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By now, you may know the benefits of tankless over storage tank-type water heaters: Tankless heaters deliver hot water on demand, permanently ending the daily race to beat your family members to the shower. Tankless also saves up to 40 percent on energy costs and eliminates the threat of an old, leaking tank suddenly flooding your basement.
However — until now — you may have been hesitant to make the switch from tank to tankless due to the increased costs involved in purchase and installation. With Noritz’s release of the EZTR40 Residential Condensing Tankless Water Heater, specifically designed to replace 40-gallon tank-type gas water heaters, the reasons not to “go tankless” are beginning to dwindle, especially when it comes to installed cost. Now, making the switch from tank to tankless is fast, simple and more affordable.
EZTR eliminates the need for new plumbing:
Other tankless water heaters locate their hot- and cold-water connections on the bottom of the unit, whereas tank heaters have their connections on the top. This creates extra work when switching from tank to tankless, because the installer has to extend the plumbing to reach the bottom, which requires more time and piping materials. The EZTR conveniently has its water connections on the top, allowing the installer simply to reconnect the old water lines to the new tankless unit without any hassle
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EZTR uses the same vent…
The EZTR vents the flue gases created by the combustion process to the outdoors through the same B-Vent as the tank water heater it’s replacing. Using two-inch, flexible polypropylene tubing that comes with the EZTR40, you simply thread it through the existing B-Vent. This innovative capability eliminates the need to install a brand new venting system, cutting installation time and costs.
…And the same gas line:
You don’t have to increase the size of your gas line to accommodate the EZTR tankless water heater, either. In replacing a 40-gallon, tank-type water heater with an EZTR, you can use the same half-inch gas line as before. This cuts labor costs by up to half and eliminates the material costs of installing new, larger-diameter gas piping.
Traditionally, the main drawback of switching from tank to tankless has been the increased installed cost. Now, the EZTR narrows the cost difference by virtually eliminating the extra work and materials needed to make that extremely worthwhile switch. In essence, you can now enjoy all of the benefits of a tankless water heater for a lower up-front cost and, therefore, a faster payback on your investment.
When it comes to building and renovation, you have probably come across the acronym LEED more than a few times. Although you may know that it has something to do with being “green,” you may not know its exact purpose.
Standing for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council and oversees the new construction or renovation of environmentally sustainable structures, residential and commercial. From the planning and design phase, to the final touches, LEED sets guidelines and evaluates how effectively a project meets certain “green” standards.
Benefits of LEED
So why would somebody even bother trying to acquire LEED certification? To begin, LEED’s credibility is unquestioned, as it is the leading name in green building accreditation around the world. In essence, to be able to say that you are LEED-certified means instant recognition and respect when it comes to environmentally sustainable building practices.
In turn, the practical effects of having a LEED-certified project are resource and energy efficiency. Indeed, a building that meets LEED specifications will cost much less to operate, saving up to 40 percent on energy and water expenses.
Finally, the energy efficiency that springs from a LEED certification can qualify you for any number of tax deductions and rebates depending on your location. You can find more information on this through your state energy website or the IRS.
Types of Certification
LEED offers five different rating systems, depending on what type of project you are undertaking.
Certification is credit-based. Projects are evaluated on various credit categories including water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and sustainable sites, among many others. Each rating system has minimum requirements that applicants must meet in certain credit categories in addition to optional ones that they accumulate beyond that. Meeting credit requirements earns you points. For example, installing a tankless water heater might gain you credit points in water efficiency. The number of points that you accumulate at the end determines your level of certification.
There are four levels of certification:
Getting Started
Once you determine which rating system matches your particular project, you need to go to LEED’s website to create an account and register. There is a registration fee for nonmembers of $1,200.
The next step is to apply. At this point, you will decide which credits to pursue in your project and state your specific intentions for a team of LEED professionals to review. You will submit a design application and a construction application. As a result, there are two mandatory reviews during the certification process that can earn you credits: the design review and the construction review. Certification fees vary per project, but begin at $2,750.
