Tankless days – followup

I want to tell you…. this Precision Temp RV-500 tankless water heater is outstanding!  I actually showered AND Merrily did wash at the same time and I could not even tell it other than a few little glitches in water pressure!!!!

Granted, I also turned on the RV water pump to provide supplemental water and pressure since our shore water supply is about 100’ of 3/4” polybutal pipe plus another 50’ of RV hose to get to the RV connection. This is all just fed from a common (and 40 year old) frost proof hose bib on the back of the basement of the house. These are definitely NOT full flow valves and it does not take much pressure drop in the house to give us less than 40psi out here. When it does drop off I have found that running the RV Shurflow Extreme flow plump in the RV draws enough additional water from the RV tank to make up the lost pressure and volume so its not noticeable.

BTW, I have found another important thing about occasionally doing this with the pump. When these Shurflow pumps sit unused for long spells they seem to get stubborn about starting up again.  From tips from others with these smart flow pumps, using them even while shore water is hooked up is not a bad idea… just so long as you don’t forget it is on and run the RV water tanks dry.  I generally flip the pump ON during laundry days and keep the RV tank nearly full most of the rest of the time, just in case of… whatever.

I did finish up the replumbing job, though. I had intended to reuse some of the pipes and fittings from the old HWH bypass valves “Christmas tree” but decided that this stuff was all over 10 years old and the fittings were all plastic. I opted to use some of the 1/2” PEX I still had from replumbing the house a few years ago and bought new brass fittings for everything I installed.

One thing that turned out to be pretty nice is that the new tankless HWH is not nearly as deep as the Suburban 10 gallon DSI HWH so I now have quite a bit more space under the kitchen sink for storage. 

I just need to relocate a couple of 110volt electrical boxes that feed the whole slideout and I will actually be able to put a lot more under there than a bottle windex and a 1/2 bag of new sponges. Nothing heat sensitive,of course, even though it does not even get a little bit warmer under there when the new HWH is operating.

This is the “before” picture and here is the “after” shot with the newly operational tankless HWH and plumbing.  Quite a difference as you can see from the electrical junction box in both pictures that has not yet been moved. There is just that much more available space, now.

I just need to do some dressing up of the routing of the pipes, wires, heater hose, etc. to make the space more accessible.

The only item left to do is reinstall the water filter to the ice maker and the separate filtered water tap on the sink.  The original installation had the filter mounted horizontally (against the printed instructions on it) and on the shelf above the HWH. I am still puzzling as to where to put it so I can easily change it without emptying anything out of this cabinet. Maybe I will have an epiphany tonight…. if I ever get to sleep.

ttfn