Comments on: Tankless water heater info?

By: yvette

yvette — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:47:20 +0000

I have a titan bought new in July of 03…….its only 4 yrs old………..I cannot seem to get hot water out of it………it used to produce really hot water , now I can barely get a lukewarm shower in my master bath on the east side of the house….the tank is on the west side…..however, tonight I used the west bath/shower and got a much hotter shower there……….any suggestions?………I cannot stand not having a hot shower!!!, thank you

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:53:33 +0000

Hi, Is it worth me buying one of these gas tankless heaters from anyones experience???? Bottom line I need to replace my heater no matter what and would rather not put myself in a position to have to replace the water heater and then find out I invested in a piece of crap. Please help advise……..Thanks

By: MARIA HOPKINS

MARIA HOPKINS — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:30:33 +0000

Wow…. Those of us with Titans have the same thing goin on after ayear or so. I have to shut our water off and on at the heater till the two red lights come on and stand by goes off. Don’t understand and my husband has taken two cold showers in the lastthree months:(

By: Theresa Polly

Theresa Polly — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:15:03 +0000

Last year my husband and I bought a Titan tankless and i am very disappointed. Not even a year later and one morning the thing blew up (literally ) while i was taking a bath. We had to send for another one since we no longer had space for the larger hot water heater. This new one I have had since April 07 and it constantly trips the breaker after maybe five mins of hot water. I have had the plumber/electrician in and he thinks I need a water softener since our town water is too hard for the heater. I say, why didn’t they mention that could be a problem when we bought it? Whats even worse is my husband (The plumber who talked me into this) is now the X husband and I can’t afford to buy a regular hot water heater much less have it installed and I have two little boys to consider. Definitely don’t let anyone talk you into buying this piece of junk ladies.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:21:02 +0000

I have purchased two of the Titan N-120 in the last four years. The first was in August of 2003 and the second was in November 2005. I am now looking at the third and this is October 2007. It is evident to me that the life span of this junk is +/- 2 years. The reason I bought the second one and not brining the original one in for service is the same reason someone mentioned above, you have to remove it, send it in and wait for them to repair it. In the mean time you are left with not only no hot water but no water at all. I figured what the heck, what are the chances that the second one would be a lemon as well and never thought to bring the first one in for service. I gambled and lost. Now I am looking at buying the third. I guess I will take the other two in for warranty repair and have two for back up when the third piece of junk fails. Another problem is I already utilized the space I saved by going tankless. The only thing I can suggest if you are going to buy one, make it two because you will be sorry if you didn’t in about 2 years….

By: Toni

Toni — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:59:25 +0000

I bought the Titan N-120 in Fed. 07 for my new home. It worked fine for 5 months. Then, came home one day and no hot water. Got the builder to check everything and it was fine. Sent off for a new one and had it installed. One week later same thing, washing hands in hot water then nothing. Can reset the reset button sometimes. Has anyone else been having this problems.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 20:07:02 +0000

Not sure about the electric models, but I have a Rheem RTG53 DVN direct vent natural gas model, which is basically a rebadged Paloma ph20. I installed it myself 6 months ago and am very happy with it! I have had no problems at all with it, and with 7 people in my household, I needed this unit. This unit operates no different than my old tank heater, EXCEPT it doesn’t run out of hot water! It has the remote digital controller which I leave set at 120 all the time. The horizontal vent kit (made by Heat Fab) was kind of pricey, plus I needed an additional 3ft strait section, but I think it was well worth it. The direct vent uses a pipe within a pipe, 3” exhaust in the center, intake air around that which is 5” in overall diameter, so you’ll need a fairly large hole to run out the wall(or roof if you go vertical). This is the way to go if not much combustion air in the space is available or if you have a tight house. I removed a small basement window and replaced with 3/4” treated plywood, so it wasn’t too bad. All in all, install was a little difficult, but well worth it. Also plan on using 3/4” gas pipe that can handle 141,000 btu as well as the feeder branch being large enough to support any other gas appliance on the line. Water fitting are also at the bottom of the unit, but I had to redo 85% of my plumbing anyway(old rusty galvanized pipe). I also was quoted $900.00 to install, so I did some research and decided to do it myself. Many of the websites have installation manuals you can view. I’d say I have about $1000.00 invested in the unit, stainless venting, gas pipe, and various water fittings. But, I would do it again. Hope this helps.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:35:54 +0000

Charles, any luck? I just ran into the exact same thing tonight with the Titan N-120. I came across your post in trying to at least find a troubleshooting guide somewhere. Unfortunately there is none to be found it seems. I do know that the unit was running fine (as long as nobody took a shower while the dishwasher was running or it would trip the breaker). I just bought one of those high efficiency front loading washers and my wife ran the shower at the same time, it seems to be dead now except for the standby light.

