Important things to remember during installation and initial operation
1. Direct Vent pipes –Make sure both intake-exhaust pieces (the 94 degree bend and the 31inch
long straight piece) are connected AND that each connection is sealed with heat sealant tape.
2. Heated Room –Be sure that the unit is being installed inside a heated room.
3. Plumbers Putty/Tape –Be careful not to over apply plumber’s putty/tape to the inlet and outlet
water fitting. The putty/tape if overdone can become caught in the inlet screen and/or the inlet
sensors and impellor that may adversely affect the performance of the unit. Examples are
shown below. The second picture shows sediments that can be in the water. This is why we also
HIGHLY recommend having an inline water filter before the tankless water heater.
Plumbers Tape Sediments in Water
4. Direct Vent on downward angle –To prevent any condensation from dripping inside the unit, be
sure to have the flue on a slight downward angle outside the home. (The elbow that turns the
exhaust-intake pipe into a horizontal position is pre-bent to 94 degrees to allow for a downward
slope of an additional 4 degrees).
5. Double Water Pressure –A common mistake by plumbers and amateur installers alike is to
erroneously connect cold pressurized water into the home’s hot water pipes. Typically this
happens at the point where the old tank-type heater is removed. On a tank-type heater there is
a cold line into the heater which comes from the cold inlet water system. Then there is an outlet
line from the heater into the hot water plumbing. If you are removing a tank-type heater and
mounting the tankless heater at another location, please remember NOT to join-together the
two water lines that were on the old tank-type heater. They must be “CAPPED-OFF”. If they are
connected; all you are doing is placing pressurized cold water into your hot water plumbing
system at that point. Not only will it be almost impossible for your new tankless heater to
overcome the cold water blending into your hot system, there may actually be pressure coming
back at the hot outlet side of your new tankless heater and it may not even run as the water will
essentially be “standing still”.
(a) Think of this as a stream or river, the system can only flow one direction. If you go down-
stream and divert the river and guide it back to the beginning, all you have is a lake, the flow is
defeated.
(b) If you divert the river into two rivers “hot and cold stream”, if you bring them back together
at another point, then they are one river again. What water you may have heated is now cooled
by the converging cold water returning into the flow of the river.)