Note that certification is a long and complex process that will last throughout your entire project. If you are interested in pursuing certification, LEED will provide you with a host of resources once you register. LEED
What’s more convenient than having everything you need at the brush of a finger? Today, having a way to obtain resources and information while on the go is more important than ever before.
Accessing resources while on a job is invaluable for the plumbing contractor, but the streamlined version of the Noritz Professionals’ Page makes it even easier and quicker for professionals to get what they need on mobile devices.
Noritz’s user-friendly Professional webpages now contain access points to the Noritz University online training portal for convenient access to education resources. The online education resources offers contractors a useful way to gain knowledge to supplement personal training by Noritz sales personnel, allowing those tradespeople who are unable to attend in-person sessions the ability to gain and deepen their tankless knowledge quickly and effectively.
Other convenient items with access points on the Professionals’ Page include:
For more information on Noritz and Professionals’ resources, please visit https://www.noritz.com/professionals/?v3.
Tankless gas water heaters are a green technology that protects the earth and its valuable resources. With a Noritz tankless water heater, you not only get endless comfort with continuous hot water but you can also benefit from these glorious green facts. Here are four quick facts you need to know:
Green Fact 1: Energy Savings
A tankless water heater can you up to 40% of your current water heating bill.
Green Fact 2: Eco Friendly Lifestyle
Tankless water heaters reduce carbon emissions. If every U.S. household installed a Noritz tankless water heater, it would equate to the CO2 savings of taking about 6.7 million cars off the road.
Green Fact 3: Energy Star Rating
Most Noritz gas water heaters qualify for the energy star rating certification and the cost savings that are associated with it. Did you know that electric water hears don’t apply for the Energy Star rating?
Green Fact 4: Kermit the Frog is also green and uses a Noritz tankless water heater. Just kidding. He’s a muppet. He doesn’t shower. Or does he?
The real Green Fact 4: Reduced Landfill Waste
Noritz instant hot water heater units last up to twice as long as traditional tank water heaters and use recyclable components and replaceable parts, dramatically reducing landfill waste. There’s an average of 7.3 million water heaters disposed into landfills each year in the U.S.
To learn more about our selection of tankless hot water heaters and our green technology, visit Noritz.com.
You’ve seen it on the television show, MythBusters, and you’ve even heard it from your own mother: Everything you see and hear doesn’t always necessarily reflect reality. Below we’ve BUSTED some common myths on instant hot water heaters.
1.On-demand-type (tankless) water heaters make sense only in homes where water fixtures are close together: BUSTED
Explanation: Every home has multiple fixtures. The reality is that we don’t use all our fixtures all the time, and not all water-related tasks require hot water. The ones we worry about most are our showerheads because of the amount of hot water they use in a comparatively small time frame; i.e., first thing in the morning. But sized properly, a tankless system can meet all of a household’s hot-water needs, including from multiple showers that run simultaneously, as everyone gets ready for the day.
If you have body sprays or multiple shower heads in your master bath, you’re probably especially concerned about hot-water availability. Here, you might want to consider a dedicated tankless heater, sized to provide a continuous flow of water at the desired temperature and never run out. That’s not the case with a tank-type water heater: Once the tank is emptied, you’re stuck waiting for it to replenish itself.
2. Tankless is best used as a point of use device in a large home: BUSTED
Explanation: Point-of-use is more commonly used in nursing homes or hospitals—places that need immediate access to hot water for washing or bathing someone.
As already noted, if sized properly, tankless systems can meet all the hot-water needs of entire households. Tankless units activate instantly when hot-water demand is detected (someone turns on a shower), but deactivate as soon as that demand is met, thus saving energy by not continually reheating water throughout the day when no demand exists.
But, unlike a point-of-use heater, tankless technology does not — by itself — provide “instant” hot water at the faucet, shower or appliance. The hot water must still travel through piping from the water heater to the outlet.