By: Charles Hancock

Charles Hancock — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:06:56 +0000

We have a Titan Tankless Water Heater that just stopped producing hot water. The unit has a light lit on it with “standby” written below it. I don’t remember this “standby” light ever being lit before. Can anyone tell what the problem might be &/or how to fix it? Thanks

By: Greg Campbell

Greg Campbell — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:41:45 +0000

I’m planning on installing a tankless water heater, probably the Paloma 199K Outdoor unit. I hope it works well.

One suggestion for people who still have tank style water heaters: you can eliminate most corrosion and tank failures by following two simple maintenance items on your tank water heater.

The tanks have a sacraficial “anode rod” in the top of the tank. This is a consumable item that is meant to corrode before the tank does. Depending on the hardness of your water, it can be consumed sooner. As soon as it’s “gone”, then the tank starts to rust. Replace the anode every few years ($25) and the tank could last forever!

The other advice is to drain a few gallons of water out of the bottom of the tank every month or two.

Greg

By: Carll

Carll — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 06:03:20 +0000

Finished installing the Titan N120 tonight, I am an electrician and can do some plumbing so i did it myself over a week or so when I felt like it. Well, the wtaer to the sinks is great but when I went to take that shower … cool … then cold … then cool … so i turned the water off and then back on and got a short burst of warm and then back to cool to cold. It works at all faucets fine but so far no good luck in the shower. Might try to get a different shower head to see if that helps and maybe take the advice of the above writer who said to turn it on slowly, we shall see, I will update when I learn more and try it out longer … good luck to you guys and to me :)

By: TP

TP — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:24:04 +0000

I have had great luck with the Titan N-120. Just so happened the connection at the top of the element blew up last week. No warranty left, and there is no exact repalcements. I will have to replumb to use the newer style Titan N120. The old one has inlet and outlet at the bottum and the newer style has the inlet and outleats across from each other. Any suggestions how to locate a new (older style) replacement?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 17:04:39 +0000

One more thing… If you can’t do the install yourself, expect it to cost a fortune. I was quoted $900 from a plumber just for installation! Using the Outside mounted unit, I didn’t need to buy the vent kit, which is expensive (about $250). The whole install cost me about $75 in materials and took about 6 hours. I have a brick house, so I had to drill holes through the brick for the gas pipe and 2 water pipes. In a frame house, the install would be MUCH easier/faster.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:57:08 +0000

I installed a Paloma 199K BTU Natural Gas Outdoor tankless heater from Home Depot in my home to replace the 40 Gal. conventional heater that was on the verge of catastrophic failure. I live on the Gulf Coast, so the winters are very mild. We really use very little hot water, because the ground water isn’t very cold, so washing hands, etc. with cold water is perfectly comfortable even in the winter. Because of this I figured I could save a lot on the gas bill by not keeping 40 gallons of water hot 24/7. The space savings by removing the huge tank from the inside of the house is wonderful. I now have a nice oak pantry in it’s place! As far as performance, here’s what I can tell you. The water heats up rather quickly, but does take a few seconds longer than the old tank. I keep the temp set at 120 (no kids yet) and it’s plenty hot with several faucets running at the same time. In climates with colder ground water you may get different results, but here it’s just as good as the old tank.

Problems I have encountered so far:
1. I have had intermittent problems when trying to start the shower or bath, the water will get hot quickly, but then go cold about 5 seconds later. You then have to turn the hot water off and wait a few seconds then turn it back on. This seems to happen most often when you crank the hot water all the way on right away. If you turn it on about 1/4-1/2 on until it’s good and hot, it will stay on. This is annoying to say the least. Especially when you have guests in town and you have to explain the little quirks of getting a successful hot bath/shower. “OK, turn the hot water on first about 1/4 turn. Wait about 20 seconds until it’s real hot. Then mix in the cold.”
2. If you blow a breaker or have a power failure, the unit will not turn on automatically when power is restored. This is a pain in the butt. You have to press the “Power” button on the remote temperature adjustment thing in order to get hot water again.

Otherwise this unit works perfectly and I would highly recommend it. The funny thing is that now my gas bill is literally $5 a month! There’s a service charge of about $5 from the gas company that I pay, and I don’t even use enough gas to get billed for it! I imagine it won’t take long to get my return-on-investment from this baby… Plus, when I ran the gas line outside, I put a “T” in it and bought a new gas grill to tie into it. Talk about dual purpose!

By: David Swanson

David Swanson — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 22:29:46 +0000

We installed a Titan Tankless N-120 last November. We are not satisfied with it. The ads claim that it will heat 5 gal. of water per minute. As close as I can estimate, it will heat about 1.5 gal. which will run 1 water-saver showerhead as long as no one else is using any hot water. In a Middle TN winter, the shower is the right temperature with no cold water on. Now it is starting to cut out for about 30 seconds in the middle of a shower. To get it repaired under warranty, we have to take it out and send it back to the company, leaving us with no hot water for who knows how long. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it looks like now — less than one year later — we will have to go out and buy a conventional water tank. We have already bought a 2.5 gal hot water tank and put it in under the kitchen sink for adequate hot water for the kitchen sink and dishwasher. We wasted our money in buying the Titan Tankless Water Heater.