Going Tankless: Part II (for Real)

Remember when our water heater went out and we thought about getting a tankless water heater? Ah, the memories. It was in May 2006, but it seems like only yesterday that I was replacing that thermocouple. Wait, that's because it was yesterday! What do I mean? Well, the thermocouple went out again already.

Yes, I fear the 23-year-old water heater has reached the end of its useful life. I've replaced the thermocouple again, but how much longer can it go on? It's time to replace the entire water heater. Since the old beast is so layered with sediment that it won't even fill up our bathtub, this replacement isn't exactly a shock to us.

In fact, after it went out in 2006, I actually found someone on our beloved Craigslist selling a tankless water heater that had been installed in a mulit-family home for a few months. While the owner was glad at the energy savings, the residents weren't too happy when four people tried to shower at once.

If you aren't aware of the main performance difference between tankless and regular water heaters, the tankless design can't accommodate the same flow rate (gallons per minute) as a traditional heater. But as long as you get the right size, it isn't a problem. For exmaple, the unit I purchased is a Takagi TK2 which supports two major appliances. So although we never do laundry at the same time as showering, in theory, with this tankless heater, we could.

So while we limp along on our old standard heater, I contacted my good friend Jim, to help with the tankless installation since he has the exact same model. Also, there are some unique install considerations for these. Since tankless water heaters burn so efficiently, you can't use a standard exhaust duct... it has to be double-walled stainless steel. Jim also installs solar thermal water heaters, so he could help me install this so that if I ever wanted to go solar later on and use the tankless as a supplemental backup (a common configuration) there would be room to cut in the solar piping. Anyway, here's another photo of it during the installation process.


As you can see, the space-saving design is already a bonus as it tucks away into a 2'-wide space between the furnace and a foundation wall. I've already got plans for the area where our old water heater currently rots rests. Anyway, we're not quite done with the installation just yet, but we'll be wrapping things up very soon.

International Water Heaters and Electric Showers?

In mid-April, we took a brief break from Humphrey House to take a well-earned vacation to Ireland with our friend Jerry and visit some of his family. Of course we took lots of photos of the many interesting sites. There were even some neat things related to construction such as building with local materials (amazing number of slate roofs and stone facades), and a proliferation of renewable energy (lots of solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps, and large-scale renewables such as wave power and wind turbines result from favorable sustainability incentives).

We got hands-on with some interesting construction when we stayed with Jerry's and his cousin John's home outside of Cork. Besides being an excellent cook, and great guide as we traveled through Ireland, John lives in a fairly recent home (constructed within the last 10 years). At John's house, I of course was interested in the building techniques (such as no basement since Ireland is actually considered in the tropics and has palm trees) while Jen was fascinated by the gardens and chickens.

While the 3-bathroom home has a small oil-heated tank water heater, the upstairs shower actually had a unique feature - an electronically controlled shower valve that incorporates an on-demand water heater (similar to tankless water heater technology, only smaller). We came across this shower control in a couple locations during our travels.

At first, it was a bit confusing as Jen and I were both unsure how to turn it on. Once we figured it out though, we felt dumb because it was pretty obvious. These electric showers are really unique because they are connected to the cold water supply lines, and you just dial in the temperature you want and turn another dial "on" to activate it. This makes them more energy efficient, use less water, and surprisingly, there weren't any performance issues. John told me the two big manufacturers of these are Triton are Mira (owned by Kohler).

It was interesting to see how Europe (Ireland in this case) is more advanced and hold concepts like sustainability as integrated into their core. In many ways, the Irish haven't had a choice - they've had to be self-sustaining and conserving of their resources since they live on a rocky island with limited resources. So besides having a great vacation, we got a bit of education in how other parts of the world approach green building.

Dad was Right

All of our dads were right, actually, as we discovered last weekend.


KENNY
Kenny had come up with the new kitchen layout right away, even though Jen and I (mostly me) tossed, turned, twisted and tried to come up with a different idea for 2 1/2 years. When we had a professional designer lend his opinion, guess what? It was almost identical to Kenny's plan!

JOHN
Then last weekend, John came and routed our plumbing for our kitchen sink. When the Today Show filmed us removing cabinets, we learned two interesting things.

1. The kit sink was originally in the corner of our kitchen (on the bathroom wall, which meant only one plumbing wall).
2. When some PO last remodeled the kitchen (circa 1952 from newspapers we found in the wall), they moved the sink. And ran the water supply lines on TOP of our floors in that little space under the cabinets.

As John likes to say (with a touch of sarcasm), "They don't make 'em like they used to!"

We ended up gutting out the last of the old galvanized steel pipes in the house so now there is nothing but copper (and water pressure everywhere!) By the the time John left it was very late, but we managed to squeeze in hooking up the gas line for our new dryer in our second floor laundry area as a final project. Which was useful, because the next day, we went to Jay's dad's house for an early Thanksgiving. Not only did we leave with full stomachs, but also a bed full of new laundry appliances.

BOB
The new house Bob & Kathee moved into had a nice Fisher & Paykel washer and dryer in it. However, it was all EcoSmart and computerized, made weird noises, blinked a lot and paused in the middle of washing a load. It was too frustrating for them, so they bought new appliances and offered us these temperamental appliances if we wanted them.

Since we both earn a living via a computer, a computer-controlled laundry machine didn't really seem to daunting to either of us. At least, until we hooked them up and washed a load.

