EcoSmart ECO 11 Electric Tankless Water Heater, 13

excellent product!!
Here’s my story review.I live in a mobile community, one college guy who can’t buy a real house. Lived here for 25 years, one day the bathroom looks all wet on the floor, walls stained. The old waterheater sprung a leak and had to go. No floor pan was installed back in the old days so it seems *slaps head*. I shopped around for waterheaters but there were $300< starting price range. I decided to shop around and my main influence is comments (yes like this one) and youtube reviews. Found out tankless ones might save me money. Plus the initial cost was amazing I paid less than $250 for my 11kw EcoSmart unit. I use a drip/drain pan just in case it leaks somehow on the floor. I waited for this review to actually use it for 3 weeks now.I learned how to solder pipe (easy, fun, use lots of flux!!) to make some small 1/2" thread to 3/4" thread copper shortie pipes to adapt to the unit. I upgraded my circuit breaker to 60 amps dual pole (240v) from 40 amps. I was supposed to upgrade the wires to 8g but I did an infrared heat test on the current wires with hot water running and no heat problems, But I will upgrade the circuit to 8g when it's warmer out in the spring it's cold out now (winter 2011). Over all I'm super happy I bought this unit. It's perfect for one guy like me. It saved me a bundle over a regular water heater and install work (this unit was so small and so easy to install) and I'm happy to be participating in environmental/energy savings just by using this unit too. I did void the warranty by installing it myself, I'm kind of a self taught handy man, but I figure the whole unit only cost $250> so I could just buy a new one if anything goes wrong vs some novice electrican ruining stuff and I ended up paying the same amount anyway. If this brand ends up bad, i’ll just switch brands. It’s the darwin theory for appliances.But every review I’ve seen on this unit is that it is top notch quality, and when I got it I believe it also the thing is made Awesome, it has a digital dial for the temperature and it simple to install and use. I am so happy I went this route and the 11kw unit is perfect for my simple (one guy) purpose. What that really means is, one sink/shower at a time. At 120 degrees on the dial my showers are Insanely Hot and last forever. I had 3 people in here before (girlfriend and kid) and we all just respected the “showering” person by not using the water. Had to do that with our water heater before anyways. I live in the Seattle area.And MyRubberneck is a good seller too. I got my unit from UPS in about 6 days, the weekend interrupted the (3-5) delivery by a day. That’s fine i’m not upset about that though. He saved me about $30 over Sears and their promise was two week delivery for online purchases (ya go check Sears). He sent it in the raw unit box, I kind of wished it had a cardboard sleeve or even a grocery bag sleeve, or bigger box for it. but the box was intact.The Benefits: endless hot water, power bill savings, no more tank pressure/old leaks etc.The Cons: my only complaint is that the warranty is nullified if you install it without a licensed electrician. Oh well. And also the documentation does not say which wire is power, neutral, or ground. The colors were Red, blue, and yellow/green. Ya I figured it out (red+, blue-, and yellow/grn=ground), but dang shouldn’t documentation HAVE THAT in there? Maybe it was designed for licensed electricians only. LOL.