Ecosmart ECO Electric Tankless Water Heater, 27 KW at 240 Volts, 112.5 Amps with Patented Self Modulating Technology, White

The Good As for the item itself I would only suggest that the purchaser make sure they have sized the unit correctly for their needs and have taken their area's ground water temp into account. The unit has a sublimely simple design and its shell is both space efficient and cosmetically pleasing. Unlimited hot water is a decadent luxury and Ecosmart makes it affordable to all. My lady is finally able to take her time wash and shave without ever running out of hot water (yikes for my water consumption). Regarding water consumption I'v found that this unit works amazingly well with the "Spa Fire-Hydrant" shower head, Economy and Performance. The Bad This pertains to the install process and NOT the unit. -- The plumbing is very straight forward and should be doable by a moderately experienced DIY'er with basic plumbing tools and a little soldering know-how. The electrical work is also not very difficult, BUT requires two Double-Pole 40-Amp Breakers and sufficient sized service to handle the unit (which is actually comparatively large). But if you've got the space or are willing to upgrade your electric service, this item is a must-have. Final Warning The large cost for this unit will come from the install by licensed professionals without which you cannot quality for the lifetime Warranty, My advice (if you are not planning to install yourself) would be to get quotes for the install (both plumbing and electrical) and compare those numbers to the cost of the unit if you end up paying more for the install than the unit is worth you might be better off forgoing the warranty because if you do have a problem it would still be cheaper to by a replacement unit. ***One year Update I've had this unit for a year now and recently blew a heating element, (an issue caused by a plumbing change and NOT the unit itself). I only bring it up because its a bit of a pain to have to order a replacement from Eco-Smart since no other place I found (Even Amazon!**(CAN be purchased on amazon now)) carries this odd element size (9kW 240v Screw-In). So I would suggest having a spare on hand to avoid the shipping time wait if it becomes necessary. Also having seen first-hand what kind of scale and build-up can occur at tragic speeds on the heating elements, do yourself a favor and drop the extra $65 on the recommend 'Aqua-pure' scale inhibitor. Most users can only tell you that it seems to work having nothing to compare it against. I have seen both sides and it makes a world of difference! Aside from that, I am Extremely happy with this purchase, there is no going back in my household, Even with my girlfriend's new 45-minute long shower ritual (compared to the 25ish she use to get), I have seen a consistent 20-30% electric consumption drop when compared to the two years proceeding it. So my unit will have paid for itself after another year of usage. If your experience is anything like mine you will NOT be disappointed with this unit, so I'd say buy with confidence ***5-year Update At the 5 year mark, I have been through 2 heating elements (since installed) and always keep 2 on hand to be prepared. I am positive that the unit has paid for itself at least twice and is still working strong. There is absolutely no going back to a standard tanked unit. Until a recent trip out of town in a hotel shower, I'd completely forgot about running out of hot water. The moment this unit breaks I'm replacing it with an identical unit. (A decision made over 2 years ago) every home owner should have one of these units. Save space, save money, and enjoy your unlimited hot water as a bonus for your wonderful investment! *** 10-year update, Just blew another heating element (5 in total now after a decade), and they are now available for purchase on amazon! My unit is STILL running strong and my girlfriend has built her own home and installed an Eco27 (As I mentioned, once you've experienced unlimited hot water there's no going back). This device has already well exceeded my expectations and I'm overjoyed to give an amazing review. Love this product and WILL buy again in the home I'm planning to build.

