I'm an electrician and a friend of mine is looking to install one of these in his home. I gotta say, this video is a HECK of a lot more helpful than all the schematics and product reviews I've read in the past week. Thank you for making this video. You've truly done a service for anyone looking to purchase this model.
Also, in your experience with this model water heater, after a year of using it, are there any complaints you have, and has the hot water ever ran out on you? My friend has 2 young children and they like to -as he hilariously puts it!- contemplate the meaning of life while in the shower. Do you think the hot water would hold up for long intervals? I know you said you're single, does it continuously make hot water?
Yes I've taking some long showers and it has lasted the whole 10 to 15 minutes. The only thing to watch out for is the water flow. Too much and it will give an error code as others have commented about. Thank you for the nice compliments.
I've been looking at getting one of these for a long time now and with your review my mind is made up. I appreciate your effort, very well thought out test plan, and some exceptional videography. Your assessment was spot on and your results thorough, comprehensive and very well documented. I thank you for taking the time and energy to post so much information and all of your findings. Bravo Zulu and WELL DONE!
We are closing on our 3rd house on the 2nd of December, it was completely remodeled dy owner. He put in this system, our first experience with this kind of system. Thanks for the video to help us understand more about how it works.
Thanks. A very useful demonstration. I am considering this model. I would love to also see a test of sink plus shower at the same time. The main challenge with tankless is that they can become overwhelmed by simultaneous demand.
Best video on these electrical tankless! It shows full proof that the supply of hot water comes through right at the same time required for a typical tank system. I currently use a tank set to 120 deg, and it does everything needed for showers, washing dishes, clothes, etc. Thank You for this video! I am not an electrical engineer, but common sense tells me that even with the two incoming power feeds, the total overall demand for power throughout each day should drop a good bit because there is no energy ever in demand UNLESS the hot water is in demand.
Recently installed this model, works great for what we need. 1.5 gpm shower at 60F incoming maintains 120F constantly. Mixed in with cold and it's a nice warm shower. I have a Moen Flo so it's easy to keep track of the water flow rates. It will not handle the tub, not that we ever use it. It works fine for the washing machine, dishwasher, kitchen sink, etc. just not all at the same time. So far for the two of us it's working great. I installed the full service valve kit to flush it all out once a year. Verdict it works great for a small home with a couple people. It'll do 2 - 2.5 gpm in my case which is fine.
Foolbro1 I am replacing a 17 year old EnviroTech 19.5 KV unit that serves a cabin in north central Wisconsin. Cabin has shower/lav, kitchen sink, washer, and dishwasher. Unfortunately the unit sprung an internal leak and the manufacturer is no longer in business, thus I am looking for a replacement unit. Current unit is installed in a stud cavity so am restricted by unit size. This unit will fit but was concerned with the slightly smaller power output. Your video answered my concerns. I would guess your faucet flow is approximately 1.5 gpm. My previous unit was set at 115 degrees and met my needs (with single use at a time). Interesting Factoid: From my research I discovered, the EcoSmart, Eemax, and Rheem 18 Kv units are all the same unit just different enclosure covers (Eemax bought EcoSmart in 2012, an Rheem bought Eemax in 2015). Keep up the good videos!
Thanks! I actually need to install a flow control valve because I have to have my hot water in the shower turned way down. Otherwise it flows to fast and throws and error code. I'll be getting to that at later date, as of right now I've been doing a lot of work to my car. Appreciate the feedback.
I installed this model. Number one you won’t be able to run a bath. The only way I can get a decent shower temperature, is I had to install a flow restricter on the cold inlet side of water heater. If you can find the sweet spot with shower valve, you will have a decent shower. I installed it in one of my rentals and its a constant complaint the tenants have. I also recommend if your plumbing runs under your house, to insulate the heck out of the hot water lines. Still playing with it. I will update if I figure out better results.
The inlet water temperature and circuit breaker box capacity are very important when deciding the size and type of water heater, along the west coast the water temperatures are very cold compared to the east coast. At my home in Everett, WA the water temperature fluctuates between the upper 30's in winter to mid to upper 40's to 50ish in the summer. To run a electric tankless heater, the Rheem Retex-18 is about the smallest for a small home as long as you have at least a 200 amp minimum breaker box. Even then you have to still watch the power draw when using multiple equipment at the same time. If you live in the south/southeast USA a Rtex-13 would be suitable as the inlet water temperature is much warmer.