To eliminate that wait, a hot-water recirculation system should be installed, keeping hot water close to the outlet, minimizing the wait and, therefore, the waste of unused potable water down the drain. Newer, state-of-the-art tankless systems — including NRCP98-DV and the NRCP1112-DV, launching this October - use an internal pump to keep warm water circulating only when it is needed, rather than round-the-clock. Once again, that saves energy without lessening comfort or convenience.
3. Tankless is better for irregular usage: BUSTED
Explanation: That’s true. But, remember, irregular usage is the norm, not the exception. What household uses a constant amount of hot water around the clock?
That’s why a tankless water heater makes sense for all kinds of residential applications. It provides all the hot water that is required during periods of intensive use — showers in the morning, baths in the evening, clothes washing during the day. The rest of the time it sits idle, saving energy that a continuously operating storage-tank water heater wastes because its pilot light always on.
Not only does tankless save energy, it also saves space, adding value to a smaller home or apartment. Smaller tankless units are also price-competitive in replacement situations because they do not require a new (larger) gas line to be installed.
The bottom line: Everyone’s hot-water usage is irregular, which is why tankless provides the best of all worlds: a continuous and abundant supply of hot water that never runs out, with minimal energy consumption, and less wear and tear on the unit for a longer life cycle and an eventual payback.
For more information on tankless water heating, visit Noritz.com
Tankless water heaters, such as those manufactured by Noritz, offer many practical advantages over traditional ones. Among the advantages that you and your buyer might appreciate are the energy-efficiency rebates offered to those who “go tankless.”
Unlike traditional water heaters, which constantly heat the water, tankless water heaters operate on demand; that is, only when hot water is needed. For example, with an energy factor of .91 for natural gas (.93 for LP gas), Noritz’s NRC661 condensing tankless model is nearly 10 points more efficient than a comparably sized, conventional tankless unit, and approximately 30 points higher than a standard, tank-type gas-fired water heater. With water heating accounting for between 14 and 25 percent of household energy consumption, this added efficiency matters.
Aside from saving your buyer money on utility bills by installing a tankless water heater, you can also give him/her the opportunity to capitalize on the many utility rebates currently available around the country. For example…
You can look up what kinds of energy rebates exist in your state at energy.gov. Also, check to see if your state offers any tax credits for new, energy-efficient appliances.
Rebates exist not only for new-construction projects, but also for replacement jobs — if you happen to be doing a remodeling project. So when looking up energy rebates, be sure to note the type of the installation, since that may impact the rebate amount.
For example, homeowner John Park of Huntington Beach, California, received a $200 rebate from the Southern California Gas Company after he replaced his conventional water heater with a NRC661. “Our experience has been nothing but positive,” he comments. “We have the hot water we need, its temperature is reliable, we’re saving energy and we’ve capitalized on the incentives to help make the investment worthwhile.”
For those concerned about the typically higher up-front costs of a tankless water heater versus a tank model, the rebates are an easy way to narrow the difference. With most people doing anything they can to save a few dollars, informing your buyer about these energy rebates might be the deciding factor in their choosing you to install a new tankless water heater.
Hard waterIt’s not frozen and it hasn’t been lifting weights at the gym. “Hard water” means the water running through your pipes contains a high level of minerals, such as calcium and magnesium.
At an average temperature, these minerals combine with the water coming into your house. When water is heated, these minerals separate and latch onto the surfaces of your water heater and pipes. That creates buildup, causing inefficiency, damage and the need for replacement in certain circumstances. And, it’s not just the heaters and pipes you’ll be replacing, either. Faucets and showerheads get clogged due to the scale buildup. Depending on how many faucets or showerheads are in a home, the cost of replacing them may increase the amount of money you have to spend.
So, you may be asking yourself, “How can I tell if I have hard water? Should I consider investing in a water softening system?”
