Thanks for the all the great ideas...Yes I live in the cold north
A heat exchanger sounds like a good cheap alternative.
I was even thinking of a spool of very flexible 3/4" IPEX tubing ( if it is
cheap enough...)before it enters the WH.
I wonder if anyone has tried that?

Thanks again


"PipeDown" wrote in message
news

"Wayne Whitney" wrote in message
...
On 2006-02-13, fortunae wrote:

I'm have a Takagi jr. with a small problem... the water flow being
too low, just at the minimum specs. My ground water temp. is about
41'F and I would like to increase it if I could in a unexpensive way
if I can. Any ideas or suggestions out there???

If the Takagi Jr is too small for your needs, the obvious solution
would be a larger unit. Not inexpensive. The Takagi Jr should be
providing 3.0 GPM at 77 degree temperature rise, this is insufficient?

You could add a solar water heater into your system. If it never
freezes in your climate, the simplest would be a solar pre-heater
plumbed in front of the Takagi Jr with a tempering valve after the
heater. If it does freeze in your climate, then you'd need to add a
tank with a drainback solar system and use the Takagi Jr as a backup.

You could also use a large water tank with your Takagi Jr, as
discussed in the unit's manual. Basically I believe you take an
electric water heater, remove the heating elements, and use the
thermostat to run a pump to recirculate water through the Takagi Jr
when heat is required. You end up with something less efficient than
a tankless water heater, because you have standby losses on the tank,
but it should be more efficient than a standard gas water heater, as
there is no chimney in the middle of your tank.

Cheers, Wayne


With those specs I can see your right on the edge. 41F +77F rise = 118F
which is just beginning to feel too hot for most people. Still not
anywhere
really hot scalding water and may need to shower with little or no cold
water mixing.

At 3GPM and most fixtures using 1/2 of that while running, all you need to
do is run two fixtures and your sucking cold water with a third. If your
living alone, that capacity is sufficient but prewarming the cold water by
10F would give you hotter water for cleaning and showering. I bet it
works
fine in the summer when the incoming cold is not so cold.

The tank idea above sounds reasonable but alternatively, you could run the
cold pipe through a heat exchanger (old baseboard radiator) and steal heat
from the room it is in before sending it to the HW heater.