Atmor Instant Tankless Electric Water Heaters

KaseeW · March 1, 2015, 1:01pm

My tankless is located in a semi-heated basement and is at a significant distance from both the kitchen and bath. It’s set at 120 degrees and, once the hot water reaches the faucet, I find it to be sufficiently hot for my purposes.

archerman2000 · March 1, 2015, 3:06pm

Need something for my shower, can these be used in line at the shower to ensure we don’t run out of hot water? If so which model is recommended?

dewwars · March 1, 2015, 8:09pm

On another topic

I have been using a similar electric tankless system for the last 15 years. I will try to help explain what to expect.

Your lights will noticeably dim any time there is a call for hot water.

It is just idiotic to set a tankless heater at anything over 104 degrees. Set the temp at the hottest shower person. Why would you spend all that money heating water and then just cool it down.

Consider getting 2 of them in series to assure you have the capacity you need. As a side benefit, you have a backup during repairs. Plumb accordingly.

You MUST, and I do mean MUST, install a good filter just prior to the inlet. If not, you can expect a failure fairly shortly.

With all that said, I would NEVER go back. Besides cleaning up and condensing the space, having continuous hot water when I had 2 teenage girls at home would have been just maddening. If you use a generator, consider getting the smallest one as the 2nd in series. You can shut off the main unit and still have at least a trickle of hot water. I have 2 larger units in parallel, and a small third after that. I have shutoffs positioned so I can switch between the parallel units.(I only use one at a time) I can quickly take one out of service with no interruptions during repairs.

No pictures, then it didn’t happen…lol

fast130 · March 1, 2015, 8:23pm

Depends on the shower head flow and the temp rise needed. Most shower heads flow will be over 1.5 gallons a minute and are suppose to be limited to 2.5 gallons a minute @80 psi since 1992 in the US. As noted by others the water temp rise needed is key and is related to the flow… low flow water has more time for temp to rise in heater and visa versa. If the water going in is cold it has to warm up more to be comfortable and the flow might have to turn down for that to happen. So you have to look at the spec’s and do some math. If ya are wanting to hook it up in-line with a tank water heater that is not normally recommended unless the system is designed to do so; most have a limit on inlet water temp to work properly. Also, most of the useful electric tankless take alot of power and will require some fairly large wiring ran to it from your circuit breaker panel (think over 200 60watt light bubs for the 13k model…). Can’t just plug it in the wall outlet! Tankless have there place if you plan and do the math so you know what to expect.

alderson21 · March 1, 2015, 11:48pm

Folks, these are designed to go under a sink, not to heat your entire house’s water. The higher power units could serve a kitchen with 2 sinks and a dishwasher, as long as you’ve got a 240V outlet nearby that’s on a dedicated circuit (running a new one from the breaker box would probably be pretty expensive, btw).

I second the comment about not using this type of heater if you have hard water. I have a whole house water filter/softener, and my water heaters show no signs of calcium buildup after years of use, whereas the original unit was trashed within 6 years before I got the filter.

I put in a 2.5 gallon 110V unit under my kitchen sink years ago, similar idea to these units, but lower power since it has a tank. It’s good enough to where I’ll get really hot water right off but then as the cold water in the line from the main tank mixes with the hot water in the small tank under the sink, the temp falls, but eventually the hot water from the main tank arrives and it’s back to hot. The temp drop is really only noticeable in winter when the lines in the foundation are cold.