Tankless or tank water heater?

LOL, off topic but this is my 3rd Mac Pro the first 2 lasted nigh on 7 years each, the new one I purchased from Apple in Singapore (no 16 inch available in PH.) in less than 7 months ago has been to the Mac dealer in Baguio twice, the first time was the mother board, 6 weeks for the part to come from Singapore, just got it back again and they replaced the whole screen and top case,,,, all under warranty but a PHP 140K laptop that should make you a cup of tea so 3 months of no Mac.

Scared to use it now and spend most of my time on the HP. No tingles.

As for voltage and earthing on D.C chargers it matters little as it's a regulated supply, even the new Mac has no earth pin on the charger.

I run surge guards/spike protectors on all the TV's and sensitive equipment but this conversation with members makes me wonder if they will actually work given no earth as the protectors all have an earth pin that I brought over from Australia Years ago, Who knows?

Cheers, Steve.

One reason I wish I were here when the main portion of my house was being built is the absence of ground wires. Some outlets actually have ground wires but a meter check shows they are not grounded. I have a 24 hole Koten panel box and there is no ground bar so where do the ground wires go? The water heater has a heavy duty 30 amp 3 hole outlet, but it is not grounded, but hasn't been a problem, yet.

It is odd that a laptop would give a tingle since they operate on low voltage. My wife has a mid year 2010 Macbook and it doesn't have that issue but it is all plastic. The thing is as heavy as a brick, you could use it for a weapon. So far I've replaced the hard drive, twice (second time with solid state), increased the memory from 2 gb to 4 gb and replaced the speakers. It still works fine but now needs a battery.

Surprised you got 10 years out of a laptop Moon Dog, at 6 to 7 years I give up and not worth the heartache.

All my Mac book pros gave me a tingle if here in PH. and that goes back to my 17" pro working here 12 odd years ago, my boss had the same problem on his Mac.

As for earths? As I said 30 Amp plugs for HW and A/C are grounded to the rebar into the foundations, not sure if that works but the best available in a 15 year old home. An ELCB means rewiring the whole house.

If you remove the power outlet you will see an extra wire tapped into the Rebar, the Filipino earth. All aside whether electrocution or bus we all die no matter country. Here I am very wary and have a voltage detector,  know my breakers etc. The feed to the office, some 40M2 detached from the main house is hotwired, direct from the house supply and a 63amp breaker in the office, can't turn it off from the main supply, no sub main/s etc.

Cheers, Steve.

The rebar is probably a very good ground. I've tested my aluminum window frames and get practically zero resistance to ground, and they don't even touch rebar. I know the rebar is encased in concrete but doesn't seem to make a difference, at least in my case. The concrete must be conductor, maybe it is related to the high iron content in the well water used to mix the cement. Your columns are probably deep in the ground and all rebar is likely tied together through the tie beams. Photo of one of my footers. It is actually a meter or so deeper now due to raising the grade.

The first house I owned I built myself. It was a 2 bedroom, 1,150 sq. ft. beach house in Augustine Beach, Delaware. I was able to legally wire it myself using a special permit offered to home owners at the time. I needed the permit in order to buy the meter pan and get it inspected. I bought a code book and went the work. I was young and dumb and overdid everything. The house was all gas but I put in a 200 amp service, 12 awg wire throughout and a 40 hole GE panel box. Every appliance had its own circuit so I needed a lot of breakers. It was grounded by a 5/8" galvanized rod driven 8' into the ground. I learned basic house wiring building that house.

Our house here in the Philippines has a 24 breaker Koten panel box that doesn't even have a ground bar. It has a 100 amp main but it was 75 amps on the drawings. When I told the contractor I wanted an electric oven and clothes dryer he upped the main to 100 amps but didn't change it on the drawings so I had to buy a 75 amp main to get it inspected.

They found current between the heater unit and the flexible (metal) shower hose. About 100v. They also found in the main breaker box downstairs that all the green ground wires went to neutral? Instead of earth ground. I may have something wrong, due to difficult communication, but that's the gist of it. So the plan is to install a real earth ground rod and ground to that.

I've been shocked my neutral wires here in the Philippines. One problem I see in my panel box is the neutral and hot wires both go to the circuit breaker. What if you get the wires reversed? Could that be why there is 100 volts where there shouldn't be? I see no color coding of wires and very few polarized plugs on appliances.

