[Master Mark]

I make good money installing them, the customers love them and I rarely see them again. What's not to like?

It all depend s on the water quality, and in our area its very nasty
most people wont maintain them and the water softeners are sub standardor they dont put
salt in them so eventually everything gets crappy and
they will lime up ..... then the exchangers begin to flake off calcium and ruin single handle
faucets throughout the house and dishwashers.... ..I have seen a lot of this
I just dont need the headaches dealing with these issues

please ......make all the money you can with them.....

 

[DDDave]

I’m curious about tankless myself. In our area we would need a 60-70 degree temperature rise. Does this really work? I’ve always just figured they weren’t good for our area.
Does your gas piping typically need to be updated?

Short answer would be yes, a tankless would provide that level of temperature rise. Check a random installation manual for a graph showing how many fixtures you could have open at the same time. It gets 'mathy'. And no, you don't always have to change the gas size. But yes sometimes you do!
Condensing tankless are pretty cool.

 

[dhal22]

Short answer would be yes, a tankless would provide that level of temperature rise. Check a random installation manual for a graph showing how many fixtures you could have open at the same time. It gets 'mathy'. And no, you don't always have to change the gas size. But yes sometimes you do!
Condensing tankless are pretty cool.

Fantastic design......... virtually zero wasted combustion.

 

[dhal22]

It all depend s on the water quality, and in our area its very nasty
most people wont maintain them and the water softeners are sub standardor they dont put
salt in them so eventually everything gets crappy and
they will lime up ..... then the exchangers begin to flake off calcium and ruin single handle
faucets throughout the house and dishwashers.... ..I have seen a lot of this
I just dont need the headaches dealing with these issues

please ......make all the money you can with them.....

I may or may not said this before. If I did, my apologies for repeating myself.

 

[PhoenixRises]

I work in a major metropolitan area. St Louis, MO and can’t believe there is not a Rheem distributor here besides HOME DEPOT. I wanted to sell the “Professional” series vs the budget “Performance” series Home depot sells as a better alternative but I cannot get them in my area.
The Big Box stores have pushed legislation (several years ago) allowing for a water heater installers license which totally screwed the licensed plumber required in the past.
I guess now they have sowed up exclusive right to the Rheem brand in our area too.

I’ve installed Rheem Professional Series for couple of years at my previous company. We started getting calls from customers stating they didn’t have hot water soon after installation. Pilot lights would go out in units installed in the attics here in DFW, TX area. After quite a few customer recalls Rheem told us that water heaters installed in the attic had to have orifices with larger holes installed. So, we started installing larger orifices on every gas water heater installed in the attic. Easily added 30 minutes of extra labor. All in all screw Rheem! I think Bradford White is the way to go.

 

[dhal22]

Attic is a bad location to begin with. What a pain.

 

[PhoenixRises]

Attic is a bad location to begin with. What a pain.

In DFW area that is builder’s location of choice. Seems like they install water heaters first and then build a roof around it. It should be punishable with prison time if you ask me.

 

[DDDave]

I’ve installed Rheem Professional Series for couple of years at my previous company. We started getting calls from customers stating they didn’t have hot water soon after installation. Pilot lights would go out in units installed in the attics here in DFW, TX area. After quite a few customer recalls Rheem told us that water heaters installed in the attic had to have orifices with larger holes installed. So, we started installing larger orifices on every gas water heater installed in the attic. Easily added 30 minutes of extra labor. All in all screw Rheem! I think Bradford White is the way to go.

Every so often we'll replace a 2018-19 40 gal XG leaking around the drain valve. First one I saw was two weeks old, and it wasn't even hand-tight.
Bradford's not bad, I guess. If you can't see through the sightglass, don't woodie!

 

[Blue2]

In DFW area that is builder’s location of choice. Seems like they install water heaters first and then build a roof around it. It should be punishable with prison time if you ask me.

I had two 50 gallon heaters in an attic that had a 2” gas line directly in front of them and we had to take apart the furnace to drag them to the other side of the attic to get them down the ladder. It took almost 2 hours just to get the first heater down. There was barely enough room to solder a street 90 into a female adapter to get the water lines connected. That was the absolute worst install I’ve ever had in an attic. 2 water heaters took all day to do.

 

[Master Mark]

I had two 50 gallon heaters in an attic that had a 2” gas line directly in front of them and we had to take apart the furnace to drag them to the other side of the attic to get them down the ladder. It took almost 2 hours just to get the first heater down. There was barely enough room to solder a street 90 into a female adapter to get the water lines connected. That was the absolute worst install I’ve ever had in an attic. 2 water heaters took all day to do.

If I had to sweat my balls off in a hot attic in the middle of the summer I probably would
quit installing water heaters.... that would be rough.... or I would just quit plumbing completely

I dont give a dam what brand the heater is....they will all leak or fail some day

 

[PhoenixRises]

I had two 50 gallon heaters in an attic that had a 2” gas line directly in front of them and we had to take apart the furnace to drag them to the other side of the attic to get them down the ladder. It took almost 2 hours just to get the first heater down. There was barely enough room to solder a street 90 into a female adapter to get the water lines connected. That was the absolute worst install I’ve ever had in an attic. 2 water heaters took all day to do.

I had a similar scenario. We had to lift the furnace and squeeze water heaters under it. On top of all of that we had to go to Home Depot to buy plywood so we could build a walkway up to water heaters because builder didn’t do it. We charged the customer an extra $1000 for all that trouble. Job started at 8am and finished around 7pm. It was a house built in 2011 in Frisco.

 

[DDDave]

If I had to sweat my balls off in a hot attic in the middle of the summer I probably would
quit installing water heaters.... that would be rough.... or I would just quit plumbing completely

I dont give a dam what brand the heater is....they will all leak or fail some day

Yeah but how much would you charge? One day job but you you knew it was going to be really uncomfortable. How much?

 

[Master Mark]

Yeah but how much would you charge? One day job but you you knew it was going to be really uncomfortable. How much?

I would at the very least charge double or more
and maybe high enough that they would find someone else to do the job...


I would probably tell them to just let the installer boys at home depot tackle that one...
. those jobs will slowly kill you ..

I have walked away from some nasty 75 gallon units buried in the basements before and told
the customer to get Lowes or HD---
150 degree attics fall under the same category