What? They're electric? I thought they were all gas and I'd have to run gas lines to the bathroom. Electric would be so much easier to install ...
(I heard about them, as "a European thing", from my father when I was small. As I recall, he was telling me they were nifty but apparently didn't exist in the US. The notion has stuck in my head for the past thirty-plus years. I've never actually seen one; the closest thing I've run across is a five-gallon, natural-gas-powered, bathroom water heater for eliminating the wait for the hot water to start coming out of the tap, but if I was reading the printing on the box correctly, it wasn't quite the "infinite water heater" I was looking for.)
I may not be the expert, but I do have a demand hot water heater that does indeed enable me to take arbitrary length showers. Mine's LPG powered, as it uses 117Kbtu/h at full tilt, which is, of course, a little over 34KW. There are electric demand water heaters, but they're mostly designed for remote sink use, and don't support much flow rate. And the laws of physics dictate that, even with a 240V feed, you'd need over 100 amps to deliver that kind of power electrically. No wonder gas units are popular. Even with current prices, electricity is an expensive source of heat.
The ones in the UK are electric. Like I said, I don't know if American electricity is up to the task. (Of course, some of the cheesier models in the UK are also not up to the task, so it's not completely fair to blame the voltage.)
I wonder if Home Despot would have them. Not that you'd have to buy one there, but they may be a good indicator of whether such things can be had here.
Almost all US homes are wired with 240 volt electricity for the big stuff (water heaters, stoves, heat, air conditioning, etc), as well as the wimpy 120 volt wiring for the plug-in stuff.
Of course, dglenn's house originally had gas lighting, so I'm not going to make any assumptions about it's wiring!
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(I heard about them, as "a European thing", from my father when I was small. As I recall, he was telling me they were nifty but apparently didn't exist in the US. The notion has stuck in my head for the past thirty-plus years. I've never actually seen one; the closest thing I've run across is a five-gallon, natural-gas-powered, bathroom water heater for eliminating the wait for the hot water to start coming out of the tap, but if I was reading the printing on the box correctly, it wasn't quite the "infinite water heater" I was looking for.)
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Is your water heater electric? I just replaced an $8 heating element in
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indeed enable me to take arbitrary length showers. Mine's LPG powered,
as it uses 117Kbtu/h at full tilt, which is, of course, a little over 34KW.
There are electric demand water heaters, but they're mostly designed for
remote sink use, and don't support much flow rate. And the laws of
physics dictate that, even with a 240V feed, you'd need over 100 amps
to deliver that kind of power electrically. No wonder gas units are popular.
Even with current prices, electricity is an expensive source of heat.
(no subject)
I wonder if Home Despot would have them. Not that you'd have to buy one there, but they may be a good indicator of whether such things can be had here.
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Of course,