In this episode of Structure Talk, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry welcome Tim Hammack from Paul Bunyan Plumbing to discuss the plumbing industry, focusing on tankless water heaters. Tim shares his journey into plumbing, the benefits of tankless systems, and the importance of proper installation and maintenance. The conversation also touches on water quality, common misconceptions about tankless water heaters, and the future of water heating technology. Tim emphasizes the need for education in the plumbing field and encourages young people to consider a trade career.
Check this link for Tim Hammack’s company:
https://paulbunyanplumbing.com/
Takeaways
Tim Hammack shares his journey into plumbing, starting from a chance encounter at a car wash.
Tankless water heaters offer unlimited hot water and can save installation time.
Proper installation and maintenance are crucial for the longevity of tankless water heaters.
Homeowners should ask plumbers about their experience with tankless systems before hiring.
The importance of water quality and regular maintenance for both tank and tankless water heaters.
Tankless systems can be more efficient but require proper gas supply and venting.
Education is key in the plumbing industry to ensure quality service and installations.
The lifespan of a well-maintained tankless water heater can be up to 25 years.
Homeowners should consider the flow rate and temperature when choosing a tankless system.
Tim encourages young people to explore careers in trades as many professionals are retiring.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
02:59 Tim’s Journey into Plumbing
05:47 Tankless Water Heaters: Innovations and Benefits
08:55 Choosing the Right Plumber for Tankless Installations
11:54 Debunking Myths about Tankless Water Heaters
15:03 Understanding Water Quality and Maintenance
18:00 The Importance of Proper Installation
21:05 Addressing Common Concerns with Tankless Systems
23:54 The Future of Water Heating Technology
27:03 Final Thoughts and Future Topics
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is a transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be slightly incomplete or contain minor inaccuracies due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman, I’m your host, alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
RS: Welcome back to the show. This is the Structure Talk podcast. Tessa, I had a long lost episode that we just aired last week, and I had to go back and listen to it because I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t done any quality control and I kinda, I got embarrassed at myself because I’m like, I start every show with, “Welcome back to the Structure Talk podcast.” Is that old? Is it, is that dumb that I start every show like that, Tessa? What do you think?
Tessa Murry: It’s your trademark, Reuben.
RS: Okay, good. All right. We’ll stick with that.
TM: Unless you wanna reinvent yourself, I don’t know.
RS: No, no, no, no. That’s work. That’s work. We’ll just stick with it. All right. Well, I wanna start off by thanking our sponsors, Inspector Empire Builder. It’s a coaching training group for home inspectors to build their businesses. It’s not focused on how to do home inspections, it’s how to run a home inspection company. And we’ve got a special guest on today. We’ve got Tim Hammack with Paul Bunyan Plumbing, and a bunch of other companies. And it’s funny, as I’m talking about IEB, Tim is a member of something similar for his profession, but, and we’ll… Maybe we’ll get to that later on. But Tim, first off, welcome to the show. How you doing today?
Tim Hammack: Yeah, I’m great. Thank you both for having me on today. It’s super exciting and I’m grateful that we’re able to connect and talk about some interesting things when it comes to plumbing and water.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. This should be good. And it’s funny, your name has come up several times in conversations that I had. Tim and I just recently met together. Actually, we met together quite a few times in the last month or two…
TH: We have.
RS: After having not seen each other for probably 20 to 25 years.
TH: It’s been a while.
RS: Tessa was just asking, how do you know him? I said, hockey. She assumed, we’re hockey parents. Oh, no, no, no, no. We played hockey together back in the day.
TH: We actually played… Yeah. Played together, so.
RS: Yeah. Like pee-wees up through high school.
TH: Yeah.
TM: So Tim, I’m sure you have some good stories to share.
TH: Reuben was a good, he was a good teammate, so there’s not a whole lot to share. He was very fair and he wasn’t what we would consider back then as a puck hog. And he was an excellent teammate. So I have nothing really negative to say about Reuben, [0:02:58.0] ____.
RS: And I feel the same way about Tim. Yeah.
TM: Glowing reviews. How much did you pay him, Reuben?
TH: Yeah. As we age though… As we age, we forget things though too, right? Things go in our mind and other things leave. So it might be one of those things that actually left my mind at one time.
RS: Yeah. Maybe just rose-colored glasses. It all looks good in the past.
TH: Right. Right.
RS: Yeah.
TM: Or too many head injuries.
TH: That’s a possibility.
RS: It could be.
TH: Possibility. Yeah, so.
RS: Yeah. But Tim, so you’re… Tell me about your career history. How’d you get into plumbing? How long ago was it and what are you doing today?
TH: Yeah. So kind of a luck of the draw. I was working at a car wash in the city that you and I grew up in, Reuben, and it was a self-service car wash. And an individual came in with a plumbing truck and he was washing it. And I didn’t really have anything going on with my life. I didn’t wanna go to college. So I talked to him and I said, what’s the deal? How do you become a plumber? And just kind of reached out to him. And he got me connected with a local shop in town, really close by where we grew up. And he went and interviewed with the owner at that time. And I’m actually at the same place. I’ve been here over 26 years. So…
TM: Wow.
TH: I’ve never been with any other plumbing company. I started out there in the warehouse…
TM: Wow.