Panel boxes in the US traditional have a neutral buss bar where the white (except for 220 double pole circuits) and the bare wires connect. I've read about panel boxes being required with a separate ground bar and it sounds like a good idea. The white wires connect to the neutral buss bar or return and the bare wires connect to the ground bar which is grounded to earth. The ground bar should never see current unless there is a problem in an appliance.

They found current between the heater unit and the flexible (metal) shower hose. About 100v.
-@pnwcyclist

pnwcyclist - if the above is your electricians statement, I will be very concerned. He or she does not know the difference between current and voltage. He might not know the difference between neutral and ground. If you read the heaters instructions, it will N for neutral and for ground it will arrow pointing downwards. More importantly how neutral and grounds are used.

No, that was my casual comment, sorry. Of course there's a difference. It was voltage - he showed me the multimeter and I saw 98. And his english is not very good, but I got the idea when he said 100 volts. And his little buzzer thing kept lighting up when he touched the metal shower hose. He told me it was not wired correctly.

Anyway, he did a good job. The unit had a green ground wire in it but when it got to the breaker box, things were not wired correctly. I got the impression from the pointing that the ground was going to the pole, not earth ground. They corrected the wiring in the breaker box, and put in a new rod with new wire outside by the meters. We tested the unit repeatedly and it seems fine now. We all took hot showers last night.

FYI,

When I first relocated here I researched what ELCB’s and RCD are since I had never heard those terms, they are not used in USA homes, only GFCI.

What I learned is that ELCB/RCD were designed mostly to protect the equipment that they were installed in/on and not designed to protect life.

ONLY the GFCI’s are made to protect life

OMNI now offers some descent GFCI units for the price, how well they work or not, I guess time will tell

BTW, a GFCI, if working properly, will trip it’s breaker without needing a ground, as posted above it measures the imbalances between the two connections and when it registers a imbalance, it trips...

Thanks, great info Vehicross.

Thanks to all of you for your info.  We installed a LPG tankless water heater, we bought from Handyman in 2001.  Also had a water pressure system that maintained 40PSI.  Had hot in 2 bathrooms and kitchen.  System lasted about 10+ years before rusting out.  Been gon for 20 years and want to put in another tankless heater.  All your info is helping.  Now need to find someone who can install in the Fairview area.  Greg

    Thanks to all of you for your info.  We installed a LPG tankless water heater, we bought from Handyman in 2001.  Also had a water pressure system that maintained 40PSI.  Had hot in 2 bathrooms and kitchen.  System lasted about 10+ years before rusting out.  Been gon for 20 years and want to put in another tankless heater.  All your info is helping.  Now need to find someone who can install in the Fairview area.  Greg
   

    -@flyrite777

I am interested in your statement about having installed an LPG water heater from Handyman in 2001.  Wherever you live you must have LPG (liquid propane) delivery. The cooking gas that you see everywhere here could not be used for that as it is the lighter liquid ethane or liquid natural gas. I was just wondering in what region you live that had LPG delivery. And I wonder why they just wouldn't sell an LNG water heater.

Interesting thoughts Dan, 45 years ago I was installing LPG instantaneous (tankless) water heaters that ran on bottled gas, LPG gas boosted storage units as well, solar with gas or electric boosting, also installing the same in town on piped natural gas, as well I wonder what you mean When you say LNG? Do you mean liquefied natural gas? If so I've never seen that available for a domestic market in bottles.   

I've never seen 45Kg bottles of LPG for sale here which are common in most countries.

To flyrite777, we only have 2 water heaters here, one for the guest B/R and 1 in our ensuite and rarely turned on, the water temp here is fine unless you live in Baguio, same for washing and kitchen sink, cold water works fine except it's not really cold, more tepid.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

    Interesting thoughts Dan, 45 years ago I was installing LPG instantaneous (tankless) water heaters that ran on bottled gas, LPG gas boosted storage units as well, solar with gas or electric boosting, also installing the same in town on piped natural gas, as well I wonder what you mean When you say LNG? Do you mean liquefied natural gas? If so I've never seen that available for a domestic market in bottles.   I've never seen 45Kg bottles of LPG for sale here which are common in most countries.To flyrite777, we only have 2 water heaters here, one for the guest B/R and 1 in our ensuite and rarely turned on, the water temp here is fine unless you live in Baguio, same for washing and kitchen sink, cold water works fine except it's not really cold, more tepid.OMO.Cheers, Steve.        -@bigpearl

Wow, I double checked and stand corrected. That  11Kg bottled gas they sell under names line Solane and Gusul actually is LPG, not LNG liquid natural gas. Ever since I have been coming here in the past dating to '88 or so I thought it was LNG. On the US East coast, LNG is common but so is LPG for most bottled gas applications. Gas appliances are either fit for piped narural gas and LNG ot LPG, which is slightly more dangerous being heavier than air.

