tankless water heater?
Any info, good or bad would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[kalakoa]

The cheap Chinese tankless water heaters are known by many brands.

Amazon has one for $120 (free shipping).

Mine has lasted 5 years so far.

[VancouverIslander]

Kalakoa: how is the performance on it? How long to get up to temperature and how much water can it keep heated? Can you have a shower while someone washes dishes? I had thought about going cheap on the hot water but ended up going with Takagi Jr. in the end (from Amazon). It's been great, but the price after shipping was over $700.00

[Guest]

Tankless is the way to go. I'll never go back to a tank water heater except as a reservoir for a passive solar water heating system. I bought a cheapo tankless water heater two years ago for $120. They all work pretty much the same. It works great. If you have propane, you have hot water. Only issue is that at very low flow rates it shuts off to prevent damage to itself, so you need to keep the hot water flow above a minimum level.

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You can't fix Samsara.

[kalakoa]

Hot is immediate (minus length of plumbing). Insulating the plumbing helps somewhat.

In theory there's a timer that shuts the unit off after 20 minutes (damage control), in practice I've never had that problem.

Temperature regulation is "vague" (it's a straight "degrees rise", so relative to the intake temp), I end up changing it twice a year to compensate for the winter "cold"; some of the premium 10L units have better thermostats.

Next house will simply have one 5L (the $120 size) + pump ($60) per sink, with very short hot water plumbing, that way I can even set the kitchen sink hotter than the shower. Flow rate for the 5L units is well-matched by the little 2.9gpm DC pumps.

[VancouverIslander]

Any reason for having dedicated pumps for each purpose instead of one pump+pressure tank for the whole house?

[Wao nahele kane]

Problems with water pressure balance can be avoided by bumping up the pump pressure and increasing the tank pressure just a couple pounds under the low end pressure of the pumps regulation cycle.
If one jumps to say 60-80 psi at the pump and cuts it down via strategically placed 40psi inline regulators in the trunk and branch lines they can avoid temperature fluctuations in the shower when a sink is turned on or a toilet is flushed. It not only alleviates that sort of nonsense but also allows for normal water temp regulation at the shower valves and eliminates overall pressure rise and fall as the pump cycles. Obviously this means placing the regulators in the proper locations and takes more than just one or two.

[kalakoa]

Any reason for having dedicated pumps for each purpose

Being off-grid changes the economics somewhat: multiple $60 pumps (and extra plumbing) are cheaper than a pressure tank, big pump, and big inverter to start the big pump.

As an extra added bonus, no single point of failure, and nobody can ruin your shower by stealing the water pressure.

[ericlp]

what 60 dollar pump are you referring to?

As for tankless, been running an L5 for about 3-4 years, no problems yet eco-temp I think is what I got off amazon for 99 bucks back then, now it's 120. Thinking about buying another for backup just in case.

Would suck, taking cold showers in the winter, waiting for a new one to arrive.


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[kalakoa]

FloJet 04405143A or Shurflo 2088-554-144 (same pump, different color plastic, both have the built-in pressure switch) have enough pressure+flow for the 5L water heater; this works even better with a Shurflo 182-200 mini pressure tank. Recommend the Shurflo 255-313 mesh prefilter. Got everything from Amazon.

Also available in 24V but these are harder to find.

One design issue: the small DC pumps have very little draw, so mount them low.