I have a RETEX-27, to overcome the colder water temperatures, in winter in Canada, I added a 44 gallon potable water storage tank to allow the water supply to temper to a warmer temperature before running it through the heater.
This video convinced me that a gas fired tankless water heater is the only way to go. Most homes need two of these water heaters. One is good for small houses only. That's a massive amount of electrical power. You may not have hot water if you're running on your generator. A gas-fired tankless water heater only needs about 3 A of electricity easily handled by most generators. If you've got gas service, I think that's the way to go.
Hey brother I just install one for a customer and I got to say I was amazed on how well it performs for a small unit I’m in cali LA water temperature here is 50/60 All we need is 120 so unit only has to do 70 degrees ez dose it with no problem This was a good video with a lot of info coming from a plumber I like it is a good unit
Great video...helped me decide and I've been really happy with mine...so far (3 months) but winters coming in e TN and we may have some sub 40 degree inlet water temps. I think I might just reduce the flow somewhat (1 shower, 1 kitchen, 1 1/2 bath). Thanks for taking the time to help out all of us cheap skate, hackers out here😳
@@MattyDemello Actually worked well. I dont remember any cold showers or running out of water. My girlfriend only complained once and we had a fairly cold winter. Definitely recommend.👍
What you need to know is incoming water temp in feb. In Philly I tested at 38*.Now you check their chart to see how much hot water you can get. They Always advirtise 70* Florida water temp stating 2-4 showers can run. Up North No Way! 1-2! Two if its a larger flow unit.
With a 40F inlet temp, you'll get a max of 2GPM with a 60F rise, that's enough for a 1.5GPM water saving shower head and an extreme water saving faucet, a DWHR unit will surely helps a lot.
One thing is the error of water flow e5 that a big thing that no one tell about it sucks that if shower is about 8 feet and I have to close the valve to avoid this issue and compromise the water pressure
We have this on a shower and it does not maintain the heat. It runs hot and cold makes for a miserable shower. Will not sustain temp. Ours might be a smaller unit not sure
You might want to try adding a pressure regulator before the input side of the water heater. I have to barely turn my shower nozzle on in the winter to keep the flow slow. Otherwise it goes past the heating elements to quickly and doesn't heat properly. I will be upgrading with a regulator in the near future for mine. Hope that helps!
Great video, but could have been improved using the bathtub spout. I just don't see this unit with only two heating elements being able to supply adequate bath water or maybe even some high flow shower heads with that kind of temperature change. I am in the middle of installing mine and am a bit frustrated that the washers that were embedded inside the shipping covers were actually necessary for installation. Discovered this after about the third time installing the water lines and doing a pressure test. Hit the internet to discover that they were needed.
I’ll tell ya right now that this unit is s#!+ for running the bath. You’ll get an error code Unless of course you cut back the water flow tremendously, say about 90%… in which case you’ll get maybe 1.5 to 2 GPM for filling up the tub.
These units need to have the copper chambers cleaned yearly. How do you get the electrodes out of the chambers if the unit is too close to the ceiling?
Recommended is to install the unit with a “tankless WH service valve” setup (mine is brass, made to mount directly to the 3/4” inlet/outlet and has cutoff valves, and service valves/outlets to loop pump a vinegar solution through over an hour or two once a year - also has the t-off for the pressure relief
Great review. I just bought the Raheem rtex-27kw model. Will be installing in a couple weeks. I’m replacing a 1996 standard heater. Have you seen difference in electric bill. I live in the south so I’m hoping to see decent decline in power usage
There was a little decrease in the electric bill. But if you have kids that like to take long showers they can keep it elevated. Thanks for kind words.
Speaking from experience i wouldn't recommend this thing. I had one installed on my family's cabin 5 months ago. It worked great up until about 3 weeks ago. Granted we have a well so we have hard water, but we literally take this thing apart twice a day, remove the impeller to the inlet and clean it, clean the inlet screen, flush it, etc. Hot water barely trickles out, we have a 200amp breaker, its not the power, its not the water pressure coming into the house, i even dug up our entire water main coming into the house, no leaks any where, nothing. If you call Rheem they will half ass tell you how to trouble shoot it and send you a manual on how to fix it and recommend parts. Mine was 3 DAYS out of warranty and they couldn't help me. Been taking baths in the lake. Very frustrating
Thanks for the video man. Same situation, 3 bed, 1 bath house.. I am up on Long Island where it gets cold though. 200A service. This seems good from that fit, centrai air in the summer runs at 60A I believe so this seems like the best fit. I just wonder if it can warm up the water and keep those codes from showing up. Thanks for the video.. one of the best ones yet.
