March '25 Chat -- Hurry up, Spring! We got things to do!

[2004LB7]

Anyone else watch the live stream of the Dragon capsule from SpaceX today?

Was pretty awesome. Picture perfect. Reminded me of the videos of Apollo capsules. The main shoots looked like jellyfish. Dolphin's swimming around. It was like a well oiled machine with everything going as planned and everyone doing their part. Hats off to Elon for his baby performing so well

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Re-Entry and Splashdown

Watch with us as the four members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission—NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—...

www.youtube.com

 

[malibu795]

Do you even shower??‍?

 

[Pure Diesel]

Adam, when I owned my plumbing business I did a lot of these custom showers. I always called them the carwashes. The only thing missing are the rollers to scrub you.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[2004LB7]

Do you even shower??‍?
View attachment 129621

This is all I can afford ?

 

[malibu795]

Adam, when I owned my plumbing business I did a lot of these custom showers. I always called them the carwashes. The only thing missing are the rollers to scrub you.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Swag figuring that's ~15gpm with all the heads open, is a 3" drain big enough for gravity drain that much?

 

[Pure Diesel]

The code was 2.2 GPM for outlets in the shower. You could have all those outlet fixtures but they couldn't all run at the same time. That's why we had to install a diverter valve. I believe LA started to go with 1.8 GPM. Those heads look like they're flowing a lot more. Definitely would be installing a 3" drain instead of a 2".

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Pure Diesel]

The school I was testing yesterday had this next door. It's an UBER ride share refueling station. See if you can figure it out.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[2004LB7]

Tower EV with hydrogen?

 

[malibu795]

The code was 2.2 GPM for outlets in the shower. You could have all those outlet fixtures but they couldn't all run at the same time. That's why we had to install a diverter valve. I believe LA started to go with 1.8 GPM. Those heads look like they're flowing a lot more. Definitely would be installing a 3" drain instead of a 2".

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

All the faucet/shower heads outlets I've seen are1.8gpm @80psi and 60psi is common so flow is more 1.5ish gpm around me with private wells

 

[Pure Diesel]

Yep and with propane tanks for back up for two other generators. I understand the concept with it as the clean burning but it still requires more energy to produce & store than the energy it puts out .

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Pure Diesel]

All the faucet/shower heads outlets I've seen are1.8gpm @80psi and 60psi is common so flow is more 1.5ish gpm around me with private wells

I've been done with plumbing for 8yrs. I believe all manufacturers had to be at 1.8 for the showers, 1.1 for faucets and 1.28 or 1.1 for toilets. I've kept all my stuff to the low flow mostly because I'm on septic and not public sewer.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[2004LB7]

All the faucet/shower heads outlets I've seen are1.8gpm @80psi and 60psi is common so flow is more 1.5ish gpm around me with private wells

Even if it's 1.5 gpm, that still 16.5 gpm total. What kinda water heater are they using? Doesn't sound like residential. Or maybe a bank of tankless? I don't get the concept. Just 10 minutes would be 165 gallon if you had them all on. Might as well fill a bathtub

 

[Pure Diesel]

You gotta remember that your hot water is about 80% of that 16.5 gpm equaling 13.2 gpm. That shower system plus whatever else they have in the house I would put a 100gal tank. Tankless high ends are around 13.2 gpm depending on the temperature rise demand. They run at 199,000 btu's for gas input. Anything above 200,000 btu's is a different ball game requirement. I would run two 13.2 gpm units in a series parallel for that system.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[2004LB7]

You gotta remember that your hot water is about 80% of that 16.5 gpm equaling 13.2 gpm. That shower system plus whatever else they have in the house I would put a 100gal tank. Tankless high ends are around 13.2 gpm depending on the temperature rise demand. They run at 199,000 btu's for gas input. Anything above 200,000 btu's is a different ball game requirement. I would run two 13.2 gpm units in a series parallel for that system.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Ah, yeah. I keep forgetting about that cold water thing. I even do maintenance at hotels and still forgot about that. ?