*Also, an important factor. The water heat temp consistency directly depends on the temperature of the “ground” water coming into the unit. sometimes my shower temperatures got hot or cold (only slightly) but I’m sure it was “cold water sandwiches” but from the ground water temps, especially in winter. The unit is probably taxed to adjust to your preffered temp. Think about that in a “thermal” way. I think if you had a buffer tank or something say (a turned off small water tank 20-30gallons) that had a constant temperature before the unit heated it up then showers would be no problem. My water heater room is totally empty now sans the EcoSmart unit in there, I could put in a buffer tank easy. Or a more powerful EcoSmart unit might make this a non issue. My work around though…just turn up or down the shower dial accordingly, not that big of a deal to me.I give this thing 5 stars!! I get the feeling the big water heater, or power companies don’t want people to get their hands on these types of new technologies. It was SUPER hard to find any in the stores that weren’t in the thousand dollar range, this was a 1/4 that price. And this had THE BEST reviews from the internet I researched for 10 hours straight, ya I’m a nerd. When I get a real house I will probably buy the EcoSmart 27kw model. I love this unit very much. Take care.~TZ

Easy Installation and Great Performance from a Tiny Water Heater
It’s surprisingly easy to install and works great. I’d anticipated a significant performance loss when switching from a traditional water heater to a tankless model, but this thing is awesome. Instead of using a low flow shower head I went with a pressure enhancing head, the thought being that why should I limit the flow of water before I had the chance to find out exactly what the capability of the heater is. If the heater wasn’t capable of keeping up with the flow I could simply turn down the volume of water, and the pressure enhancing shower head would make it tolerable. As it turned out water pressure wasn’t a problem. One neat thing about a tankless heater is that you no longer have to use cold water to bring down your hot water temperature to a tolerable level. If I want hot, but not scalp scalding hot, I simply turn the hot tap to full and I’m set. If I want crazy hot I turn the hot water volume down about 20 percent and I’m lobster red in no time. I’m saving money on the electric bill by not preheating water 24 hours a day, and I have unlimited hot water for when I wanna zombie out in the shower. If that’s not a win – win I don’t know what is.The only real downside to a 220 volt tankless heater is that because it pulls much more current than a standard water heater you will most likely need to upgrade your existing electrical wiring. The paperwork says that it needs 6 gauge wiring, the largest I had on-hand was 8 gauge. For my short wire run it turned out to be plenty. Even after a long shower the wire temp remains perfectly cool to the touch. I also had to upgrade the existing breaker to a 60 amp model. Changing a 220 breaker sounds intimidating, but it’s extremely simple. There are only three wires from the water heater to deal with. The red and black wire go to the new breakers wire terminals (doesn’t matter which goes to which terminal) and the ground wire goes to a ground lug inside the electrical panel. Study up on the components of your electrical panel and follow basic safety procedures and you’ll be fine.The water connections are super simple. The heater comes with a choice of a compression fitting for copper pipe, or a threaded fitting for use with whatever type of plumbing pipe you’re using. I used the threaded connector to connect pex piping. If you’ve never used pex, think plastic bendable water pipe that can be snapped together to whatever configuration you need using press fit connectors. Press fit connectors are also used to connect your new pex to existing copper pipes. Snip snip, click click, and you’re good to go. Gone are the days of soldering copper pipes till you’re mad at the world. Having installed this unit in just a couple of hours as a newbie, when and if this unit dies I feel confident that I can easily install its replacement in less than thirty minutes. A water heater that will pay for itself in less than a year, AND reduce future headaches? Why the heck not?