TH: Running parts; went through an apprenticeship program here in the state of Minnesota, and obtained my master’s license when I was very young. And then everything kind of transpired from there. So, kind of luck of the draw.
TM: Wow.
TH: It’s been a very good career and it’s a good path to go on, so. Yeah.
RS: Yeah.
TM: So, if we’ve got any kids listening, Tim, would you recommend it as a good career path for the younger generation, too?
TH: Yeah, absolutely. We need, we need… There’s a lot of people retiring now. I’m sure you hear that with all the people that you talk to in the trades. And a lot of business owners retiring too as well, with… That don’t have exit strategies. So it’s a great time for people to start thinking about, for the younger generation to think about getting into the trades. And that not just, you only have to be in the trades actually doing the work, but maybe obtaining a business at some point too, as well. So yeah.
TM: Yeah.
TH: It’s good times for that. Absolutely. So…
RS: Yep. Yep. Love it. Yeah. We, Tessa and I need to get Mike Rowe on the show. I have tried the… He has not responded back to me yet, but I’ll keep trying. We’ll see what we can do.
TH: He’s a very good advocate for the trades. I have crossed paths with him, but I don’t have that type of connection, so I apologize.
RS: Yeah. I sure don’t either. Well, I… So I met out at Tim’s shop and I was thoroughly impressed with all they do there. I mean, it is a huge, huge outfit. I mean, just for example, one of the things they do when they’re gonna install a tankless water heater at somebody’s house, they don’t just come out with the tankless water heater and all the fittings and put everything together. They do what, Tim, like 80% of the job in their shop, and then they just come out and hook it up. It’s amazing. What do you guys do for that?
TH: Yeah. So Reuben, what you’re talking about is our prebuilt tankless. And when you’re converting from a standard tank type water heater to a tankless, it’s not really an easy task. There’s a lot of engineering that goes into it. And what we try to do is take the stuff that’s really redundant and do it here, kind of prefab it. So when the technician’s out in the field and a customer elects to go with tankless technology, we’re trying to speed up the process of getting them hot water again. So it’s not necessarily just about efficiencies within our business, but it’s very important because that customer’s possibly been without hot water and we wanna get them back and on with their lives as soon as possible. So we typically have five at any time prebuilt tankless water heaters that’s… That are built here in our shop by a journeyman plumber. And they’re very… They’re designed very well. We’ve found things that do and don’t work, and we’ve perfected it. We actually have a cart that we put the tankless on, so it doesn’t get damaged in transport from the shop to the customer’s property. And it works out really well. We’re probably shaving maybe about 50% of the actual install time off by doing that and getting customers hot water quicker.
TM: So Tim, I’ve got a question for you. If a homeowner is like looking to get a tankless water heater, it sounds like there’s some engineering that’s involved with making sure it gets installed properly so that it works right, and that the homeowner doesn’t have issues with it. Is that correct? Like, are there things that you’re doing as a plumber to make sure that the install is done correctly and it’s more complicated than we even realize?
TH: Yeah. That’s a really good question. So tankless technology, unfortunately, got a bad rap years ago that, especially in our climate here in Minnesota, just as a lot of people would get ’em installed, they wouldn’t install ’em properly and they would fail, prematurely fail. Whether it was not servicing it properly, they weren’t delivering the proper gas pressure to it, it wasn’t vented properly.
TM: Huh.
TH: Nobody ever really took the time to read the instructions to put ’em in. They’ve just considered it like a regular tank water heater. And because they’re a larger BTU appliance, when we’re talking about the gas side of things, they require a larger volume of gas and all those little… The little small things add up, right? And can cause failure. The manufacturers have now engineered more allowances and tolerances with installation processes, but they’re still not perfected. So you kind of wanna over-engineer it to try to make sure that the investment that the customer has with that technology lasts them a very long time. Because I’ve had a tankless water heater in my house probably for almost 15 years now, and I would never go back to a traditional tank model. So, once you have it, it’s kind of the what you wanna have. Yeah, go ahead.
TM: Yeah. That’s amazing. So if you were a homeowner and you were vetting plumbers to try and find a good one that you could trust to put in a tankless water heater correctly, what would be some questions you would ask?
TH: Well, I’d probably ask what their opinion is, first of all, on tankless. Maybe ask ’em what… If they have one in their own personal house. Probably how many of them that they put in annually or… And then what their labor warranty is on it. So the manufacturer’s obviously gonna give you manufacturing warranties, but as a company, you can also offer labor warranties too, as well. And I think if it’s more like, well, we’re just gonna go with whatever the manufacturer says, you might wanna get other opinions and see if there’s companies out there that are offering a labor warranty that stand behind what they’re doing. Because if it’s an installation error, you wanna make sure that you’re covered for somebody to come back and take care of that issue, right? And own up to it.
RS: All right. Tim, I love this conversation. And when we talked about you coming on, we discussed talking about water quality, that was gonna be the focus. But I wanna dig more into tankless water heaters.
TH: Okay.
RS: Because this is a fascinating topic and people love learning about them. They love the idea of it. Are you comfortable if I just throw you a bunch of tough questions about ’em?
TH: You know what, Reuben, it’s just like passing the puck. Just send it on over.
RS: All right. I’ll send it over. Sweet.
TH: Okay.
RS: Soft catches, soft sharp passes.
TH: I can’t guarantee you that we’re gonna make a goal here, but we’ll try. Well, at least we’ll take shots.
RS: All right. Love it.
TH: Okay.
RS: So, okay, I’ve had a bunch of reasons why I have never installed the tankless water heater in my own house. And I wanna hear your arguments to all these. Number one is I’ve felt that it is never going to save me money. That’s one of the big things that tankless water heaters talk about, I mean, manufacturers talk about. They say, well, the average person is gonna spend X dollars in gas usage.
TM: Standby loss.
RS: Yeah. You got standby loss…
TM: Yeah.
RS: For keeping 50 gallons of hot… Fifty gallons of water hot year round. But with tankless you don’t have that and you’re gonna save all of this money. But when I’ve done the actual calculations, it seems as though you’re saving maybe like 20%. And when you calculate what 20% is of your actual gas usage to heat water, it ends up being a fairly small amount, to the point where if you’re strictly looking at it from a financial standpoint, you’re not gonna get a payback. What do you think about that?
TH: Yeah. I would say that you’re… We can run calculations any different way, right? And make it work one way or the other. Here’s what I can tell you just on my own experience. Yeah. You don’t have… Tess, you kind of messaged standby loss, right? Mentioned standby loss. You don’t have the standby loss. What you do have is you have unlimited hot water. So when you’re acclimated to taking a shower… I mean, Reuben, let’s talk a little bit about your house, right?
RS: Yeah.
TH: How many people are in your house?
RS: We got four.
TH: Okay. So are you the last person to take a shower?
RS: I’m always the first.
TH: Okay. Wonderful.
RS: I’m the early riser.
TH: You got… Okay. So let’s say that… So there might be some there… The last person taking a shower, have they ever ran out of hot water?
RS: I don’t think so.
TH: Okay.
RS: I did one of those things that was kind of tricky where I turned my water heater up to an unsafe level and then I installed the… I got it running at like 140 and then I’ve got a tempering valve. So it mixes in cold water with the rest of it, making it seem like a bigger water heater.
TM: He’s not your average bear, Tim. If you ask that question to anyone else who has a tank water heater and lots of kids, I bet their answer would be yes, someone runs out of hot water.
RS: Yeah. Truly.
TH: I’m trying to find the pain point here, right? So…
RS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
TH: If you’re the one that’s running out of hot water, we’re gonna talk about that experience and how that experience goes for you.
RS: Sure. Yeah.
TH: But you’re acclimated typically…
TM: Reuben also likes cold showers anyways, Tim.
TH: Right. He’s probably like me, right? I have a cold plunge at home and now that’s trending towards the norm, right?
RS: Let’s go.
TH: Let’s go. So if you’re acclimated to taking a… Let’s just say a 5, 10-minute shower, because you have other people that are in line.
RS: Yeah.
TH: Everybody’s ran out of hot water probably at some point in their life.
RS: Oh, for sure. Happened all the time growing up. All the time.
TH: Right.
TM: Yeah.
TH: Okay. So let’s go back to that, right? So the experience that you had then, if we could show you a way to remedy that for you so you would never run out of hot water again, that would be great. But that does come as an expense too, right? You have the expense on the front end, the initial investment, but also now people tend to take longer showers because they have unlimited hot water that they’re, it’s not cooling now, they’re not doing the adjustment as much. And… Because it’s consistent, if you set it at 120 degrees, most tankless water heaters are gonna maintain that temperature, right? Now there’s things that come into play on flow and when multiple showers are being used. But if you’re just using one shower… We’re just talking about one isolated shower, you’re gonna probably, you’re gonna be able to run that shower all day long, never turn it off, and temperature varies maybe one or two degrees one way or another.
RS: Sure.
TH: So people are gonna tend to be in showers longer, take longer showers, which in turn is gonna use more energy. So the whole saving energy, yeah. I mean that’s possible, but a lot of it’s just based on habits too as well.
RS: Sure. Sure.
TH: So, right? If you have a larger soaking tub, you’re gonna be able to fill that tub up with hot water. You might not be able to fill it as fast as a tank water heater, but it’s also gonna fill all the way to the top with completely hot water. You’re not gonna be getting towards the end and starting to run into lukewarm water, right?
RS: Yeah.
TH: It’s gonna keep that constant temperature. So there’s definitely some pros and cons to that, that investment on the actual what it actually, the cost savings, right?
RS: Sure. And you talk about filling up the big tub. I used to have a hot tub. Well, I still do, a spa, it doesn’t work anymore. The circuit board went bad and I haven’t found a replacement yet, but I always thought, how cool would it be if I could fill it and then be ready to hop in as soon as it’s done filling? Because with your traditional spa, you fill it with 45-degree water and it takes like a day or two to get up to the right temperature. But how cool would it be if you had a tankless water heater, just fill it and hop in? That’d be awesome.
TH: Well, believe it or not, there are companies out there, I’m not one of ’em that have portable tankless water heaters that give you conditioned water, pre pH-balanced water for your hot tub, and they’ll fill it for you. So there are services like that out there.
RS: Oh my goodness. Well that’s fancy.
TM: Whoa.
RS: That is super fancy. All right. Here’s another one for you, Tim. And I’ve experienced this at houses back when I was in the field, maybe manufacturers have done things to fix this, but I know with a tankless water heater, you need a certain flow rate to actually kick on the hot water. If you’re just running a little bit, it’s not gonna kick on your water heater and you can’t have a low flow of hot water. Have they done anything to fix that today?
TH: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point. Most manufacturers, it doesn’t start modulating the burner until 0.5 gallons per minute. So you’re absolutely correct. If you have a lower flow faucet fixture, or you just turn it on for a little trickle, you’re only gonna get the water just like a tank water heater that’s sitting inside that pipe. And if it’s lost expelled energy overnight or whatever, you’re absolutely correct. There are some workarounds for that but that’s kind of a… You kind of get accustomed to usage too with it. So you are… That’s another way you’re using up a little bit of energy. You’re gonna turn on that hot fixture, get hot water a little bit differently than before where you could maybe give it to a trickle. So you get acclimated to the way that the tankless works. It doesn’t take very long.
RS: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. And to be fair, I can’t think of too many times when I’ve actually wanted just a trickle of hot water. Usually, I’m kind of a light switch kind of guy, it’s either on or off, none of this half on.
TH: Well, and to the flip side of that, so if you have a tank water heater, if you trickle, shut it off, trickle, shut it off, you can get in a tank water heater what’s called “stacking,” where you get very hot layers inside of a tank water heater. And you could possibly have T&P or relief valve issues because of a stacking issue.
RS: Really?
TH: So that gets to a usage point. Because tank water heaters have become so efficient with insulation, especially like a power-vented tank water heater. We will run across that where a customer had a water heater that was 15 years ago that wasn’t as efficient as a tank water heater that’s made today. And we install it and then all of a sudden, the relief valve starts popping off and some of that’s due to stacking because of the way that they’re using, the usage. They’re getting such a hot temperature once it reaches to the top of the tank that it’s popping the T&P valve. Yeah.
RS: So Tess is doing the mind blown hand signal right now and I’m feeling the same way. I’ve never heard of this, never considered it.
TM: Wow. Very interesting.
RS: I just learned something new today, Tim.
TH: Well, what a delight.
RS: All right. Drop the mic, we’re done.
TM: Is that in power vent units you said, that you see that issue with the T&P valve, the new ones?
TH: You typically see it a lot more because if you think about a power vented unit as the same as an atmospheric one that just vents with the atmospheric vent, except now you have something on the top of it that’s retaining that heat, that you’re not getting that heat loss through the flue. So it tends to keep the heat…
TM: Crazy.
TH: Inside the tank longer than an atmospheric. That’s why they’re a little bit more efficient.
TM: I never thought about that before. All the heat that gets lost up through the chimney with a natural draft water heater stays in the water heater with a power vent.
TH: Correct. Correct. Yeah.
TM: Huh.
TH: So there’s pros and cons to power vents, right? There’s pros and cons to tankless, and there’s pros and cons to just standard atmospheric and then electric.
TM: Fascinating.
TH: Right. So…
RS: All right. Well, now of course I need to try this. What could I do to make the worst stacking effect possible? What would that look like, Tim?
TH: Well, if you’re gonna try it at your house, it’s not gonna really work because you have a mixing valve.
RS: Oh shoot. Okay.
TH: But if you wanna try it in a different area, you would wanna do it on a newer tank, one that we know that is most efficient as we possibly can get in there, on a power vented unit. And you’re just gonna probably have to stick around for a while. So you’d run a little bit of hot water. You would shut it off. So the burner would fire and it’s gonna heat up that till it’s satisfied. You’re gonna run a little bit more hot water. And then the burner is gonna kick on again and it’s going to satisfy. The way you can kind of think about it. Do you remember like the Bomb Pop when you were a kid? We have the different colors. Kind of think about it with different layers. Let’s invert that maybe because I think, if I remember right, it’s been a while since I’ve had one, I think the lighter colors are at the top. I could be wrong. But obviously with this scenario, the hotter is gonna go up.
TH: So you’re gonna get that layering factor that goes on there and that’s called “stacking.” So we know that the T&P valve is gonna be closer to the top of the tank. And that’s where you’re gonna get your hottest water because a dip tube brings the cold water down to the burner area, right? It’s gonna be more prevalent, like I said, in a power vent. It could happen in electric, too as well. And if it was an electric water heater, the ECO would, the cutoff would pop on it, usually, first at 185 degrees. But you could try it on a power vent water heater and I’d be curious to see how long it took you to get that to happen. Obviously, a smaller tank, you would get faster results.
RS: I will report back. I’m gonna try this.
TH: Yeah. Looking forward to that.
RS: We’re gonna make it happen.
TM: The T&P valve is doing what it’s supposed to be doing…
TH: Correct.
TM: Letting out excess pressure and all of that. So it’s not really, like what you’re talking about isn’t really a safety issue, correct?
TH: No, no. And that’s a lot of times what it gets… Stacking is a tough thing to diagnose as a plumber, right? So if you don’t know, if you haven’t seen it happen before, you put a brand new water heater and T&P valve starts going off. A lot of times what they’re gonna do, they might do some temperature checks, but typically they’re gonna replace the T&P valve or they’re gonna throw more stuff at it. They might throw an expansion tank in or something like that, instead of actually getting to… If you take the holistic approach at looking at the actual issue and start taking temperature readings and talk to the customer and see what their history is, you’ll probably get to the source a lot faster. But if you just start throwing parts at it, you’re gonna continue to have the problem.
RS: Okay. Okay. Love it.
TM: Interesting. Very interesting.
RS: All right. I’ll let you know what I find out, Tim. Can’t wait.
TH: Yeah. Yeah.
RS: And now… All right. I got another one for you on tankless water heaters. And this one has to do with servicing. And maybe this isn’t true anymore, but I’ve heard that when you’re in areas like St. Louis Park, places that have very hard water, Maple Grove where I live, you need to get your system flushed annually or it’s gonna build up with calcium and whatever, and it’s gonna not really work anymore. Is that true?
TH: Yeah. So again, you get down to, most manufacturers have recognized that people aren’t good at maintenance. So they’ve made some of the waterways larger. That’s one thing. Most manufacturers will recommend some sort of periodic service, whether it’s annually or biannually. And that’s what you’re talking about with the flushing. And some manufacturers actually have built in technology that will let you know that you’re getting close to the time of flushing it. You need to think of it like your body. If you’re putting bad food in your body, you’re gonna get poor results. If we’re gonna put poor water into any water heater, regardless if it’s a tankless or a tank water heater, you’re gonna get poor results.
TH: So yeah, the water’s heating up faster and that could cause buildup issues, but that also happens in a tank. And I’m sure that you guys recognize that sound. If you’re doing an inspection on a home, you activate that thermostat, you hear that popping, right? That’s a similar thing that’s happening. It’s just happening in a smaller area, is what’s happening. So maintenance is key, whether it’s on tankless or if it’s on a tank model and the water that we’re putting into it is key, whether it’s on a tankless or a tank model.
RS: Okay. Got it. And if you’re gonna flush a tankless water heater, what does that procedure consist of?
TH: It can be a little intimidating to people. And if that’s the case, if you’re not mechanically inclined, I would hire a professional to do it. If you are mechanically inclined and you’re up for the challenge, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s just basically, if I was to explain it, it’s like a sump pump that you would just put into a 5-gallon bucket. You’d put either vinegar in there. There’s all sorts of different products that you can use now that are non-toxic, non-harmful that you can mix in with the water and make a solution. And then you’re gonna run that solution through a hose and it’s gonna go up to the inlet side of the tankless water heater and it’s gonna expel out the outlet side back into the bucket, kind of just recirculates that. And you would do that for a certain duration of time. Typically, it’s 15 minutes to a half an hour.
TH: You don’t really get what you think. Like you’d think you’d look at that hose and all of a sudden, you get a lot of calcium or something that comes out of it. But typically, if somebody is doing regular maintenance like that, you’re not gonna see a lot of stuff coming out of it. There’s usually an inlet screen on the inlet side of tankless water heaters that catch most of the large debris. So really, what you’re doing is you’re exactly what you’re saying. You’re just trying to get that stuff that maybe has attached to the heat exchanger. Kind of like when you go to the dentist and they go in and they remove the plaque and stuff from your teeth. It’s just, it’s not on there usually as hard as it is when they’re doing that with your teeth. So it’s kind of an easier process. Pretty simple though. If you’ve seen somebody do it, there’s so much information obviously online on how to do that. But it’s one of those things sometimes people just wanna hire it out and have it done.
RS: Sure.
TM: Tim, oh, I was gonna ask you, can you give a range on the average lifespan for an older tank water heater before they’ve changed the engineering and things get clogged up faster that never gets maintained versus best case scenario, like a newer design that’s been installed by a company like yours that knows what they’re doing and it does get maintained regularly?
TH: Yeah. And you’re talking about just straight tankless water heaters?
TM: Yeah. Tankless water heaters. What’s kind of the range average lifespan that you see?
TH: Yeah. If you’re not maintaining it, it’s all gonna come down to the water quality going into it and the usage and if it’s been installed properly but some of the older technology on the tankless was pre-condensating. So they weren’t vented in PVC. It was vented in metallic piping. Some of that technology lasts a long time, even without maintenance. Obviously codes and stuff came into place that have changed the way that the technology works. So I think you’ll see tankless water heaters even installed improperly that are 25, 30 years old, just because they don’t have a lot of parts inside of them. It’s just kind of like that old gas stove. It’s got a pilot light on it and when it calls for heat, it just turns on a burner, full modulation and then just shuts off; where now tankless technology, like a stove, the burner modulates up and down based on how much water is actually traveling through it. So if you’re just, like Reuben was saying, if you’re just taking a low demand, if you’ve just got half a gallon a minute going through it, it may only modulate at a typical tank BTU, like 40,000 BTUs, but it has the ability to ramp up to 199-plus thousand BTUs.
TM: More efficient but more parts to break.
TH: Yep. Right. Right. But again, the manufacturers are getting really good at finding the errors, correcting them because they want tankless technology to take off like it has in Europe and Japan. And a lot of it’s just education. What you guys are doing today is great because if we get a couple of people that get interested in tankless just off of this conversation, we just get a couple more people that get to experience that endless hot water in their home and get to enjoy that, right?
