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On Demand electric water heater on a well, works intermittently. Replaced 3 X over 12 years, the problem persists and I'm sick of it. My gut says it's about water pressure/flow, because sometimes you can trick it into working by turning on the sink tap and the shower at the same time. Sometimes that doesn't work either.

The current unit is EcoSmart ECO 11. This services a shower and bathroom sink. Ideas I'm considering- a bigger bladder tank to increase pressure coming in, adding some kind of in-line reducer to increase pressure, adding a mini-tank heater inline after the on-demand. We can't move up in size on the on-demand, as the wiring isn't there to move up. Ideas?

Rohit Gupta
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Overit
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  • What breaker do you have feeding this water heater? Where is this? What is the temperature of the outlet water? Do you know the temperature of the well water or can you estimate it? Does the well water contain a lot of minerals that could be precipitating on the inside of the heat tube? Do you ever descale it with vinegar or other descaling product? – Jim Stewart Jun 26 '23 at 01:21
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    What exactly is the symptom? Is it tepid water? Can you measure the gallons-per-minute of each of the outlets you are concerned with? – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jun 26 '23 at 04:34

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I've never been a fan of the tankless hot water heaters. You're experiencing one of the reason. The next time it fails, think about getting a regular tank heater. They are reliable and operation is pretty straight forward. You can hook it up to your existing power but you'd have to gat a smaller breaker and splice smaller wire to the existing wire.

JACK
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  • It's not a good idea to call tankless water heaters "instant". – Jim Stewart Jun 26 '23 at 01:26
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    The biggest problem with those tankless heaters is misapplication. The second biggest problem is misapplication because the necessary electrical service is not available. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jun 26 '23 at 06:10
  • @JimStewart Good point, edited it. – JACK Jun 26 '23 at 12:01
  • I think a distributed set of point of use electric resistance tankless water heaters each on its own 30 A breaker might be a cost effective way to plumb a house. There would be no central hot water heater and only cold water piping in the house up to each tankless water heater. The kitchen sink and each bathroom would have its own water heater. – Jim Stewart Jun 27 '23 at 15:04
  • Probably one or another form of heat pump with storage tank will be the high end system for domestic water heating. – Jim Stewart Jun 27 '23 at 16:10