Point of use water heater?

Gers

Our 'new' home has no mains gas and so relies on electricity for all power. We've had the bath removed and an electric shower installed. Now I'm looking at the immersion water heater - we have no need of a tankful of water being heated/kept heated for the sake of the occasional washing of hands (bathroom). A dishwasher takes care of the other stuff.

There are only two sets of taps, one at the bathroom basin and one at the kitchen sink. Would it be a 'better' idea to have two point of use under sink units installed? Tried to find a discussion about this on the web but only came up with retail sites.

I understand that upfront costs and installation are to be considered, however I can't see the point of the immersion heater any longer


Thanks

lstar337

Wouldn't bother with a fully on-demand unit under 9kW (needs its own supply), but we have a little (15l) tank unit at work that is pretty good.

It fits in a kitchen cupboard and we have it feeding 3 hot taps for basic hand washing and washing up in the kitchen. Its a 3kW unit so it only needs a 13A socket to plug into.

It's made by these people:

http://www.hyco.co.uk/product.asp?id=177

We have had it a few years now and it seems to be fit-and-forget technology. We have never had to do anything with it anyway.

jenfa

Although we still have hot water cylinder we wanted hot water in a utility room but ruled out piped hot water due to cost.

Husband bought from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009URVFG2/ref=oh_details_o09_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
this heater comes with a vented low pressure tap.

This has been in for coming up to a year, and we find it great coming in from the garden and getting instant hot water, we generally have it on eco but if we are washing the car we turn it up to 3 and by the time we have finished one bucket of hot water the heater has heated up another amount. Due to the length of pipework from our cylinder it takes ages to get hot water to our main kitchen tap and although I would like to have a heater here there is a negative, which is that although our mains pressure is high when coming out of the heater the cold doesn't come out that fast. This is because the cold feed comes in to the heater and then is split out using the mixer tap.

We have this fitted in a cupboard but wouldn't look too bad if you had it on show, must admit until I saw it thought husband was losing his marbles as I imagined those horrible ones you get in public toilets. :rotfl:

MoneyMate

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Vented+Point+of+Use+Water+Heater/p65881
Hope this helps ?

[Deleted User]

The issue that you need to decide is how much water you want to draw off at a time, how fast, and how often.

If you buy a point of use heater with storage you need to ask whether it will hold enough to fill your washing up bowl, and whether you are willing to wait 10-15 mins for another fill.

If you have a heater which heats on demand, then you can have as much as you want as often as you want, but it will fill the bowl a lot more slowly than a water tank. If you're heating a 10C water supply to 40C, even a 10kW heater will take over 4 mins to fill a 20 litre washing up bowl.

Gers

Wasn't thinking of having a storage tank, more along the lines of instant hot water. Don't hand wash many dishes anymore, it all gets bunged in the dishwasher except the family silver! Don't want to heat any amount of water or keep it hot, just on demand stuff but not an over the sink type thing seen in many cafe loos.

I imagined something more like the modern 'boiling water' taps beloved of many offices. Is this feasible?

Thanks

Ectophile

Most of the under-the-counter or above-the-sink water heaters have at least a small water tank. That way they can connect to a standard 13A supply.

Instantly heating enough water to run a hot tap would require a dedicated supply, similar to that of an electric shower.

lstar337

Gers wrote: »

I imagined something more like the modern 'boiling water' taps beloved of many offices. Is this feasible?

Ectophile wrote: »

Most of the under-the-counter or above-the-sink water heaters have at least a small water tank. That way they can connect to a standard 13A supply.

Instantly heating enough water to run a hot tap would require a dedicated supply, similar to that of an electric shower.

Very true.

As I said above, you would need a unit over 9kW for instant hot water with no tank, and that requires its own wiring to the CU.

You are better to get one with a small tank. They don't cost much to run and they are heavily insulated.