RS: Now, what about the volume? Because one benefit you get to having a tank is that everybody can turn on hot water at the same time. In theory, everybody can be taking a shower and it delivers whatever we want at the same time, for a limited amount of time, of course, but you get it all. But let’s say you have a Minnesota house, you’ve got groundwater coming in at 40 degrees. I know the average is more like 45, but let’s say it’s dead of winter. It’s got to heat that water up a lot and you’ve got a bunch of fixtures calling for that water. Do you ever have issues with that at your house where you don’t get hot enough water because of multiple fixtures running?
TH: I don’t. What you’re referring to… This is kind of a little bit longer conversation, but what you’re referring to is called the “Delta T.” So, you have your incoming water temperature versus your outgoing water temperature, certain amount of BTUs that it takes to raise that. So, you’re absolutely correct. In the wintertime here, I’ve seen temperatures as low as 30… I mean, obviously, I’ve seen freezing, but I’ve seen as low as 36 degrees. And if you’re trying to take that water up to 120 degrees, a BTU is a BTU. So, whether it’s 199,000 BTUs on a tankless or 40,000 BTUs on a tank model, it’s gonna give you the same amount of heat.
TH: I have not personally experienced that. And that comes down to a little bit of just how the plumbing is designed and also the tankless that you installed. So, if you’re just trying to maximize your investment and maybe not go the full boat and get the largest model available, yes, you could possibly see some volume issues in going with something that’s got a lower BTU at the high point. So, most tankless manufacturers work off… They sacrifice flow versus temperature. There are some manufacturers that actually sacrifice temperature and give you full flow. There’s not a lot of them out there, but where they will drop the temperature, unlike what I was saying before, where you have a consistent temperature, they’ll actually drop the temperature so you won’t sacrifice flow. Does that make sense?
RS: Yep. Yep. Okay. Gotcha.
TH: So, that’s probably a rabbit hole that we could go down with all different reasons with the BTUs and the Delta T and how many points of modulation it has. But I’d be down for that conversation too, if you wanted to pass that puck.
RS: Well, let me ask you another one. And I think I know where you’re gonna go with this answer, but another thing, one of my pet peeves is having to wait for hot water. And Tessa and I have talked about this on the podcast many times, but one concern I have with tankless is that you kick it on and instead of having hot water at the top of the tank ready to go through your pipes, you’ve got to have all this water travel through the water heater. And it’s gonna take that much longer to get hot water to your fixture. What can you guys do to fix that?
TM: Or is that even true?
RS: Yeah. Or is that even true? Good point, Tess.
TH: Yep. I would say older technology, it’s more true. Newer technology, it’s not gonna be as true. The larger… The manufacturer that probably has brand dominance in the United States has some models that have a small storage tank inside of it to help combat that.
RS: Rinnai?
TH: There are… What’s that?
RS: Rinnai?
TH: No, it’s Navien. We don’t use those here, but that’s probably the most… In the plumbing world, that’s probably the manufacturer that I would say probably holds market share. I could be wrong with that, but they do have a small storage tank in there. What we do is, the manufacturer we use, we can put an external recirculation pump on. And now that can work a couple of different ways. And I kind of know where you’re asking with that. You could have a separate recirculating line, or you could put a T in at the most remote fixture, like a crossover T, which is not ideal. We also have a model that has an internal recirculating pump, where you can do that same thing with. You could have an external recirculating line and then a T at the most remote fixture, crossover T. I am not as big a fan of that particular model because if you get any debris, it has its own filter on that particular line.
TH: And if that filter gets debris in it, it’ll lock the whole unit out and you won’t get hot water. So at my house, I actually have an external recirculating pump that runs off an algorithm for when we use… I’m like you, I get up at 4:15 in the morning. So it’s working at four o’clock to make sure that I have hot water when I get up. And the shower that I have in my lower level that I use, it does it like 5 and a half gallons a minute, because it has a couple of body sprays on it.
RS: Oh my gosh.
TH: But the 199,000 BTU tankless water heater keeps up with that just fine.
RS: Nice.
TH: So even in the wintertime, in the dead of wintertime, I will tell you, I mean, if I’m being completely transparent, there’s not a lot of times that I’m up at 4:15 where somebody is taking a shower upstairs.
RS: So no.
TH: When it’s 20 below out. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of different ways you can tackle that. The same way with a tank water heater. And to Tessa’s point, it’s kind of a misconception with it, that you’re gonna have to wait longer. I think if you have a fixture that’s a full flow fixture, it’s gonna be very similar. It might be a couple of seconds, but in some people’s minds, a couple of seconds is actually 15 minutes.
RS: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.
TM: It seems like a lot of people that would go with a tank water heater would be into conservation or saving energy or thinking about the environment. And so they’d be the type of people that might trend more towards low flow fixtures. But it sounds like what you’re saying is maybe that’s not a good combination to have a tank water heater or a tankless water heater, sorry, tankless water heater and low flow. They’re not compatible. Is that true?
TH: That the tankless water heater is not as compatible, like when you’re talking about energy efficiency, if I’m understanding the question correctly.
