Hello,
So I just moved somewhere cold and it snowing today (has nothing to do with post just complaining). I've been updating my house (built 1989) and today I went down to start thinking about the wiring/plumbing for a basement bathroom I'm putting in (just about finished the drain piping). When I replaced the water heater we couldn't put a bigger one due to space constraints and the power company charges a sur-charge for a whole home electric tankless and I would lose existing grandfathered discounts SO that idea went out windows. Our 50 gal can barely supply enough hot water for 2 serial showers let alone 2 in parallel.
So this new bathroom is going to put a major strain on it UNLESS I put a Point Of Use electric in. I've looked all over the i-net and because of where I live (again complaining) For the 2nd bathroom I'm looking at getting the ECO 27, it may be overkill but I like warm showers. I may or may not run the sink off it as well. As I measured our inlet water at 36F when it was -40 outside I think this is probably the right unit. Unfortunately this unit requires a 200A panel. I could go to the ECO 21 that states a 150A main but I'm not sure that's needed.
Another option I thought up would be I could run the water heater hot outlet to a POU heater and feed both showers off that (one shower is directly below the other). I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, as I've read something about maximum inlet temperature so I'm still looking into that but that could solve both showers problems and would be swell (though I'd have to re-run larger pipe for the higher flow but no problem there).
Another thought I had was putting this at the outlet of the 50gal water heater... Yet questions for a different group, back to the electrical stuff .
That being said I went downstairs to look at my panel as I'd been a bit confused by it in the past. There's 3 boxes, an off peak circuit breaker box, an off peak control box and a usual electrical panel with a 150 main in it. The main panel has the range and dryer so, DP 40, DP30, 20A dishwasher, 10 other 20As & 4 15As. Some of these are horribly mixed and I think the guy who wired this house should be shot, none the less. There's 2 meters so I believe all the off peak water heat & electric heat is all separate from the main panel. SO after all that, my question is, since all of the heating, cooling & water heating are done off the 2nd box and not the 150A main box, would the 113A draw of the ECO 27 really have to be done off a 200A box? In doing my load estimating and something else I can't find is if the POU heaters use PWM so the 113A is their max current under 100% PWM, or do they just run it at 100% all the time and combine cold water with the heated water at the output to provide the correct temperature (that way seems awful unlikely to me).
So, any thoughts? I'm completely open for suggestions. I'll probably end up calling eco or the other brands to find out about the PWM question as I imagine I can't determine which configuration I need until I know the answer to that question.
P.S. Don't mind the messy cable & router wiring I still haven't gotten down there to tidy that up yet. Or take down the 2 dishes on the roof... Ya so much left to do...
So I just moved somewhere cold and it snowing today (has nothing to do with post just complaining). I've been updating my house (built 1989) and today I went down to start thinking about the wiring/plumbing for a basement bathroom I'm putting in (just about finished the drain piping). When I replaced the water heater we couldn't put a bigger one due to space constraints and the power company charges a sur-charge for a whole home electric tankless and I would lose existing grandfathered discounts SO that idea went out windows. Our 50 gal can barely supply enough hot water for 2 serial showers let alone 2 in parallel.
So this new bathroom is going to put a major strain on it UNLESS I put a Point Of Use electric in. I've looked all over the i-net and because of where I live (again complaining) For the 2nd bathroom I'm looking at getting the ECO 27, it may be overkill but I like warm showers. I may or may not run the sink off it as well. As I measured our inlet water at 36F when it was -40 outside I think this is probably the right unit. Unfortunately this unit requires a 200A panel. I could go to the ECO 21 that states a 150A main but I'm not sure that's needed.
Another option I thought up would be I could run the water heater hot outlet to a POU heater and feed both showers off that (one shower is directly below the other). I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, as I've read something about maximum inlet temperature so I'm still looking into that but that could solve both showers problems and would be swell (though I'd have to re-run larger pipe for the higher flow but no problem there).
Another thought I had was putting this at the outlet of the 50gal water heater... Yet questions for a different group, back to the electrical stuff .
That being said I went downstairs to look at my panel as I'd been a bit confused by it in the past. There's 3 boxes, an off peak circuit breaker box, an off peak control box and a usual electrical panel with a 150 main in it. The main panel has the range and dryer so, DP 40, DP30, 20A dishwasher, 10 other 20As & 4 15As. Some of these are horribly mixed and I think the guy who wired this house should be shot, none the less. There's 2 meters so I believe all the off peak water heat & electric heat is all separate from the main panel. SO after all that, my question is, since all of the heating, cooling & water heating are done off the 2nd box and not the 150A main box, would the 113A draw of the ECO 27 really have to be done off a 200A box? In doing my load estimating and something else I can't find is if the POU heaters use PWM so the 113A is their max current under 100% PWM, or do they just run it at 100% all the time and combine cold water with the heated water at the output to provide the correct temperature (that way seems awful unlikely to me).
So, any thoughts? I'm completely open for suggestions. I'll probably end up calling eco or the other brands to find out about the PWM question as I imagine I can't determine which configuration I need until I know the answer to that question.
P.S. Don't mind the messy cable & router wiring I still haven't gotten down there to tidy that up yet. Or take down the 2 dishes on the roof... Ya so much left to do...
Last edited: