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menace:

--- Quote ---Going to all the trouble of forced convection just to increase flue gas volume sufficiently to cool it off enough to use plastic piping at the expense of efficiency seems like an awfully complex and expensive (in up front unit cost, let alone operating expenses) proposition just to get around the need of metal ductwork.  It's not like it's particularly hard or expensive to install, and most existing construction will already have it anyway.
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This is probably more of a local thing--in this area new homes NEVER have metal flue vents or even chases where one could be installed.  They are all side wall vented because it is way cheaper for the builders to provide allowances for a sidewall water heater vent as opposed to a dedicated "chimney" space through the house.  Also probably close to 95% of people in ontario rent their water heaters (even though it is a loss after 5 years) so the builders don't care whether it is more or less expensive since the cost is taken up by the home owner long after they are gone.  To my knowledge utilities around here don't charge a premium for a forced air venting unit as opposed to a natural draft unit.  I guess they got your rental money for 10 years so they win in the end anyways...

SavannahLion:

--- Quote from: eds1275 on December 29, 2011, 01:52:04 pm ---How long does you guys' power go out for? I have a relatively new [2 years old] CHEAP [$300] tank, and I was doing some plumbing and shut the power off for the hot water tank when I drained the lines so I didn't burn out the heater element. I didn't need to, but better safe than sorry. It was the morning of the third day after before I realized that the water was only warm and I had forgotten to turn the power on. I was admittedly using very little hot water - a shower a day, and since the wife was away the dishes were just piling up  :P
When my power goes out it's amazing if it lasts more than an hour.

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For 18 years, I lived in an area where power outages of more than a day are not uncommon. IIRC, the longest I've gone without power was about 1 1/2 weeks. Just this past winter a nearby area went without power for something on the order of two months (this was forced by the utility company due to the explosion of the house below). When the power goes out, we generally had to be very careful with our hot water usage or spend the time and effort to boil water on the wood stove, which strangely enough, sucked at boiling water.  ??? As a side note, the house I lived in at the time used an electric water heater since gas was a limited resource stored via tank, not piped in. A gas water tank with pilot might very well have kept us with hot water but it also meant the possibility of running out of gas before the gas tank could be refilled.

SavannahLion:

--- Quote ---A gas water tank with pilot might very well have kept us with hot water but it also meant the possibility of running out of gas before the gas tank could be refilled.

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Sorry, I should clarify my point here, just because it had a pilot wouldn't have meant we would run out of gas. I'm saying a gas hot water tank, by it's very function of keeping hot water hot all the time, would have caused us to run out of gas. A tankless would very likely shine (I'm not looking at gas consumption so I could be wrong) in that scenario purely because the gas would only be consumed when hot water is demanded and not just to keep the water hot.

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