Here’s a 4-step trick to test if you have hard water. All you’ll need is a bottle of dish soap and water from a faucet:
Step 1: Get a bottle you can easily fill. Fill it halfway with the water you want to test. Screw on a cap (or put a thumb over the opening) and shake it up. Remove the cap (or thumb) and pour the water out.
Step 2: Fill the same bottle halfway again and add 5 drops of liquid dish soap. Cap it off and give it a couple good shakes.
Step 3: If the bottle is full of soapsuds and the suds flow out when the cap is removed, then congrats! You do not have hard water.
Step 4: The more you must shake the bottle to create soapsuds, and the less time those suds last, the "harder" your water. In short: If all you get is a soapy film in the bottle, then you have very hard water.
The most cost-effective solution to hard water problems is to install a water softener system, such as a Noritz Scale Shield: A unique product that provides superior lime scale prevention and corrosion control for your tankless water heater while still retaining the beneficial minerals in your water.
The Scale Shield requires no extra electricity or maintenance, and needs a cartridge replacement only one or two times per year.
For homes that have very hard to extremely hard water, a Noritz H2Flow System is most recommended. The H2Flow System requires no salt or chemicals and has no discharge. The H2Flow retains the beneficial minerals in water, produces no water waste, and needs to be replaced no more than every two years. Installing the H2Flow also extends the life of your tankless water heater system, and even reverses pre-existing scale problems.
The simple test we’ve included here is a quick way to determine if you need to take action on hard water. If you do have any concerns about hard water or switching your water to a water softening system, contact a Noritz University trained plumber for more information.
For more information on managing hard water and information about our selection of tankless water heaters, visit Noritz.com.
Water heaters are becoming more energy efficient, with engineers working to maximize the amount of heat that is transferred from the combustion process to the water. Condensing technology is available in both tank and tankless water heaters — is designed to capture and reuse heat that previously went up the flue.
Condensing tankless water heaters offer efficiency gains of approximately 10 to 15 percentage points over conventional tankless units. Of course, they also carry the Energy Star label. Like any tankless water heater, condensing heaters are an on-demand system with no hot-water storage and no pilot light burning 24/7. When a hot-water appliance, faucet or fixture is turned on, the tankless system senses flow and rapidly heats the incoming water to the designated temperature. However long the fixture or appliance operates, the tankless unit will meet the demand for water at the set temperature; i.e., “endless hot water.”
A condensing unit uses the same sequence of steps to generate hot water as a conventional tankless water heater. But it also incorporates a secondary heat exchanger to capture and repurpose the heat generated from the combustion gases before they escape and are vented outside. In other words, instead of sending hot exhaust gases out the flue, which wastes energy, condensing heaters use this heat to preheat the incoming water. That's why condensing gas water heaters are so efficient (up to 96 percent thermal efficiency).
The efficiency improvement might not be as drastic as switching from tank to tankless, but it certainly is not insignificant over the estimated 20-year life of a tankless water heater. If you’re looking to save energy, and you have a choice between 84 and 95 percent efficiency rating, wouldn’t you opt for the latter in most instances? If you’re interested in the latest and greatest in condensing tankless technology, you should check out the NRC711. On top of already existing benefits of condensing tankless units, the heater features a primary heat exchanger that is three times as durable, scale detection software for proactive leak prevention and a built-in digital display to aid servicing.
For more information on condensing technology,visit our website.
Is tankless water heater technology really all that marketable to homebuyers?
People are talking about tankless water heaters, and builders are fielding requests about this hot water heater. They can readily see its marketability. A Colorado townhome builder we know routinely conducts after-close surveys to learn what features really motivated the buyer to buy. In our experience, tankless water heater makes about 30 percent of these lists, which is higher than many other products, including some amenities that might surprise you. Overall, it probably ranks among the top five features in these hot water heater reviews.
Are the energy savings tankless provides really enough for most new-home buyers?
It often depends on the price point of the home as well as the time horizon the builder is using with his buyer.
