Eternal Water Heaters. Are they worth it?

[acbruno]

I have a 7-bay self-service wash in Omaha, NE. I’m looking into replacing my 120 gallon insulated hot water storage tank which is 29 years old and leaking. At 2k a pop, I’m thinking now at replacing the entire boiler unit as it is almost 20 years old and very inefficient. I was at the Heartland Carwash show in Des Moines that past month and came across these hybrid tankless Eternal units. They have a massive heat exchanger product that can be used to heat the floor heat system as well. This got me really interested because my 700k BTU floor heat boiler is also 20 years old and very inefficient and unreliable. I was told I would need four of the Eternal units to run all 7 bays and heat the floors. I have visited one wash that had 6 units to heat the trough, floors, and hot water for 5 self-service and 1 automatic. Anybody have any experience with these Eternal hot water heaters? Are they worth it. I’m guessing right now it would be a 4 to 5 year return on the investment.

Thanks

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I just looked at the eternal at amazon, and thought that with 19.5gpm it should serve at least 3 bays at about 3.5gpm per bay. You have a really large floor heat unit. Maybe you don't have doors on the wash, as in ND i heat the washes with 200k boiler. I was looking at replacing my floor heat boiler with a similar unit from pexsupply on the web, and using one alpine boiler and an indirect water heater-((100g) storage with coil from boiler) which i think would be enough to cover a complete 6 bay and floor heat. Not sure which is best, but put a link to the eternal heater on amazon.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=05708SEEQV4KVCYG9SHN

 

[bigleo48]

AC,

You should have someone look into what your total BTU requirements are. I use 4 x 200000 BTU Rinnais for my 8 SS bays. One of the other benifits of this setup is having some diversity in supply (one unit goes down, your not out of service).

I think if I was to do it again, I would likely install a couple of NTI boilers instead. Total cost a little lower and more heat per unit.

Big