Inderect water heater

[wolfkiller]

I am still planing my new system to be installed this summer. I am now thinking of using a few inderect water heaters for my storage. This will be a little pricy but should make for a nice looking, functional system. I was thinking about 4 125 gal water heaters to start. It will also be easy to increase storage. Is there any problems with this idea?

 

[solarguy]

very expensive way to do water storage

 

[Eric Johnson]

That's four expensive in-tank heat exchangers instead of one. And it's the hx coils, as I understand it, that drive up the price on indirects.

 

[wdc1160]

wouldn't the heat exchangers have to be proportionally smaller? he would require 25 ft per tank instead of 100 for the 1 600 gal tank? I thought the expense would be buying 125 gal water heaters- They will run over 3 C's apiece

 

[Eric Johnson]

Tanks, too.

If the heat exchangers were priced by the foot, then I guess you'd be right. But I suspect that 4 dedicated 25-foot hx assemblies (presumably there's more to them than just a coil of copper or ss) will cost a lot more than one 100-footer.

Regardless, we're making the same point.

 

[steam man]

I believe you can purchase tanks without the heat exchangers and then just use one external heat exchanger one to loop through all of them. They also could be staged with zone valves to heat them one at a time. This may be more efficient though I am just thinking out loud. I don't have any specific details at this point but I have seen many configurations like this online. I sort of use something like this for my DHW with two tanks. 160g storage.

 

[Bob Rohr]

I'd agree with the one external plate HX and multiple insulated storage tanks. Usually you can buy large electric water heaters for less money than an insulated blank tank.

Shop for scratch and dents, they are usually heavily discounted.

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