Tankless Water Heater Installation Experiences

Tankless water heaters are really becoming more popular nowadays and I wanted to share a recent installation experience here.

Most city building departments are still unfamiliar with tankless installation requirements and some have gone totally overboard. Here is a recent example; I won't name the city, it borders to a large city and it has a population of roughly 50,000.

First things first, we need to apply for a building permit. In this case it can’t be done online. We visit the local building department to obtain a permit. Here is what we were told:

In order to get a building permit issued for replacing your current old tank water heater you need to plan where the new tankless is going to be installed. Then you draw a sketch of all existing gas appliances in your home with the length of the gas lines from the meter to them. Needless to say that the gas lines are running in the walls and you don't know their route.

When asked the building city official replied "you can estimate it but try to be exact". We needed also to put all the BTUs for all the gas appliances down. Asked how we are going to get to the tag of the 4 burner gas stove, he replied just pull the stove out and look behind it, there is the tag on it with the BTUs.

Now the kitchen floor is tile and the stove really heavy and I don't want to break any tiles that are 15 or so years old and you wouldn't find any replacement of it if broken. So we "guessed the exact" BTUs on it. Now seeing where this thing is going we argued that you don't size everything to the maximum. It is like when you add all the electric breakers in the electrical panel of your home it may come to 200 amperes but the utility company supplies you only with 100 amperes. In the real world the assumption is that you don't run everything at max all the time. Well, NO LUCK.

Without going too technical, I was trying to say that you don't cook with all four burners on and have the gas furnace on at max. and maybe 2 Turkeys in the oven while everyone in the house takes a shower in all three bathrooms at the same time while you having the kitchen faucet on full blast on hot water. Needless to say that the gas meter can't even supply all of that.

Now, this city has put a FOUR page pamphlet out as what is required for the tankless install. After "guessing the exact" gas line runs in the walls and having a sketch ready we went to the city again and applied for the permit. Permit fee: $ 230.00.

After the city official looked at our sketch he said: "you need to run an 1" gas line to the new tankless water heater. Amazing how he knew it right away by looking at the sketch. The tankless water heater was to be installed only 12 feet away from the gas meter. When asked how he determined he replied "we know that" like he is talking to a 4 year old.

We politely pointed out that the gas meter low pressure side is only ¾" in pipe size and the heater takes also only ¾", it doesn't make much sense to run a separate 1" gas line for 10 feet and then reduce it at both ends to ¾". We wanted to use the existing ¾" gas line that had shorter run as we exactly guessed how it is running inside the wall.

Oh well, this wasn't our lucky day. He then issued the permit card after collecting $ 230.00 permit fee. He also reminded us that there are TWO inspections required, one for the new gas line and after that has been approved the tankless unit can be installed and another inspection has to be done.

We should call in the inspection a day ahead and it is our choice to have a morning or afternoon inspection. Morning inspections are from 8am to 12pm and afternoon from 1pm to 5pm and that the installer must be available for inspection with the manufacture's installation manuals on hand. So here we need TWO inspections, each with a FOUR hour window.

Well, it is all about having choices. At this point we called the home owner and said sorry we can't do it. It'll cost too much money having someone wait all those times there. The unhappy home owner then said that they wanted to install a Photovoltaic Solar system (generating electricity from the sun) a few years back and ran into the same bureaucratic mess and then they decided not to do it but this time they are determined to install the tankless water heater they wanted.

The home owner offered to stay for those inspections and tried convincing the city that it would be ok, Guess what? NO NO, the plumber has to be there in case the inspector has a question.

The home owner commented "I can't move out of this city but I want a new tankless water heater" in desperation. By now we had spent already few hours time scouting the exact gas line runs and adding all the BTUs from all the gas appliances in the home and had prepared a sketch just to be told to run a new gas line and get a permit, ridiculous.

Feeling really sorry for the home owner we decided to take on the job although we probably wouldn't make any money on this job by having to wait all those hours. One of the other requirements was that we install a seismic gas shut off valve at the gas meter, a good idea if the utility company doesn't have one already in the street. Some cities require this valve, some not.

Now all of this sounds funny but it really isn't and wasn't. After installing a new gas line and pressurizing it for leak detection we waited 2.5 hours for the inspector to arrive. Nice guy, the English language was definitely not his first language. He looked at the pressure gauge and commented "pressure too high" smiled and looked around a bit in the garage as he was interested as what the owners had stored there, commented in not so perfect English about some of the personal belongings in the garage and demanded then the permit card for signature.

All this time the owners had an anxious expression on their face wondering if the guy is going to approve the work and whether they are going to have hot water tomorrow, Now let me please remind again that the work to be inspection consisted of an 1" gas line capped on both ends and about 10 feet long with three 90 degrees on it.

The old gas line that was connected to the regular tank water heater was capped off, the inspector didn't even know where it was, maybe he did but failed to even look at it or ask if we checked it for leakage. Three people had spent almost their entire afternoon waiting for the inspector to come and inspect it.

Oh by the way, before issuing the permit the city required insurance and contractor license information and documentation from us.

Another city requirement I forgot to mention was that the tankless water heater needed an "excess flow gas valve" which we had to order and hadn't arrived on time. The function of that valve is to restrict the gas flow if the line (galvanized steel) ruptures as to limit the outflow of gas.

Only there is a slight problem with that. The valves come in different BTUs, for tankless the one is rated at 300,000 BTUs and the tankless heater can only do 200,000 BTUs and the ¾" gas line can also do only around 230,000 BTUs at that distance. In another word it is like putting a speed limit on a car that can never even get close to that speed limit.

We then went ahead and finished installing the tankless water heater and connected it to the new gas line. We stayed overtime so that we could finish it and that the owners would have hot water for the morning shower.

Embarrassed by the whole process the owners offered to stay themselves for the FINAL inspection and to call us should there be any correction needed. We gladly accepted.

….to be continued with other “funny” experiences. Stay tuned.