Funciona perfectamente, el agua caliente comienza a salir en menos de 1 minuto.En casa la distancia entre el calentador y la regadera mas lejana, está a aproximadamente 15 metros. Al abrir la llave de la regadera, en aproximadamente 1 minuto comienza a salir agua caliente. Una vez alcanzada la temperatura, se mantiene totalmente estable. Es sorprendente que un aparato de estas dimensiones proporcione tanta agua caliente en tan poco tiempo, y con tan buen flujo, pues la regadera que menciono es tipo ducha, no es una regadera “ahorradora”, y caliente perfectamente.Ahora bien, todo esta maravilla viene con un precio, y es el consumo eléctrico.Lo tengo configurado a 35ºC y puedo medir el consumo energético de toda mi red eléctrica. Un baño de 15 minutos consume aproximadamente 1.5 KWh. Si consideras que en México, una casa promedio consume entre 5 y 7 KWh diarios, el consumo de éste calentador es enorme. Estos datos son para finales de febrero, en Guadalajara, Jalisco, en donde la temperatura del agua que se recibe del SIAPA es de alrededor de 20ºC. En tiempos mas fríos el gasto energético consumirá mucho más, en tiempos más cálidos bajará el consumo eléctrico.Necesitas considerar cuidadosamente si esto es una opción para ti, puesto que, dicho en pocas palabras, instalar este calentador en una casa o departamento implica casi en automático pasar a la tarifa DAC (Doméstica de Alto Consumo) de C.F.E. (Estoy en México). De manera que la decisión de compra debe ser respaldad contra lo que actualmente consumes de electricidad.Como guía muy básica te puedo comentar que si tu familia es de 4 integrantes, y usas agua caliente esporádicamente para lavavajillas, lavadora, etc, este calentador fácilmente te consumirá entre 8 y 9 KWh diarios.Yo tengo paneles fotovoltaicos, calculados precisamente para este tipo de consumos, de manera que este calentador es solar, indirectamente, pero solar, sin embargo, instalar un calentador solar de agua propiamente (de esos de tubos de vidrio al vacío) es mucho, muchísimo más económico.Otra cosa a considerar: Necesitas una instalación eléctrica a 220V. y en tu centro de carga requires un breaker de 60 Amperes. Considerando que en muchas casas, el breaker principal de la casa no pasa de 50 Amperes, necesitarás considerar que es probable que necesites actualizar tu centro de carga, tu breaker principal, en resumen… NO es para cualquier casa.Ahora bien, la tecnología que ofrece este calentador, la automodulación es realmente efectiva, no veo bajones repentinos de la intensidad de la luz mientras está en uso, pero definitivamente, el consumo eléctrico es enorme, fácilmente se va a los 50 Amperes en los primeros 30 segundos para lograr calentar el agua rápidamente, una vez que alcanza la temperatura, tiende a bajar el consumo un poco, pero siendo de paso, mientras tengas la llave abierta, el calentador sigue activo, lo cual, por un lado te da agua caliente interminable, por otro lado, en 1 hora de uso fácilmente puedes consumir hasta 13 KWh.Como verás, decidirte por este calentador depende de un cuidadoso análisis, solo es adecuado para situaciones MUY particulares.

I read some positive and not so positive reviews. After using this 11kw unit for more than a few months it is nothing short of outstanding. I replaced my gas hot water tank with this unit when the gas valve about to cost me $450 for a new one. Please read the tips I have provided below from what I have experienced.First off, you need to get your hot water usage under control. Hot water is not required for your laundry anymore and for sinks your water just needs to be warm so your hands don’t get cold when running hot water. Your dishwasher has a heater to heat the water. I use the “Sanitize” option on my dishwasher so don’t worry about the incoming temperature of the water. For my shower I purchased a 0.625 GPM (2.2 LPM) shower head that is meant for RV but I honestly find it to be more than enough. Your mileage may vary since people are as insane about their shower as they are about their coffee. I also have a 1.2 GPM (4.5 LPM) rain shower head in the second bathroom which also works well. For the 11kw model this flow is as much as it can handle. You cannot run two showers at a time but I couldn’t do that with my gas hot water tank without being severely pissed. I used a ball valve to adjust the incoming flow to a point where when the sink is full on the unit still keeps up. I set the temperature to 103 degrees F and find this temperature to be perfect for the shower at full hot so you are not heating up water that needs to be cooled at the shower. At this temperature and flow the unit draws about 32Amps at 240V but you’ll need to provide a 60A breaker with #6AWG wireI live east of Toronto so incoming water temperature is very cold in the winter. This unit has no problem keeping up to that. If you have a 200Amp service I would recommend the 18kw unit. I have a 100amp service and this is great. I’m putting in a basement apt and plan to use a second 11kw unit for the basement with a second 100amp service.I estimate this unit to cost me about $2 a month for the electricity to run it. With low flow shower heads I don’t have to run the exhaust fans anymore when showering which saves even more.Overall I am very happy with with purchase. It fits in a little corner of the basement and frees up the space my tank was in.