Heating water with gas, Question

It seems our hot water cylinder has sprung a slightly more substantial leak and is now creating a puddle on the floor rather than the floor soaking up the drips..... well anyway, we're lookign at getting a gas water heater, not one with a cylinder but one of those jobbies that sits on the wall somewhere and does it's thing as the water is used. I've seen a few on TM but some are cylinder sort and others .... 6 L.... 12 L.... does anyone know what size one would be likely to need for the general household, not just the kitchen sink. I have no idea, this whole realm of household knowledge whips over my head like a concord jet so fast, I'm begining to get a centre parting.

Yakut

They're called instant hot water heaters, Yakut, we've had one for 10 years, and it's been fantastic, haven't had any problems with it at all (let's hope I haven't jinxed myself saying that!).

Ours is a Bosch 16 litre one that runs on gas. You can get electricity ones but the only one I've seen is one my parents have that heats one shower. Our gas one does the whole house.

The only downside is no hot water cupboard which takes a bit of getting used to...but the upside is never running out of hot water!

We had one about three houses ago, lovely high pressure hot water never run out as long as you remember to reorder bottles, takes up no space. We had a Rinnai Infinity 24 (whatever that translates to - 24 litres a minute I assume)

The problem now is that the gas price has gone so high - when we had ours a big bottle was $49 last I heard it was $75 a refill. Though I suppose the price of power has gone up too.

How long does the bottle last for, wino, and how many things do you run off it (heaters, hot water, oven)? We are looking at gas bottles at our new place, are on piped gas supply where are are at the mo.

Not sure how the litres thing works, Yakut, assume as wino says it's litres per minute and you'd want bigger depending on how many people in house/how many things likely to be used at once (but then the water pressure is usually the limiting factor there ).

Yakut, I got another 6 mth out of mine by putting a 5 litre bucket under the drip... after all it was manufactured in 1968 so should last a long time... right????!!!!!! then the element went,, diagnosed by the bucket dripping black water and cold showers..
good luck with your quest

tigger with four of us in the house a bottle would last us about three weeks, sometimes closer to four. We were only running hot water and the gas hobb - and a 9kg bottle lasted about 8 months on the hobb before then so it wasn't using a lot of the gas.

At the time we put it in it cost as much to run as the old hot water cylinder did roughly - in that it took about $60 per month off the power bill, so the $2000 it cost to install wouldn't have been worth it except the old hot water cylinder was out of the ark, tiny and on its last legs so had to be replaced anyway. Would be worth doing a price comparison now I reckon.

Having just moved we have gone from a 180litre low pressure HWC with wetback to a 240 litre high pressure HWC without wetback and the waterheating bill has gone from $25 per month to $65! (that is the charge on the meter which has the ripple control installed - assume it is not running anything else as everything else seems to run all day) The aim as soon as we lay our hands on some money is to haul that two year old HWC out and reinstall a low pressure cylinder with a wetback. Much as I loved the gas we haven't contemplated installing it again, if you have a logburner in the plans the wetback has got to be the cheapest system IMO.

Thanks wino.

The only reason we installed the gas instant water heater here is that we had a massive hot water cylinder cupboard in our kitchen of all places that was in the way of the renovations - and the gas has suited us well.

We are having a heat pump in our new place. Haven't considered a wood burner or wetback.

Thanks! We have a separate gas connection for the stove and one of those average gas heater/ caravan sized gas cylinders to run it off.

I'm afraid the bucket system won't work now. It's no longer just dripping under the house, it's making puddles on the floor. (It sits on the floor in the cupboard)

The upside on not having a hot water cupboard is that with the cylinder gone, we can use the bottom of the cupboard to store the vaccuum cleaner! Dratted Dialeck of a thing. It's a hassle to put away in the laundry and I'm always losing bits for it behind feed bins and such. All that clutter will be able to get shoved int he cupboard and no more tripping over or arguing with vaccuum cleaner tubes, hoses and assorted feet things.

The cupboard itself plus the pantry next door to the cupboard seem to get nice and warm when the wood burner is lit. I have no idea why, I think maybe the heat comes through the roof or something. Stops the sugar and flour clumping though.

Sometimes I wish I could blink like Jeannie or twitch my nose like Samantha and sort all these leaks and other botherations of plumbing hassles.
I need a tap closer to the chook house and one closer to the turtle bath. I hate the squirty cold tap in the kitchen, the sound on the TV has to go up when I'm filling the kettle! Taps are a sort of mystery to me, a bit like radio waves and TV signals. You just want to turn it on and have it work.

We're going to have to turn the water off on the cylinder and drain the tank to stop a flood, so Kim is having a last shower and then it's down to heating up water on the stove and washing in the basin until the whole mess is sorted.
I was all for dragging the old cast iron bath that was in the goat paddock and using it as a bush bath but Kim said no, there was no way she'd get into that. Not even if it was scrubbed and had the water heated up really hot in it to kill off any bugs.
It depends on how long it takes to get things sorted. Dragging that bath to somewhere suitable seems like a lot of hard work right now, maybe after a few days of using the hand basin I'll gain a bit of determined motivation.

Yakut

Oh Yakut you poor thing. I don't know anything about gas as we don't have it but our friends up the road do and find it brilliant for all their hot water. I would like one for our hot water as our HWC is also in our very small kitchen and I could really use the room.
If I was you mate, go and take a lotto ticket maybe just maybe you will win. good luck with your quest for hot water.

We are in the final stages of house completion. FYI we are having 2 gas water heaters. Rinnai Infinity, a 24 litre for the kitchen laundry ensuite area and a 16 litre for the main bathroom area total cost 2880. For home heating we are having 3 heat pumps installed. After shopping around we have saved 3500 by going with one supplier over another. So it pays to get quotes. 17 august is move in date.