TM: Yeah. If you’ve got a low flow showerhead and you’ve got a tankless water heater, you might run into issues of just not getting that hot water as fast as you want.
TH: Yeah. I think it’s gonna be very similar. As long as you’re getting half a gallon per minute, it’s gonna activate the burner and it’s gonna turn that burner on, and you’re gonna get hot water. And then it’s all about piping, how far that piping is or how far that actual unit is installed. It doesn’t matter if it’s tank or tankless. You’re gonna get very similar.
TM: Distance down.
TH: Yeah. Yeah. The only thing that I think of that might change that question a little bit is with a tank water heater, let’s just say it’s sitting overnight. So it’s turning on and it’s turning off. That hotter water is gonna radiate up through that hot water pipe, where in a tankless water heater, if you don’t have any flow when it’s not being used, you’re not gonna have that water radiating up that pipe. So it would cool off faster that way, if that makes sense.
TM: Yeah.
RS: Sure. Sure. Makes sense.
TM: Definitely.
RS: What water heaters do you guys install? What’s your preference?
TH: We use Noritz. We have used all of them at one point in time. And they all have their pros and cons, but when you were a visitor at our shop, we actually have a wholesaler inside of our building, and we try to make sure that we capture as much from that wholesaler as possible. It’s a partnership and they provide Noritz. So if we have any issues with it to get our customers hot water, again, the quickest, it’s just great if we have it outside of our building here and we’re able to grab it. So Noritz is the brand that we use.
RS: Okay. Gotcha.
TM: Can you give a price range for doing like a retrofit tankless water heater install, like in an existing home that’s never had that before and might need new gas lines and stuff like that, versus like installing it in like a new construction where the house is designed for it already? Like what’s the price? Kind of what’s your price point?
TH: Yeah. It’s a great question. So let’s say we’re retrofitting it. A lot of it does… This is where some of the engineering comes into play and where it comes into play with the gas. So if you have an older gas system, let’s just take an older Minneapolis house where their gas meter might be still in the basement and they’re running off what we would call “low pressure gas.” Just like we were talking about on the water side with volume, you need the volume on the gas side of it because when the burner modulates, you need some of that gas volume to come behind it. So if a lot of changes have to be made with the gas system to accommodate the higher, the extra BTUs, that’s obviously going to raise the investment. But if we were to go on the low end, typically like a retrofit, maybe let’s just throw out a number of like 3,500, but it could be up as close to 8,000, depending on how much work goes into it.
TH: So there’s a lot of investment variations and not one job is typically the same. It’s not something that you can just throw a number at it and you want it done the right way. So unfortunately, there’s a lot of contractors out there that don’t really look at the gas. They don’t really look at the venting and that’s where we start running into those, I’m never going to put a tankless water heater in my house again because I’ve had these problems with it, right?
TM: Right. And you also have to think about it too. It doesn’t have the lifespan of like a tank water heater. It’s longer, it sounds like, these days with the newer models, if it’s installed properly. Would you say like maybe 20 years is a safe number?
TH: A lot of manufacturers, like the one that… So let’s just take the manufacturer we use, Noritz. They put a 25-year heat exchanger warranty on it. So if they’re putting a 25-year heat exchanger warranty on it, they’re backing that for 25 years. They’re pretty much telling you that that water heater investment’s going to last you 25 years if you’re putting good water into it and it’s installed properly, and you’re doing the maintenance that’s recommended on it. And tank models are very similar. A lot of them are engineered down to the warranty. So that’s a good indicator for homeowners. That’s a good question to ask if you were looking to invest into a tankless water heater and you’re getting multiple people coming. Not necessarily concentrate on the brand, but let’s concentrate maybe on what that brand’s warranty is. So if you have a manufacturer that only offers a 15-year warranty, that’s probably an indicator that they’re only backing that thing for 15 years versus somebody who’s going to back it for 25 years.
TM: Wow, interesting. Reuben, I don’t know if you’re going in this direction with that question you asked about what type of water heaters you install. I know you answered, Tim, with a specific brand, but I feel like we could have a whole nother podcast talking about the different types of water heaters, how much it cost to install them, what you see is commonly, the most common types and pros and cons of each. I wanna ask you questions about stuff like heat pump water heaters too, like the newer technology that’s coming out. But we’re out of time.
RS: Tess, we’ve got to do a follow-up with Tim because, yeah…
TM: We do.
RS: I’ve only got him for a few more minutes. Tim, I think we’ve got like three or four more podcasts we need to do with you. Are you down for scheduling some other dates on the calendar?
TH: Yeah, absolutely.
RS: Okay, all right.
TH: You guys are a lot of fun. Yeah, you’re actually tapping my brain a little bit because I’m an instructor. So when I’m teaching this, I have a whole system. But when you’re just rapid firing questions to me, it kind of gets my brain moving a little bit, which I enjoy. Because I’ve been out in the field…
RS: Yeah, we’re jumping all over the place. All right. Tim, I got one other, this is a total non sequitur now. We’re getting away from water heaters, but I don’t know when we’re going to come to this specific topic. And it’s been on my mind for the last 10 years, maybe the last 20 years. You talked about flow restrictors. And on all these faucets, a showerhead, you’ve got a flow restrictor. What is it, like 2.5 gallons per minute on a standard showerhead? Is that what it is?
