Before Installing a Propane Tankless Water Heater

because this is the the next step in getting the install of this tankless water heater it's a propane tank this water heater it's geared to actually run the entire domestic hot water system of the house but there has been some problems since the unboxing and so as I dig into it I go oh look at this brand new tank this is great then I started realized that the company and I would have to say that the company is not being egregious or even malevolent in what they're doing what they're doing is they're trying to make a profit they're trying to give a very cheap affordable tankless hot water heater to people so they can just do an easy install but they're not supplying all the parts because it's relatively expensive to do it so let's just walk through on what happened so the first thing that happen is my instruction manuals came and my instruction manuals literally came one was very basic that did not tell about the install at all and the one that told about the install actually came only in Spanish now I'm not fluent in Spanish I know a little bit like for example this vent pipe is going to get muy caliente I know that it's going to be very hot and you don't want to put this straight into a wall and not make sure that you're protecting your wall from fire because this is going to heat up this is the exhaust vent from the unit so what I'm going to do is just kind of talk to you a little bit about what should it happen this is a single wall vent pipe okay and to make sure that it would be installed safely you need what is called a wall thimble now a wall thimble would be where the pipe would actually go inside this section here you put this into your drywall and then you put your pipe through it like this and then you have another walk then blow on the outside of your house to protect your house and this comes out like that now the problem is is you see that this is not fitting this is stainless and this is galvanized okay it doesn't look pretty together ok so just be aware that there is a beauty beauty part you can do you can buy these success stainless pieces or you can run down to your local big box supply store or hardware store and get this for relatively cheap so I went with cheap but the problem is look at this I have so much gap here well we have a huge Yellow Jacket bald-faced hornet problem up here in northern I know and that is like perfect places for them to go so what I've done is I figure out how am I going to do this so I got this Universal downsizing cone just in the gas vent session section at your hardware store and I'm going to punch it through like that and the vent pipe is going to go right through that like that on both sides of the wall I'm going to measure the distance inside here as I push it through you can see it doesn't come all the way through so I'm going to measure the distance here and then I'm going to just cut the end so we'll slide out perfectly and then I'm going to silicone that joint too so be a nice snug fit when it comes out I'm going to do the exact same thing going into the wall this way okay I will cut this so it will fit right inside and go right through the wall like that and that's how I'm going to make it work it's a relatively cheap fix compared to buying the very expensive stainless steel parts that you need it would have been nice if the company had supplied that in their manual the company in the manual which by the way I just want to give credit to the company I emailed them and later that day they sent me the English version of everything in fact they even sent me the warranty information that I didn't have come with us as well and I'll talk about that in a minute but what I found kind of humorous was my English instructions and the Spanish instructions when you blow up the install picture to as high as you can go it gives the information in kind of this weird mix Chinese English but it's not really Chinese words and it's not really English words it's just bad spelling so bad translation anyway besides the point I just want to know that you're going to run into that this is not clear on install this at all I think that's why the company says go get a plumber go get somebody that knows what they're doing and if you don't know what you're doing you need to pay attention to other people and do or at least think they do and we'll do it the safe way so one of the things that they also said in the warranty that I got in the email was they would not warranty their products without this piece this piece is called a why strainer filter this piece here alone cost around twenty six dollars at the local specialized plumbing store so you have to go to not a big-box store but you have to actually go to a plumbing store where professional plumbers go to get this this part safety on the yellow pages for that okay so it's kind of let you see that real quick I'm gonna have to drill a hole and then I'm going to have to cut a hole in my wall I hate cutting holes in perfectly good walls it's just something I don't like to do so I want to be very precise on it so what I did is I took a cardboard box and I just took this end and I just smashed it on that cardboard box and then twisted it to where it made a really good mark and then I took a box knife and I cut out this hole here so what I want to do with this hole this cardboard that actually is this hole here is I'm going to take a screw and I am going to drill it right through the center right onto the wall after I make all my measurements make sure I'm going into the wall where I want it to go once it's hanging on the wall like that we'll just take a pencil I'm going to draw around it because I don't worry about holding it and losing it I'm just going to screw it right in it should stay there safely I won't lose my place or anything and I'm just going to do it if you want more security do two screws because this area is going to disappear because I'm going to cut it out with us really quickly I forgot to mention how do I locate the hole from one side of the wall to the other well I use this very very long drill bit it's 1/4 of an inch and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to drill all the way through the wall and I'm going to know from the inside out when it pops out that's where I need to make my hole I'm also going to draw a line about 1/2 an inch lower and make my hole a little bit lower on the outside wall because for every foot you need this to drop 7/8 of an inch okay and so that's I think it's because if you have weather or rain or anything that gets up here it should roll out also if you have condensation on the pipe you want it to roll out so in motion the air will condense on this thing because it's so hot so just be aware that you want this to be about a 70s drop for every every foot and so I'm going six inches through the wall and so I want to make sure that I go at least a half an inch and drop I do find it a little bit in poor practice to not advertise that you need to have these things when you purchase the product to say you have to have these things for safety here's the base model and then you need to actually have these safety vents put in place so that's but that's sketchy and I think that all these companies are kind of getting in getting their startup and are doing this and they're expecting you to get a professional plumber that's going to fix that for you and do it for you if you don't have that professional plumber in your do-it-yourself fix-it person who has the ability to work with your own hands you just got to be aware that there's you it's not a complete picture that you're getting there all right so that's all I got for you hopefully you enjoyed this episode why I'm gonna do now is take off with my tape measure and start making measurements make sure I put the hole in the right spot because you want holes going in the middle nowhere in your closet and then we'll have this probably hooked up later thanks [Music]

Channel: Living a Sustainable Dream

Views: 59,509

Keywords: DIY tankless water heater, Propane tankless water heater, lp tankless water heater, lp water heater, what you need to know about propane water heaters, y strainer for tankless water heater, installing a tankless water heater, venting a tankless water heater, what you need to know about a propane tankless water heater, Excel propane tankless water heater, gas vent for water heater, living a sustainable dream, off grid living, off grid hot water systems, off grid homestead

Id: HcrkjpFHlEA

Length: 8min 22sec (502 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2017