CPVC elbows

My actual question is in the last paragraph but I wanted to provide some history first.

My direct vent gas water heater went thursday. I was surprised to learn that replacement was about $1600. I remember replacing an electric water heater in my last house 11 years ago was about $400. Any savings in fuel is most likely wiped out by installation costs for gas.

Worse yet, no one sells a direct vent gas water heater with anything more than a 6 year warranty. So that means every 6 to 10 years I can expect another $1600 bill (ignoring inflation).

So I decided to waste even more money. I went with a Rinnai tankless water heater. Guaranteed 12 years and supposedly should last 20 years. Only $3200 and it will be much more efficient.

Well I discovered that the inefficient tank water heater was keeping the unfinished part of my basement nice and cozy warm during the winter. It was also warming up the cold water source in the house. Now the unfinished part of the basement is freezing and so is the cold water in the house. I suppose I will be better off in the hot summer without the tank.

Of course there are other disadvantages to the tankless system. Water takes longer to reach each faucet. And you are limited to three uses at a time

So overall I would not recommend a tankless system so far in my short experience.

Now here is my question. The installer (our local gas utility) did a sloppy job with the outside vent. They promise to fix it Monday (the cancellation rights are good to Tuesday so theoretically I could make them rip the whole system out if I get ticked off enuf by them.) Difficult to explain but it involves a giant ring of 1 inch wide caulk instead of getting the right size sleave. So now I am suspicious of their plumbing work. My house is PVC. It is tan for hot so I assume that is CPVC. All the joints are plastic. The gas company used white pipe with copper elbows which fit into the white pipe and there are some rings around the ends of the white pipe to secure the elbows. I am wondering what type of piping they used and whether the flowrate is reduced by the internal elbows (my cpvc uses external elbows and the pipe acts as the male portion of the joints). ALso none of their pipes are fastened to anything to secure them. The flowrate for even a single faucet using hot water seems down compared to before the installation.

Thanks for your help.

Reply to
Art
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Wondering if you are in $US or some other currency. I have a 75 gallon power vent that cost me around $750 on sale about 2 years ago, and I could have bought a better one for around $1000. $1600 sounds pretty steep for nearly anything under 100 gallons.

The Bosch tankless are carried by Menards here, and run around $1100 for the larger size. I would guess that the Rinnai cost more, but 3 times as much???

JK

Reply to
Big_Jake

The prices I quoted were including installation. The Bosch tankless are supposedly bad news.... they are not sensitive enuf at low flowrates and often don't turn on when needed. For some reason, power vent gas water heaters are cheaper than direct vent and many more models are available in power vent versions. One thing that added $350 to either installation was a new code requiring gas pipe to be grounded to electrical panel. That means running a heavy ground wire about 100 feet in my partially finished basement. Intended to act as a lightening arrester I am told.

Reply to
Art

WOW, where are you that bonding metal pipe is a NEW code?

Jimmie

Reply to
Jimmie D

Cary, NC. New code as of March 2007 I was told.

Reply to
Art

Ada county, ID didn't require bonding gas lines in 2002. Don't know if they do now or not. Water supply has been bonded for many years.

sdb

Reply to
sylvan butler

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