TH: Yeah, usually.
RS: All right. So my understanding of how water works in Minnesota is that we’ve got rivers and lakes, and that’s where we get most of our water, or we’ve got wells, we’ve got reservoirs under the ground, and we get this water up, and we use the water. And then it goes back down to our sewage treatment systems and it gets deposited back into our rivers and lakes, right?
TH: It’s a sensitive subject, so watch where we go with that. But you’re directionally correct, yes. Yeah, especially if you live in the city. If you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul, the water’s going to come out of the river. And I will tell you, they used to give tours of the water treatment plant in Minneapolis, and I would encourage you to do that, and maybe listening to this, especially if you’re in the trades, to do that if they allow it still. They talk about prior to low flow fixtures, because the water treatment plant wants to do what? How do they bring revenue in?
RS: Treating water?
TH: Right. They sell water, right? So now if all these things come into play, they actually have in there a readout telling how many gallons a day that they’re actually treating, right? And it’s just in front of everybody. And I don’t remember the actual numbers, but they can tell you how much it’s actually gone down since low flow toilets, low flow fixtures, and all that stuff’s gone into place. So, right. There’s two sides to that coin. We are very fortunate in our state to have more of an unlimited supply versus other regions of the United States. But there are, like I said, it’s sensitive, so it’s one of those things, it can cause a lot of issues. Fortunately, the toilet part of it has kind of worked its way through. You know, the early ’90s, even in the 2000s, low flow toilets were an issue. And now they’ve kind of perfected that lower flush, and we’re not seeing as many issues with it. But yeah, sometimes good things can all bring a lot of repercussions, right? So, I’m with you. I’m a fan of some of the toilets that would flush 3 and a half gallons because the plumbing systems were originally designed, or 5 gallons, they were designed for that. But the infrastructure is being changed so much now, and codes are being changed. I think we’re starting to get caught up, so.
RS: Okay. So, I mean, I just… I like a nice shower. Quick shower, full flow. First thing I do when I get a new showerhead is I take it apart, and I remove that little black O-ring that restricts your flow, and anything else that restricts flow. So, I get a nice, good shower for two minutes, or whatever it is. Am I a bad person, Tim?
TH: I don’t think you’re a bad person, but you do have to remember that that showerhead’s engineered to have that in there, and now they’re engineering showerheads with air injection. And this isn’t my specialty, but it makes it feel like there’s a lot more, I want to say the word “volume,” but droplets. So, you don’t necessarily always have to pull that flow restrictor out. I would challenge you to research and find a showerhead that advertises more droplets of water and try that out, and see if you can keep that 2 and a half gallon or less standard. And without removing the flow restrictor. But listen, I would say out of all the showerheads I’ve taken off in my life, which has been a lot, the majority of them have had that removed.
RS: So, I’m not alone. That’s good to hear.
TH: No. I think you’re in good company there.
RS: Okay. All right.
TM: I flashed you that Seinfeld episode where they’re installing these low flow showerheads in Jerry’s building, and everybody gets greasy hair throughout the show, and then finally Kramer buys a showerhead for like an elephant at a circus on the black market and installs it. And the last thing is him turning it on, and the pressure making him fly back out of the shower. Anyways, ridiculous, but yes.
RS: Yeah. We’ll need to find that. All right. Tim, you are a gold mine of knowledge. I’m glad that we have reconnected, and stick around after the show, and we’re going to schedule another day to get you on, because we didn’t even get to talk about water quality, which is what you wanted to talk about. But this is a fantastic tangent. I want to talk about water quality with you. I want to talk about other types of water heaters. And I think it’s something that fascinates people. I’m fascinated with it. So stick around [0:48:58.3] ____.
TM: Yeah. And even I’ve got more questions about this whole water treatment plant facility stuff that you brought up too, and how it ties into, Reuben, you’ve written blogs about how cities don’t allow sump pumps to tie into the city water because it’s overwhelming the water treatment facilities. I mean, is that true or not? It sounds like some facilities, maybe that’s a good thing. I mean, that’s a bad thing. I don’t know.
RS: We’ll save that for a teaser for another day. Tim, if people want to get a hold of you or your company, how can they find you, Tim?
TH: Yeah. So we’re Paul Bunyan Plumbing here in the Twin Cities. We also go down to Rochester. We have a location down in Rochester. So we’re Legendary Home Services which encompasses Paul Bunyan Plumbing, Blue Ox Heating and Air Conditioning, and EarlyBird Electric. So if it’s home services, whether it’s electric, plumbing, HVAC, we touch it all. And we work on building lifelong relationships with customers just based off of education. We want to encapture people and partner with them for the life of their house or if they decide to relocate or whatever. But we’re really big on education and options. So Paul Bunyan Plumbing is going to be who you call for, for the plumbing side of it.
TM: I like that.
RS: Awesome. Awesome. Well, we will include a link to your company in the show notes. Tim, thank you so much for coming on. Tessa, always great to see you. And for our listeners, if you’ve got any questions for the show, future questions for Tim on a future episode, please email us podcast@structuretech.com. We’ll catch you next time.