After some conversations with the Ecp Smart company, and a few emails, I order one. The unit was delivered faster than expected. It seems to work only fantastic! Electric hookups took about 90 minutes, and copper work took me about 4 hours with trip to hardware store for parts I didn't have on hand. If you're handy, and are familiar with plumbing and electrical, you can do this no problemo! I installed my first HWT at the age of 10 unsupervised, so this was an easy job. I ordered the 27 instead of the 24 because it was cheaper, and I have the available electrical supply-otherwise the 24 would have done the job. In fact, the 18 would have been fine too. This is installed in our cottage which is used only about 5 months out of the year, and mostly on the weekends (Friday-Sunday). I say that to clarify that it is not being used in a house 7 days a week with large hot water requirements. There is one lavatory, one shower and a kitchen tap. We do not have a washing machine at the cottage. There are only 3 of us. Using all 3 taps at the same time, we have plenty of hot water. The unit is set at 120 degrees F. We live in rural Manitoba, and the well water coming out of the ground is about 37 degrees F. COLD! The unit has no problem making enough HOT water. The unit is absolutely quiet. I would buy another one in a heartbeat if I needed one. I installed a water softener to treat out hard water which was 390 mg/L. Manufacturer suggests no higher than 200. I did consider getting 2 smaller units to place one in the kitchen, and the other in the utility room for the washroom. If it was new construction, I think I would do that instead, rather than using one unit to take care of all locations, quick fix way. But, you do have to wait to get the hot water from the unit to the faucet-just like you do with a HWT. Installing one in the kitchen would have taken care of the wait! I will be blowing out he unit in the fall after I do an internal vinegar wash as suggested by the manufacturer. Making the 2 connections leak proof was a challenge though, using the Webstone 44043PR IUPS Isolator valves. in the directions, it says not to use teflon tape or pipe dope. I'll guess the reasoning is that they don't want ANY tape or pipe dope debris in the heating elements. I get that. BUT, the fitting to hold with a wrench at the bottom of the unit is really tough to hold onto, and even though the metal cabinet fits fairly snuggle around that fitting, you cannot rely on it to hold the fitting tight while you are super tightening the connections. After 3 failed attempts, I carefully used teflon tape, keeping it about 2 threads away from the open ends of the pipes. One slip of the wrench, and you could probably write the unit off. I would suggest better placement of the fittings at the bottom of the unit, by making them 1/2" longer or beefing up the bottom of the cabinets that the fittings are securely held in place, or considering a shark bit type of fitting. Hopefully this unit will last as long as the 28 year old HWT it replaced!

I've had this for 10 months (updated: 2 years now) and it's worked great. I have really high powered water pressure in the showers here, and sometimes also am running a laundry washer and sink. I tried running the washer on Hot, then I turned on 1 sink and both showers to very hot and they all had plenty of hot water. It was pretty easy to set up. While their disclaimer says that you need to have a licensed electrician install it to get the warranty, over the phone 2 people there explained that it's fine for a handyman to set it up, and that they will still honor the warranty as long as the problem clearly is not due to bad installation. In other words, if the problem is due to poor installation, then obviously they won't want to send you a new one. That's more than fair and means that you can save a lot of money having your handyman do it if he has electrical experience. I spoke to some people who said that most companies will put that a licensed person is required to install it for liability purposes to protect themselves. In real life, Ecosmart will cover it even if a non-licensed person installs it. Just write their name and phone number on the warranty registration card and send it in. Also, though their site says (I think from memory) that it needs 120 amps total, we asked them if putting it on a 100 amp subpanel would be enough, and they said yes, and we did that and it's fine. I was told by a number of people that if you put it on a 100 amp subpanel and for some reason it gets more than 100 amps, all it does is switch the subpanel off. That's the point of a subpanel. It makes it so only 100 amps can reach your main panel. So even with 2 showers, a large washer and a sink going, it didn't go over 100 amps. And my showers have great water pressure, so it probably would be like 3 showers in most houses. I only have 150 amps total, and everything has worked great. I found customer service great to work with. If you have a tech question, ask them if you can speak to one of their technical people. They were happy to help me figure it out. The price for this was much lower than other places I researched, and not much more than a tank. I've saved a lot of money on my energy bills as it only heats up water when you need it. I think the savings will pay for the difference in 1 year, and after that it's extra money in my pocket every month. I believe Amazon was a little cheaper than getting it directly through them but check because that could change over time of course. Also, it doesn't take more than about 10 seconds longer to get hot water than with my tank. With a tank, the water in your pipes cools off, so 90% of the wait for hot water is the old water running out. I used to have to wait about 1 minute to get hot water in my showers. With this unit, it adds only 10 seconds to the process as it quickly cranks up and starts heating the water flowing through it. For the occasional mindless person who claims that because their one unit was a dud, that all of them are - get a brain and learn some math. If you buy 40 units and 10% of them are duds, then you can make some claims about overall performance. If you go to any tank or tankless heater that has more than 80 reviews, you'll find at least a couple of reviews by people who got duds. It doesn't mean they all suck. Be honest and just say, "Mine broke and I was unhappy," and don't try to make up that everyone is going to have a problem because you did. In this day and age, pretty much all manufactured things have some duds, even high end computers like Apple. I got a dud iphone and had to have it sent back for a new one. Does that mean you will? Chances are low. I have another property where I still have a tank, and just as many things can go wrong with a tank as with a tankless. And when they go wrong with a tank, it can wreck the floor of whatever room it's in or close to, along with whatever things (furniture, cabinets etc.) are in touch with the floor. I can't wait to replace the tank with a tankless. When the time comes, I'll research what the best buy is out there for price and performance. Ecosmart was when I did, but I'm not wed to them or any other company. I also regained half a closet as it takes up almost no space. I put it in the upper corner of a closet out of the way. You can set the water temp with the turn of a knob. I love it. I will never go back to a tank. UPDATE: I've had it for 2 years now and still super happy with it.