Actually the first load went flawlessly. I was busy running up and down the stairs trying to make sure that all the insulation I packed into the floor last year was doing a good job of muffling the sounds of suds from the dining room below. It was amazing! I couldn't hear a thing! Then came the bedroom test (a regular 2x4 wall with insulation is between the laundry and our bedroom). Almost nothing! Fantastic! I was very excited and pleased. And the washer and dryer were Energy Star rated too!

But when Jen did the next load, when the machine gave up halfway through the wash and started a monotonous beeping noise and flashed all kinds of lights. "Aha," I thought. "This is what Dad was talking about. I'm sure it's something simple. Let's consult the manual" (which I had printed earlier).

Things quickly devolved. Hot and cold supply lines not supplying water? clearly not the case as one wash went through without any problems. Could the angle of the drain hose really prevent the machine from properly executing a rinse cycle? Seems outlandish, but who knows.

At this point, we have done approximately 7 loads of laundry, and sadly, I think we have only had just the first instance that went off without any interruptions. So it seems like it's time to consult the Search Engines to see who else is running into these problems.

Nevertheless, I think it's definitely safe to say our Dads were all right. It's been a humbling month so far.

Plumbing, Take 2

Well, I now feel like I could act as a plumbing consultant (at least for OP village code) to ensure that everything comes into compliance. Educational experts always say that the best way to learn is through failure. Well, that's what happened to us, along with a whole lot of extra work. Good thing we had the extra time from a holiday weekend.

We started off by demolishing (yet another) wall in our kitchen to expose the cast iron pipe. The old vertical stack needed to be replaced since we were cutting out a section of it below. That was a bear of a job, but a special chain pipe cutter that John brought made the job easier. Unfortunately, in order to remove the old stack, we also had to replace the 1st floor bath toilet drain which was molded into the old cast iron pipe. Of course, in order to fully reach that, we had to drop one of our HVAC supply ducts in the basement. Then we were finally able to start chiseling out the old drain, which was embedded in the 3-4 inches of concrete "subflooring" under our first floor bathroom. It's hard to convey just how hard this whole process was in words, and, sadly I did not take any photos before the cast iron was removed. But the whole process took the better part of Saturday, if that gives you any idea. By the time the pipe was out, we had just enough time to run the new PVC pipe from the basement upstairs, and reconnect our toilet.

As you can see, things started to get messy and complicated in the basement utility room with all the PVC pipes from upstairs connecting in to the stack.

After failing our inspection last week, we learned we could purchase a copy of local building code amendments for "a nominal fee". Turns out that it is only $5.00! Well worth the investment, and something I wish we'd known of earlier. It will definitely come in handy as it contains the amendments for ALL building codes, not just plumbing.

So on Monday, we moved on upstairs and rerouted all of our "improper" venting in the attic. We did this early in the morning (8am!), which fortunately turned out to be relatively cool up in the attic while it was raining. By the time the showers passes, it was noon, and we had completed everything except pushing the pipe through the roof (finished later that afternoon).

Then it was down to the basement, where we were able to devise a monstrous maze of piping. (photo coming soon) Why so complicated? In order to make sure every little nit-picky thing that we could be failed for was taken care of so there was no chance of failing the inspection again.

And guess what, when the inspector came at 10:30 this morning, he was very pleased to see everything was so well done and completed correctly. So, now we can continue with flooring and framing!

A complete shell

Our dormer is now completely framed - roof and all! We have a torched-down asphalt roof (because the slope is so low), and the sides are, well, sided. We were fortunate with the weather as we only had one slight rainfall. It was actually the morning the roofers were here, but it only interrupted them for an hour.



Over the weekend, Jay's stepdad came over to help install plumbing. Several hours (and plenty of glue sniffing) later, we had about 80% of the plumbing lines that we will need for our new bathroom upstairs.

Some of our initial dormer bathroom layout revolved around where we could run plumbing up and down to the second floor. This week, after a bit of analysis, we realized that there was a large unusable area we could use that was already in place... the back of the narrow closet in the first floor bath! It's 30" deep, but only 18" wide, which means most of the back is too dark and hard to get to anyway.

In addition to housing the drain pipes from above, this will likely be where we run up natural gas and AC lines for the upstairs furnace too. Fitting the pipe into the back turned out to be relatively simple, once we busted through 4" of concrete in the bathroom floors. Talk about a solid foundation for tile!! As John is fond of saying, they just don't build em like they used to!

C'mon get happy ...

So we were at last successful. No more with the curb madness. I contacted the village manager's office and the curmbly sloppy-arched curb was removed and replaced within 48 hours. Gotta love it when someone can just (finally) make something happen. I also received several phone calls from the new streets manager - sounded nice. The guy we had been dealing with is no longer around (surprise, surprise). Yay for the curb!

There have beena few developments since our last posting. We've managed to redo the plans for the upstairs (THANK YOU VIV FOR ALL YOUR HELP!) and submitted them to the village for their hopefully timely consideration. I can't wait to make some progress above ground. I am feeling caught again lately.

We need a plan. I told Jason this the other day. We used to have this big white board we could put finish dates on, cross off completed projects and look forward to new ones. I don't know where it went, but we gotta find it again. That was like my security blanket, I think. I just didn't know it at the time. Guess you never do till it's GONE!

I just can't wait till we have the bathtub installed upstairs. Right now our water heater can't hold enough hot water to fill the tub on the first floor. How sad is that? SIGH ... but the new tub, that will be awesome.