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Alternative heating idea

ashburn2k

Supporting Member
Winter is coming and having a large garage tank is no fun on some really cold nights, but I saw this gas alternative heating solution on YouTube. Maybe this can help with ease on the electric bills?


What are you thoughts?




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Chris uses(used?) a dedicated tankless water heater he had (or bought) though, he did not tie into his main water heater so that alone adds quite a bit more cost, I want to say Ian also did this (or maybe just looked into it) but that was a long time ago so it's a little hazy.

Wish that guys youtube video was more about this system and less about how to do mediocre plumbing, I mean seriously the guys heat exchanger was leaking, he talked about it (used some asinine argument about household pressure as being the reason), but he couldn't just have fixed it and showed the fixed result? This is a video he edited together, not some build thread where you do end up showing mistakes because you're posting in "real time". But overall looks like a decent design and one others have done, heat exchanger is a must for safety, you need pump rated for house hold pressure (i.e. not aquarium pumps), and you need a temperature controller considering the possibility of Apex bugs though I'd probably go with a Ranco controller that's dedicated to turning that pump on and off.

So ultimately is it worth it? Saying this as someone who's water heater bonked out, I'd say it is risky to go this way while my fix was done less than 12 hours later (I didn't find out until 10pm of the problem) not everyone will be able to diagnose and fix the problem as quickly or by themselves, I'd probably have electric heaters as backups anyways. And something like this really only makes sense on very large systems. You're much better off enclosing your tank in an insulated room in most cases (either as an "inwall" unit, or just make sure your tank isn't sitting out on the porch next to the grill :D

I did consider this on my 200g tank, and I was thinking of pulling some plumbing lines for "just in case", but at the end of the day, I'm planing on the tank being isolated to a rather small area that will naturally be warmer and somewhat insulated, we'll see how well it works out though.
 
I’ve given this some thought since I installed a tankless water heater on our house. I did not watch the video so I don’t know if he did something different from what I had planned but one of the biggest reasons I didn’t move forward was because most, if not all, the plumbing inside is copper.

@sfsuphysics, you talk about the unit failing. Tankless water heaters are known to last 2-3 times longer than most regular tank water heaters. Plus there’s no maintenance with them (your supposed to drain the tank on your water heater like every year, but I don’t know anyone that actually does that).
 
I have thought very seriously about this also.

Note that there is a third option - solar hot water heaters.
Not the pool kind, but the high temp + heat reservoir kind.

Heat exchangers off the main water heater have a whole ton of issues.
One is that done wrong, you can end up with Legionella disease.
I have a hot water recirculation system in my house, which does help though.

My main fear: Cooking things.
So many BTUs means real risk.

But pretty much all the risks can be reduced enough.
Leave electric heaters in as backup.
Dual independent shutoff on over temp.
Low pressure line, with low pressure escape valves.

Big and complicated though. And now I have solar on the roof, so less important.

There was a big thread on reef2reef that was pretty good.
 
I’ve given this some thought since I installed a tankless water heater on our house. I did not watch the video so I don’t know if he did something different from what I had planned but one of the biggest reasons I didn’t move forward was because most, if not all, the plumbing inside is copper.

@sfsuphysics, you talk about the unit failing. Tankless water heaters are known to last 2-3 times longer than most regular tank water heaters. Plus there’s no maintenance with them (your supposed to drain the tank on your water heater like every year, but I don’t know anyone that actually does that).
True tankless heaters are supposed to last longer, also lets not split hairs here, electric vs gas is pretty big on how long they last, that said my current water heater which was rated at 6 years (I know because I definitely would have scoffed at a paying an extra hundred bucks or so for "3 more years") is currently on year 15 or so (I forget when I installed it), but other than replacing the thermocouple or burner assembly ($12-30 fix) it's given me a lot of life, and before that I think the water heater had to be 20+ years old. Not sure I could say the same with a tankless one as far as repairs go for something minor.

Besides I'm not trying to compare one type versus another here, we have ratings on water heaters based on how often they go on and off presumably, how many times will a water heater go on and off if it's heating a tank? I'm guessing you'd want a similar duty cycle to something like radiant floor heating.
 
I did look into and had all the pieces for it. But ended up shutting down my tank before I could get it done. If I were to do it at the house now it would be really easy to add another valve to my radiant heat system. I would just coil aluminum pex like Chris did.
 
If people are interested I can take a picture of my radiant system. There are a lot of parts that go into the system. I think you would want a closed system separate from your normal hot water system. There are other factors to take into account as well, like is your gas line now big enough? On demand heaters take a lot of BTUs. I know my gas line had to be bigger with two on demand heaters.
 
I just wish I could find an RV heater than runs off natural gas.
Only 9000 BTU, small, rugged, little holding tank to reduce cycling.
 
I thought most LP/NG conversions were done by replacing the nozzle that squirts the gas into the combustion chamber.
True. But you have to do it right, and the odds of getting a conversion kit for that specific model is low.

I guess you could drill it by hand .... what could go wrong. :)
 
Yeah, I wouldn't go the DIY approach unless there's a specific manufacturer recommended part... otherwise you might as well just build a fire if you want heat :D

One thing I've seen on quite a few of those DIY shows are furnaces that are multi-area, so you can heat up only certain parts of the house. Of course the costs on one of these is quite a bit if you don't already have one.
 
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