One thing I found, temp fluctuation, hard to set temp with shower taps. So what I do is set heater at 100 f, and run full hot in the shower. Very minor, all round great product, great warranty, and friendly easy to deal with people... Lots of hot water, on a well, small house single person, central Alberta Canada, will update when it's -30 but so far I see no worries, may need to turn up the temp a bit when it gets cold...

I purchased the ECOsmart ECO 18 tankless water heater in April from Amazon during one of their open box warehouse sales for a very cheap price. The unit arrived as a wreck (as I expected it would). After beating out the smashed in cover (from improper shipping packaging) I inspected the inner workings, and found several parts ajar, and the cold water inlet fitting missing. Amazon offered an additional discount to me, so I took it, and set out to fix the unit, and replace the missing part. The cold inlet fitting has a one of a kind unique fitting threads, and I quickly found out that it’s irreplaceable. A call to Ecosmart tech support was personally and professionally handled. The tech told me that this part is not available. He then went into their spare parts junk drawer, found one used, and sent it to me for next to nothing. I couldn’t be happier with Ecosmarts service! The unit sat for 4 months until I had time to install it myself. I wanted to be sure it worked before gutting out my perfectly good water heater, so this report is what I found by permanently wiring, but temporarily plumbing the unit so as to not disturb the existing water heater. First of all, I live in South Florida (Broward County). Our water is fairly warm as supplied (70 Deg. Inlet temperatures in summer). I can only report how the unit worked with reasonably warm inlet temperatures. I’ve lived in the past in places where the water is 50 Deg. Year round coming out of the tap (NE Ohio), so I know I’m living in ideal conditions for a tankless electric water heater set up. I can report the following: I measured my normal shower water temperature. I like a hot shower. Using a lab quality thermometer, I find a water temperature of 95 to 98 Degrees is pretty darn hot. Maybe not hot enough to thaw out a frozen Ohio Linesmen, or firefighter with ice frozen to your face, but plenty hot for normal humans. I have the ECosmart 18 because electrically, my house only has 150 amp service. Larger Ecosmart units would overload my supply service. As tested, a 5 GPM flow (That’s enough for two old fashioned shower heads AND a sink running hot, the outlet hot water as measured was 115 degrees. This is with the unit set as high as it will go (140 Degrees). The unit will maintain a 45 degree water temp increase over inlet temperature. Testing at a flow rate of 2.5 Gallons per min.(enough for an old fashioned shower head and a sink), the unit maintained 135 deg. With the temp set at 140. My unit had no problem maintaining 115 deg. output if set at 120 deg. With a flow rate of 2.5 gallons a minute. In testing, I found a constant 5 degree error between what the unit says the set temperature is, and actual. Not bad considering it’s not an aerospace product, and some small gauge error is possible. The hot water tank I’m replacing is a 65 gallon unit, and IT DOES flicker the house lights every time a heating element turns on. (Noticeably annoying). I am super happy to report that the Ecosmart 18 unit does not flicker my house lighting. If you look very carefully, a very, very slight, teeny, weeinee load can be seen in the interior lighting of the house when the Ecosmart unit turns on, but it’s MUCH better than my existing standard tank type water heater. The ECO 18 turns on with very little water flow (a sink just turned on enough to wet a tooth brush will trigger it to heat the water) so flow sensing is perfect, and not a factor at all. My overall opinion is that yes, the unit is delicate, and is prone to damage in shipping. Once placed in service, it’s rugged enough to last a long time, and it works better than advertised. If you are in very cold water climate, you will need the biggest unit, and adequate power supply. Ecosmart lists what the unit will actually do modestly. If you read up on the specifications for each of their units, and match your water need and water temperature and follow the installation instructions you will never be disappointed by purchasing an Ecosmart unit. These things are great! Do your homework before you buy, and match it properly, you won’t be disappointed! Removing that old tank water heater and replacing it with the Ecosmart gave me a whole lot more room in my garage, as an added benefit too!