We limit our water heaters to 199K BTU to stay out of the complexities of going higher. Instead we just run more units if we need more hot water. Most so far is 5x 199K 100 gallon AO smith water heaters. Supplies 125 units, kitchen and laundry. Keeps up just fine. Infact they can loose a unit and most won't notice

Just had one replaced with a hybrid water heater where it's a tankless strapped onto a tank
With its own circulation pumps. Holds temperature really well. It can ramp up and down from something like 13K up to the 199K BTU. So it sits at the lower end most the time and the temperature stays consistent without the swings of the cycling the old units do.

Efficiency and recovery rate is probably more important then raw BTU and tank size. I've gotten so used to how fast our units heat up. They can go from cold 60° up to 130° in less then 20 minutes. Recently replaced the thermocouple in my uncle's 40 gallon water heater. Was off for a day so the tank was cold. Took about 2.5-3 hours to heat the water up to temp.

 

[malibu795]

Something like that would probably have a dedicated water heaters. Pending energy supply, water heater can be pretty substantial..
I know that water heater in truck stops are huge and many, they're generally capable of supplying upwards of 2 dozen showers plus everything else that uses hot water and only time I didn't have to mix cold in, is water heater broken. Those are big LP/NG or 408V powered with dozen of elements..

My mom's new house has 3 full baths and 2 80gl electric WH plumbed in a series

 

[Pure Diesel]

I sure hope they didn't plumb your mom's in series. The problem with that is the first WH is always working and getting the temperature up and the second doesn't work as hard and becomes like a storage tank. The reason you plumb them in series/parallel is so that they both work equally, not one more than the other one. Tankless water heaters when you have a bank of them are controlled through the computer onboard. You will have one main heater and then the rest are called slaves. Just like in computer technology they all talk together but then they talk to the main water heater first. The water heaters will cycle on and off depending on the load demand and how many are required to work.You never have one just working the whole time.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[malibu795]

Yeah it's 2 WH plumbed in a series with 1" line, we shut the upstream WH as it's just her in the house via the service electrical disconnect..


I'm definitely curious how one plumbs 2 water heaters in a series-parallel setup.
3 or more I get, 2 on the other hand can only be plumbed parallel or series.. at least thats the extent of my knowledge

 

[2004LB7]

I sure hope they didn't plumb your mom's in series. The problem with that is the first WH is always working and getting the temperature up and the second doesn't work as hard and becomes like a storage tank. The reason you plumb them in series/parallel is so that they both work equally, not one more than the other one. Tankless water heaters when you have a bank of them are controlled through the computer onboard. You will have one main heater and then the rest are called slaves. Just like in computer technology they all talk together but then they talk to the main water heater first. The water heaters will cycle on and off depending on the load demand and how many are required to work.You never have one just working the whole time.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Series is definitely a poor way to join two or more water heaters. Like you said. Uneven work load. Might work ok for high demand but over works the first one all other times. Better to plump them in parallel with first-in-last-out. Auto balancing and equal load under all conditions.

All the water heaters at our hotels were plumbed in parallel with splitting to tees and joining back with tees and they are all unbalanced with one getting most of the flow. Same mistake in all the hotels. Probably same architect/plumbers.

 

[Pure Diesel]

It's still the same concept. You have a cold feed that tees and feeds each cold inlet of the heater. Each hot coming off of the heaters is then tied into one supply feeding the house. You have isolation valves on the feeds and the outlets. So if one heater needs service or replacing you can isolate it and still keep the house feed with the other one.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[2004LB7]

Yeah it's 2 WH plumbed in a series with 1" line, we shut the upstream WH as it's just her in the house via the service electrical disconnect..


I'm definitely curious how one plumbs 2 water heaters in a series-parallel setup.
3 or more I get, 2 on the other hand can only be plumbed parallel or series.. at least thats the extent of my knowledge

best method is first in last out. Sometimes called reverse return



You can try and do equal tees but the slightest unbalance in the resistance of the plumbing will cause an imbalance in the flow and thus workload on the water heater. This is the problem I have at my hotels. One heater always crapping out first from being overworked. First in last out is auto balancing and full proof in setting up. Wish I could get them all changed but the downtime would not be acceptable for an always occupied hotel