NG water heater question has anyone seen this?

[mtaccone]

I found this water heater some time ago and was wondering if this will be more efficient or use similar to what I use now in gas?
http://bockwaterheaters.com/Products/gas_water_heaters.html

We seem to use alot of hot water at 1 time as most things that use hot water all on at 1 part of the day and we sometime run low not to mention I use 25 to 30 therms of gas a month doing so. I have a 40 gal. tank type which is in poor shape as the thermostat must be at 160 degrees to get the water we need and looses its heat fast. I dont want tankless. I miss the other house with the 30gal oil fired water heater that never ran out. This bock water heater is basically an oil fired with a gas burner on the front. What do you guys think of it?

 

[mtaccone]

Yeah the burner puts in about 100,000 btus and the standard type water heaters only put in 40-50,000. I wonder how much I would loose? I dont know much about power gas burners.

 

[R&D Guy]

You might want to consider a tank-less heater. I can't say I'm real familiar with them, but sounds like a good fit for you since they are designed and sized to never run out of hot water.

 

[Corey]

It might be more efficient. With a standard water heater, you have to leave enough heat in the flue gas to create a draft...same way with a standard gas furnace. When you go with a forced draft, you can pull out most all the heat and rely on the fan to vent the gasses...just like a high efficiency furnace.

 

[mtaccone]

Seems as though the bock also has a finned flue as to extract more heat.. This isnt powervent though its just an oil fired tank with a gas gun on it. The tankless seem too expensive for what they are and I have pretty hard water. The bock is $2000 and not cheap either.. just dont want to spend the money and double my gas bill as well as that would defeat the purpose in many ways..

 

[TMonter]

Seems very similar to a standard power vent water heater. I think you might be just better off to buy a good power vent model w/6 year warranty and put an extra anode in the tank.

 

[mtaccone]

Didnt think they made a high input powervented unit.

 

[TMonter]

I've seen some 75k and 100k Btu 50 Gallon power vents before. The only advantage of the high input that I can see is the fast recovery time.

If you were going to spend that kind of money I would say look into a American Polaris series heater.

(broken link removed to http://www.polariswaterheaters.com/support/specifications.aspx)

On a side note I have a GE (Rheem) power vent model (40 Gallon) from Home Depot and have had relatively good luck with it. Recovery times are fast (about 25 minutes) and it's well insulated as the room it's in doesn't get warm. One of the best things you can do for any heater is remove the crappy drain valve and put a high quality ball valve in for draining/flushing the unit twice a year of sediment. I'll post some pictures of my unit here in a few minutes.

 

[mtaccone]

looking for the fast recovery as so I don't have to have so much hot water on hand or heat the water I do have to 150degrees. Don't need a powervent unless there are advantages I do not know about. The bock does not have a powervent but it has very high input. A standard tank would be far cheaper if i could get 1 that would heat up fast. I have an old true value water heater that is a vintage 1993 model that I bought 3 years ago as it was a floor model. It is kind of a POS and maybe thats all my problem is. At the last house I had 90 gallons of hot water never running out but paying alot to have that on hand and before that we had oil and never had a problem 30 gallon tank to boot.

 

[TMonter]

Power vents do not have a standing pilot so they don't have a continuous gas consumption. They also aren't always venting heat since the fan only runs when the burner does. The disadvantage is the higher cost of the unit and the requirement to have it plugged into wall power.

 

[mtaccone]

didnt know that they didnt have pilots.

 

[TMonter]

Just FYI the Bock is a power vent, just the fan is at the bottom rather than the top. Forced draft design rather than induced draft design. It does look like the Bock is a higher quality construction, however I'm not sure it's $1400 worth better than a standard power vent unit.

It also has less warranty than my GE/Rheem at 6 years which I find very odd.

 

[mtaccone]

the bock is chimney vented maybe my wires are crossed

 

[TMonter]

Power vents can be chimney vented or through the wall vented as well, it all depends on how you design the installation.