I'm looking for something like a simple inline water heater (I imagine would just detect temperature and flow).

I'm looking for something like a simple inline water heater (I imagine would just detect temperature and flow). I'm finding what they're calling "tankless water heaters". The price seems.... high. I only really use hot water for showering, and to be quite honest, I only do so once every 3 days or so. If your diet is good or whatever it doesn't seem to be a problem, and washing off your skin microbiome frequently is bad for you. Just quickly washing off sweat etc is another matter. In that case keeping water hot for your 1 minute shower is even more of a waste. Just an inb4 there, in my case it could be quite a savings to keep the hot water heater off.

Anyone have experience with these? My basement stays like 50F in the winter,. it is absurd to be wasting so much on nothing. But would be obnoxious to go down and use the breaker all the time as well. This would solve both.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >The price seems.... high.

    Adding an 80 amp circuit will be a few bucks too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I replaced my electric hot water heater with an electric tankless unit because at the time I lived in a small condo and getting back the space taken up by the water heater tank was nice. Unfortunately the cost of the wire from the tankless unit to the electrical box was much higher than the cost of the heater itself. Also needed a higher capacity breaker but that didn't cost very much.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    they have electric heating showerheads for third world countries, you can probably buy on aliexpress

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >electric heating showerheads
      They're boosters, not heaters.
      When your ambient temperature is like 80F, you only need to bump 25F to 105F. So running your water past a resister is both practical and efficient.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Like everyone else said the cost of wire will far exceed the cost of a cheap tank heater if your properly sized panel isn't nearby.

    You will need a minimum of 2 runs of #6/2 romex and 2x 40A breakers added to your electrical circuit. Is your service over 100A? Run more devices at once and you could trip the main because you shouldn't use more than 75% of a breaker's rated capacity.

    If you are that anal about power usage put the existing tank on a timer circuit so that it only comes on about an hour before you typically shower and off 2 hours before you go to sleep.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Run more devices at once and you could trip the main because you shouldn't use more than 75% of a breaker's rated capacity.
      You are conflating multiple issues. Firstly, there is nothing in the NEC about 75% ampacity. You have to derate a circuit by 20% for any continuous load. Continuous loads are defined as something that runs for more than three hours continuously. Second, you can always pull more amps out of a breaker than the name plate capacity. See pic related. Breakers will happily provide more than nameplate current for quite awhile before tripping.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    you're better off just getting a 120v 6gal regular tank water heater for $250, it just plugs into an outlet and should be enough water to wash your stinky hippy body

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    39.52% of your OP is talking about and defending the fact that you only shower for a minute once every three days

    it's 2023. that's disgusting.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    back when I was younger, a lot of places had something like this, it doesn't really work well for showers(only for sinks), it was 2kW and worked very well, you don't need 18kW

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I looked into it and they sell single-spot electric water heaters for showers(4.4-10kW) for 200usd or multi-spot water heaters(whole house) for 220usd in my country(Czechia), gas ones are more expensive(500usd+) but a lot more powerful(if you have more people using hot water) and you don't need high-current circuits installed for them but you should get a carbon monoxide detector and need a chimney and gas

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    https://www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com/
    Check this out, OP.
    We use these and they're very high quality while still getting a bang for your buck.

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