That's why we are here Dan to share and learn, all the same and back to the topic we have a couple of electric  single point water heaters in 2 showers that are rarely used and since moving from Australia to here I've learnt that hot water in the washing machine or the kitchen sink/dish washer are surplus to make the house run efficiently, cold climates for sure unless you live up in the mountains here.

Choices.

Cheers, Steve.

    That's why we are here Dan to share and learn, all the same and back to the topic we have a couple of electric  single point water heaters in 2 showers that are rarely used and since moving from Australia to here I've learnt that hot water in the washing machine or the kitchen sink/dish washer are surplus to make the house run efficiently, cold climates for sure unless you live up in the mountains here.
Choices.

Cheers, Steve.
   

    -@bigpearl

We have two single point electric water heaters  here in Valencia and a multipoint plus single point electric in our Siquijor home. I had never been familiar with gas powered but I suppose that would be only for centralized hot water, perhaps tankless. My problem with electrics is that I have seen them fail a few times and when they do, there is a leak that can easliy bridge to internal 220v conductors inside the heater. Some of them claim to have built-in GCFI (AMERICAN TERM) RCD (UK TERM) and I forget the Aussie term. When I have looked at the specs on these, they trip at 15ma. But electrocution can occur at a 10ma ground fault. They probably jack up the trip point to avoid nuisance tripping. You feel a good shock at 5 ma but it us safe unless you have a heart cobdition.. And with all tbat water and sometimes grounded metal everywhere I get quite paranoid about subjecting us to potentially live 220v in the showers, not if, but when, one of those things fails. So, people may think I am crazy but I ignore the lenient Philippine PEC code which does not require rhem and I follow USA NEC and protect the entire bathroom wiring with 5 ma ground fault protection in bathrooms, kirchens and outdoors. I am a retired EE and my family was electrical contractors and in my working days I spent a lot of time on electrical safety. For residential design, the Phils is not big on product or wiring electrical safety so expats are on their own, recognizing too that Filipinos usually do not use these things and there is no national darabase of deaths by electrocutions;  however we run across them in the FB news occaisionally, where they were handling broken extension cords outside etc.  I will hand it to the electrucal co-op CO's who require potentional member-customers to attend 4 hour seminars on electrical safety for whatever good that does. Bottom line is it is safest to use centralized gas if you can. In your case you don't use it much anyway and there i would just keep the inline breaker turned off (I suspect you do).

@danfinn

"Wow, I double checked and stand corrected. That  11Kg bottled gas they sell under names line Solane and Gusul actually is LPG, not LNG liquid natural gas. Ever since I have been coming here in the past dating to '88 or so I thought it was LNG. On the US East coast, LNG is common but so is LPG for most bottled gas applications. Gas appliances are either fit for piped narural gas and LNG ot LPG, which is slightly more dangerous being heavier than air."

It's worth noting that LPG gas has a higher calorific value than LNG. i.e you get more energy with a unit of propane compared to gas: more 'bang for your buck'. Hopefully not literally

    @Lotus Eater

I had this system before but the pump was noisy, prone to leakages, and there is a 'delay' before kicking in due to the reed switch.
-@Lotus Eater
My system consists of a large storage tank fed by municipal water. That feeds a smaller pressure tank with 1 hp pump which is basically water under the pressure that you set. So the pressurized water is always in the plumbing and available on demand.
   

    -@danfinn

Exactly what I have too. Except the pressurized line only goes to the CR for shower and sink. As previously mentioned, the local pressure can be too low to run a tankless heater. It was for us. But now it's great and I love it. Our pump is low noise also. I hear it kick on, because the shower window with eaves open is 12 feet away. But it's still quiet in my mind.

@rcvining

Questions: Your tank must have a air vent. We have one that's basically just a threaded roughly 1" i.d. opening. With not even a screen. What sort of filtering do you do there? **Ours is a 1000 liter plastic tank.

2nd question: What type of inline filter did you get? We don't have that and have a skinny kid come over and thoroughly clean it every so often. He can jump right inside and do it nice and clean with a final wipe down of vinegar.