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(More customer reviews)We have a 2200 sq foot home which had the hot water tank 40 feet from the kitchen and 70 feet from the master bath so it always took a full minute and many wasted gallons of water to get something hot. With the floor plan relocating an indoor tank to the center of the house was not ideal though the indoor tankless would have been an option but I did not want to deal with the work of the air intake and chimney install.
The information on the Rheem outdoor tankless was mixed and stated that is was good to -30 and yet elsewhere I saw it listed at 30. That said, the -30 was on their website so we decided to go with it. Upon receiving it and the additional grey pipe cover which was not sold here at Amazon. I did find and buy it at Wholesale America and it is definitely something you'll need to make this a clean install.
SKU: RTG20169XG Weight: 9 lbs Rheem RTG20169XG Grey Pipe Covers for the RTG66-X $64.29
After installing my pipes, gas and electric I insulated this cover with hard Styrofoam and of course also ran a heat tape on the pipes coming out and going in. In mounting this tank to the house, I stayed low and used a 2.5" hole saw to make 5 holes through to the crawl space which will allow more of that warmth to access the now insulated pipe cover.
It is still early November in Kansas and if any problems develop during the colder parts of winter, I will update this posting.
As far as the tank and how it works, it is wonderful! We are using propane from a 1000 gallon tank and as with most of these installs, the tank has a first stage regulator and then at the house is a second stage. We have a gas furnace, dryer, stove and now this higher Btu hot water tank so I was naturally concerned that I might need to install a tee and place a second second stage regulator at the house and then run a dedicated line to the new water heater. I opted to try and tap into the lines using the appropriate flex pipe for high volume and it worked out just fine with only the one regulator. We tested this by running the furnace, dryer, oven and burners while running hot water. By holding a meat thermometer in the stream of hot water while the tank thermostat was set at 120F, I had a steady reading of 119 and when set at 130 I had 129 which means one or the other of these is off a wee little bit but the tank produces the hot water as it should! How cool is that?
With regard to the remote thermostat that you'll get with this... it only goes up to 120F until you bypass that if you want to go to 125, 130, 135 or 140. The instruction sheet that came with our tank was confusing and instructed me to open the tank cover and switch a dip switch and push a button and watch for a flashing light etc. Please don't waste your time!! I called their 800 number and talked to somebody in 'trouble shooting' and she instructed me to simply go to the thermostat and with it set at 120, hold the 'temp up' key until 140 pops up. Then I think she said to hold both up and down keys and that would lock me into the higher temp settings. You can then adjust in 5 degree increments and we chose 130 because we have a dishwasher and no little ones in the house.
The unit works well delivering endless supplies of hot water and is very quiet not that it matters outside!
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Includes Outdoor Liquid Propane Tankless Water Heater for 2-3 Bathroom Homes - RTG-66XP
