Tankless Water Heater Option

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

ARE you guys ready to put up a boat load of money & EAT CROW ??


OTTCT's - UL lavatories charges about min $5000 to do a full scale test .......
get it - play on words...

if I have to teach you Newbie cavemen how to make hot water - Your GF - will laugh at you

[bdosborn]

A thermostat drives triacs that turn the copper heating elements on or off. Full on or full off. How much money again?

Bruce

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Bruce

Now you got me mad......

I got a call in to an REALLY OLD FART -
He is so old, he was around and even helped god invent electricity

let me get back to you !!!

[Steve 70]

I have always been told that you should learn something new every day. Because I was lurking around at the different threads, I stuck my 2 cents worth in on a subject I obviosly only knew 2 cents worth of info about. But that is the great thing about the internet, you can learn about and find out information on just about everything........including electricity.
And as the lady on the commercial says...."if its on the internet, it has to be true". Trust your source.

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Bruce

My old fart says it could be eighter way
We can't really tell until hooked up and tested.
He does agree with me however 100% that on lower power
You could run on #12 wire - no problems, might even work on 20 amp breaker

Then he spent 20 min telling me about instant gas water
Heaters made in 1920 and how cool they were :-)


I can get one , try it out & then we can bet $10k
After I see it working my way

Jerry

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

So Steve 70

Did you buy this model & are gonna hook it up ?

Or were you just Internet fishing to see how much
You can stir up on blog .....

Be aware I have 180,000 btu propane water heater
Working , hydronic heating & I have a/c runing on solar .with MSW Inverter.....

3 things 99% say can't be done :-))
I'm up for a small chalange

Jerry

[Steve 70]

Jerry

I dont make a habit out of stirring up trouble on a blog or anywhere else.

Although I am new to the teardrop build, I am not new to the different trades neccessary to build one. Before I started my build, I spent many days lurking on the forums and watching videos trying to learn as much as possible and to even build a relationship or two with other members that I could learn from. The one thing that I have found out in the short time I have been a member is that there are many knowledable people here. My goal is not to make them mad, but to learn from them. The one thing that truly stands out is that the most knowledable seem to be the most humble.

I did purchase the water heater but after gathering more information, I have decided to go in a different direction with the water heater.

Steve

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Steve

We are just having fun. Bruce is a really, really smart electrical guy,
Much better then me by a long shot !!

Sooner or latter I'll be able to stump him "one day maybe"
In theory what he is saying is 1,000 % correct ....

I just like bend the laws of electric nature a little .....
If they say it's not possible ... Then I wanna give it a try :-))
Now I might have go buy One of those & see if it works somehow ?

Jerry

[hankaye]

OTTCT, Howdy;

So Steve 70

Did you buy this model & are gonna hook it up ?

Or were you just Internet fishing to see how much
You can stir up on blog .....

Be aware I have 180,000 btu propane water heater
Working , hydronic heating & I have a/c runing on solar .with MSW Inverter.....

3 things 99% say can't be done :-))
I'm up for a small chalange
Jerry

The number of BTU's you mentioned appeared a tad elevated so I took a look into
Wikipedia (ya, I know), the source content is cited, scroll down to the section
titled Energy Content;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane
Looks like you may have to haul a second trailer for the gas...

hank

[Engineer Guy]

I speed read this Thread, but wanted to offer some 1st Person experience with an Electrical Demand Water Heater from Grainger I put in our Mountain House. The salient Specs are as follows. Note the sobering high Amps draw linked below to obtain even these results:

'Temp Rise on Low @ 0.75 GPM 32/42 F, Temp Rise on Low @ 1.0 GPM 24/32 F'

Disclaimer: The Heater linked below is newer than the Heater I installed. It likely is more versatile. It is about the same capacity.

I put in a 40 Amp 240 VAC Breaker and ran some large Wire. I kinda recall it was AWG 6 or so, but it was to Code. The key was to REALLY lower flow rate to our Shower Head on a 50 PSI Well-based Water System [with Pressure Tank]. From watching a Gauge, I got the Shower flow rate down to ~0.75 GPM. This was the only way to get Water up to a decent hot temp [~45 F up to ~105 F degrees]. Another key issue was to use quality Ball Valves on the Input and Output. This allowed tailoring Water flow rate to a fine degree; a necessity. These Heaters have a safety diaphragm built in. If the flow rate is too low, they won't heat, since the diaphragm won't turn on a pressure-based interlock Switch. I had to hit a fine balance, and minimize throughput flow rate.

Since I bought this Unit, I believe they now have temp adjustments. However, the Heater I bought was a 'block' Heater. It either heated full-on, or not. Thus, the input temp of the Well Water was crucial. This changes seasonally, of course. This req'd seasonal adjustment of the Ball Valves. When Trailering, I believe one would have to adjust the Ball Valves 'some' [and Water throughput] at about every Camping spot. It would necessarily change in a Trailer, depending on Weather or on Water temp coming from a RV Campsite Spigot. GIGO, so to speak...

To the best of my knowledge, Propane-based Heaters are 'better' than Electrical ones. This is because there's more available BTUs as well as sophisticated, adjustable Microprocessor Controls. From memory, the little 1,500 Watt Space Heaters one sees at the Big Box Stores are ~5,200 BTUs. So, one can run the numbers from there re: the BTUs-to-Watts relationship, and how many BTUs are req'd for heating Water up 'x' degrees. It's sobering.

Another lil 'gotcha' was that the Heater I bought was from the U.K. where 240 VAC really is 240 Volts. Here, our phase-to-phase voltage is ~208 Volts. This meant there was less heating capability, and I had to down-rate the Water temp I could expect from this Heater by ~14%.

A ~2 Gallon Water Well Pressure Tank would be a necessity, I believe, to even out pressure excursions. A conventional Trailer Demand-style Pump turning on and off would wreak havoc with a Demand Heater, and result in either really inconsistent Hot Water temp, or would cause the Water Heater safety diaphragm Switch to cut out. This would result in no hot Water.

We've used Electrical Demand Water Heaters in RV Campground Showers in Scotland. You have to feed in Dime-type Coins to keep the Water Heater on. If you're not quick enough, the Heater shuts off and Water temp instantly drops to a stunningly-cold ambient temp.

Powerstream Demand Water Heater

Water Well Pressure Tanks

[roadinspector]

Wow!!! This is a lot of cool info being passed around that is useful for everyone to learn from.

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Hi Hankaye

No
180,000 Btu heater
It does not yet take a separate trailer for the propane ,
2 tanks make about 1600 gallons of hot water

photo 2.JPG (93.98 KiB) Viewed 2359 times

photo 1.JPG (85.82 KiB) Viewed 2359 times

on the bottom I have a valve to heat the water tanks- which in turn
will heat the trailer for 2 days

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Bruce

That little electric heater can only be ordered on the internet

I was gonna go get one to play around with it

[hankaye]

OTTCT, Howdy;

My previous post was only to show that one gallon of propane was only capabile
of creating 'X' number of BTUs , as that is the maximum amount of energy contained
within that gallon. To create the larger number of BTU' then a larger amount of
propane must be utilized.
I notice that you created your own plumbing system for the propane. Interesting.
Is there a High flow cutoff in the event of a leak? and those tanks, are they designed
for horizontal usage or vertical ... there IS a difference.
http://www.propane101.com/consumerpropanecylinders.htm
I'm not trying to jerk your chain, I just don't want you to run into a difficulty further down
the road, so-to-speak...

hank

[bdosborn]

and those tanks, are they designed for horizontal usage or vertical ... there IS a difference.

Take another look at that picture and you'll see that Jerry is just a little photo challenged.

Bruce