The tank-versus-tankless price difference can be a challenge if the home is valued at $150,000 or less. Typically, builders of this type of unit will specify a very basic, 40-gallon hot water heater. A utility rebate might help justify the extra cost, but the tankless unit will still represent a sizable percentage of the overall cost of the home.
The newer, smaller Noritz tankless water heater models are also helping to close the cost gap between tank and tankless water heater prices. There’s movement in the other direction as well, as the price of commercial water heater tank units continues to climb as manufacturers work to meet rising energy standards.
But it’s important to talk more than comparative costs. Buyers are increasingly mindful of utility costs over the long haul. Tankless water heaters have a significantly longer life expectancy than conventional tank water heaters: 15 to 20 years versus eight to 10 for a tank unit. For owner’s intent upon remaining in their homes, those extra years represent a major value, as they will get a return on their investments during that time.
And let’s not forget: Providing a product engineered to last two decades can’t help but reinforce the builder’s own reputation for quality construction as well.
Is tankless a true green product?
Any product is measured on economics, social acceptance and — the new kid on the block — the environmental component. A tankless water heater meets all of these values. Builders and their buyers like the idea of continuous, instant hot water, as well as the energy and space savings. Over time, a tankless water heater has become more economically viable with lower up-front costs for smaller models, while the cost of a tank water heater is rising.
But while builders and buyers are better versed in the comfort, convenience, and economic values of tankless water heater technology, they don't always look at the manufacturing process. A tankless water heater is a cradle-to-cradle product, environmentally sustainable from its packaging to its components. These products deliver lower emissions, reduced electrical consumption, a longer life cycle, and smaller amounts of potentially hazardous construction materials. It has also been proven to be easier to recycle those materials and components once the product is removed from service.
At Noritz, we have even affixed specific alpha codes to various plastic components inside the heaters to help identify their material makeup when it is time to recycle the unit. These products are manufactured by a plant that is committed to sustainability, with PV panels generating the electricity used in the production process. Noritz simply offers one the best manufactured tankless water heaters in the industry.
Selecting the right tankless water heater is important because the benefits—cost-savings and lower energy consumption—are dependent on choosing the right model, and you want to maximize these benefits. But how do you know you’re choosing the right model when there are quite a few things to consider? Well, now the pressure’s off! Use the Noritz America Product Page and find out.
Consumers and trade professionals now have the ability to search for exactly what they need, as well as compare their options on the new Noritz America Product Page. Similar to spreading out all of your information in front of you, the new Product Page lets you explore the options before making a decision—and therefore, ensuring you choose the right product for your needs and lifestyle.
By using the “Filter by Type” option, users can easily browse tankless water heater products in the ecoTough, proTough, valueSolutions, Commercial and Accessory lines.
• ecoTough: Innovative, high-efficiency line providing a lower carbon footprint
• proTough: A long lasting and optimized for any size home-size
• valueSolutions: A value solution for smaller sized homes and warm climate living
• Commerical: Precise and efficient options for any commercial project
• Accessories: Other items to make your tankless water heater run at its best
Wondering how to find a tankless water heater based on where you want it located? You can also filter by the venting–type to compare indoor and outdoor models from the four Noritz lines of tankless.
And the best part about using the new Product Page to search for and select your tankless water-heating product needs? You can compare models and accessories based on their individual characteristics, which ensures a confident final decision.
Using the “Compare” check box, you can select the models you want to compare in a grid that breaks down:
• Home size
• Indoor or Outdoor Unit Dimensions
• Weight
• Gas Consumption (NG and LP)
• Capacity Range
• Energy Factor
• Thermal Efficiency
• Temperature Settings
• Accessories
You can also check to see if your selection fits your lifestyle but using the Noritz Sizing Calculator, and find qualified installers in your market to quote the job and ensure you’re getting the right product for the right price: Everything you need to make an informed decision, thanks to Noritz.
For more information about Noritz products, please visit our products page.