water heaters in series?

[JoeV]

I am considering hooking two or more 50gallon run of the mill water heaters in series. Anyone ever done this or is it a bad idea?

Joe

[Scott M]

Is this for capacity? What you will have is one heater doing all the work.

Hook them up in parallel, each feeding the same outlet, and you will decrease recovery time and still have the capacity. Both will share the reheat duty cycle so wear and tear will be about the same for each unit.

Scott M

[IPAMEASAP]

water heater

Look into an "Instant Hot Water Heater". They take up less space and have unlimited hot water. Plus it would probably be cheaper to purchase than 2 water heaters. The biggest benifit would be is, energy savings, because you won't be heating 100 gallons of water all the time. It only heats what you use.
Good luck!!
Pete

[beerking1]

We just had a Renai installed in the Pub to feed the 3 BBL system that is being installed. It is separate from the hot water feed for the kitchen, and is capable of providing water as hot as 185F. I will be able to mash in without heating water on the system. Just walk in the door, mix hot and cold, and start brewing.

[uptown brothers]

How many gpm, king?

[jvandenbrink]

Rinnai LS94i

I have a tankless heater in my space and absolutely love it. It is programmable from 100-185. So depending what I am doing at the brewery I adjust the temp. Obviously, the hotter it gets the lower the GPM. From straight tap water to 185 I get about 2.7 GPM.

I also have it "T-ed" into my HLT so that I can refill the HLT on demand and save on electricity so that I don't have to heat the water at all, just keep it hot while I'm brewing. (this is so if I am also keg washing or using the on demand system elsewhere in the brewery I still have hot liquor for brewing).

This system cost about 2k to install and a quick look on Craigslist found some used 50 gallon tanks for a total of $100.

Joel

[Moonlight]

Mine (Rinnai) seem to build scale every couple weeks or so, and need to be acid rinsed (and the breaker reset to reset the display code). When installing, be advised that you may need to be able to circulate acid through them.

[beerking1]

How many gpm, king?

It is a commercial grade system, capable of 9.4-9.5 gpm! (or so the stats claim) That should be plenty!

Moonlight, thanks for the advice on scale. Fortunately, our water is in some ways even softer than Pilsen, so I doubt scale will be a problem at this particular location.

[BeerBoy]

solar and tankless?

Is anyone out there using solar thermal as a pre-heat for a bulk hot water "bank" and then reaching the target temperature with a commercial tankless H2O heater(s)? That's what I'm shooting for, and wondering if there's anybody with that type of set-up? I can envision it but would like some real world feedback if it exists. (sorry to sorta hi-jack, but possibly relevant...).

FarmerD