I got the same water heater but I live in Georgia and it’s warm right now of course. Water inlet is warm right now but at 130° setting (that’s what I tested it on) it was right at that may be a degree or 2 hotter with the monitor in the cup when I tested it and when I cut it up and it did give the E5 code which means it cannot keep up with the demand it only dropped to 122 so it only lost about 8°. I never set mine at 120 that recommended setting his BS if you ask me because if the water has to travel a long ways which to my kitchen sink is about 60 feet it does lose some temp and 120 is just not hot enough for me. So ,in the summer I keep mine set about 125 and in the winter i will raise it to about 130 and if we have a really really cold day I may bump it up to 135 for a few cold days. I never run it at 140 max. Because I know even though it says it can go to that you are putting more wear and tear on the device so I just never take it that high I think it could shorten the life of it or at least a plumber told me that. However I live by myself so this is a perfect size for me but if you have more family members and you are sticking with an electric tank I would definitely go 5 gallons per minute on the flow but with the size of my breaker box I just went with this and can easily handle a double pole 40 amp breaker for a total of 80 A since this has a maximum draw of 75 A but it does not pull that much on the average because I’ve had it tested and one breaker is pulling like 36 A and the other ones pulling like 28 A or something like that ? The guy who installed it says it usually never uses the maximum 75 A which it probably does if you have it on its max settings but at 125 to 128° is usually where I have it shipped tween that’s about what we got. Definitely important to have it flushed once a year the water here in Georgia is not too bad I could probably go every two years but I do it about once every year or every year and a couple of months and so far so good.
Did you have to set anything up once the system was powered on? You should do a video on the plumbing and how to set it up! I love the electrical video it was super informative.
Once you hold the button to turn it on, you're able to push it again to change from C or F as well as rotate to choose the heat level of your liking. As far as doing a plumbing video, I can if there is a greater need for it, but everyone's situation is going to be a little different. Thanks for watching my videos.
Good reviewing but you missed two metrics, what was the flow rate at the faucet half on and full on, and what was the total power used to heat 140 for the time you ran the test, and Total run time.. maybe someone could get use these a umbers to do a full understanding of proformance. All in all looks like a good one for small homes
One question I have is why the clean out every year? Is this because of dissolved solids in your water? I have rainwater so I know I have fewer dissolved solids, I also filter down to 5 mm, would I have to clean out a tankless heater every year?
Mfg recommends annual cleaning - as deposits buildup it decreases the efficiency of the unit - obviously this would vary from supply water in every instal - I recommend installing using the brass service valve set designed for tankless WH - gives you ports to annually run a vinegar solution through your unit for maximum efficiency
I bought a small one for 1 bathroom and besides lights flickering I'm only getting a dribble of warm/hot water??😫 So I guess i need more power to house? And well water is cold...would it help if i used 3/4' pipe and reduced it to 1/4 ' to increase pressure??
This was an exact replacement for the old one that lasted about 10 years. ru-vid.comUgkx7yWIKcrbA9KMHkGSfcgxW2lsjHT6B8Sh The top of my mitigation tube by my roofline was just a 90 elbow which allowed too much debris to fall down into the fan, eventually ruining it. Without this issue, I bet it would have kept running another 10 years. When I replaced this fan, I added an extra elbow joint so the top tube now it does a 180, which should solve that problem. The radon guys around here wanted to charge me a $300 diagnostic fee, then parts/labor (probably close to $600 total). I installed this all by myself in about an hour for the cost of the fan; it would probably be even easier/faster with two people. FYI the manufacturer's warranty greatly differs depending on whether you install it yourself (1 yr warranty) or have a licensed installer do it (10 yrs).
Will it sustain for say 20 minutes? Im asking because were looking at putting one in our new house and i dont want to run out kf hotwatwr having to rush a shower! Weve been staying in a camper with a tabkless hotwatwr heater and it doesnt sustain very long at all barely got enough time to get a shower and i dont want that if it cant sustain temp. Dishwasher clothes washer showers all need to be able to have a good supply
What’s the difference between the RTEX 11 and 13. I have a 1 br. town house With 1 1/2 bathroom only one shower I Was told to use the 11 is that true ? Or can I still use the 13. He needs to upgrade my braker with the proper wiring
Hi Preston, I saw your video on the Rheem RTEX-18. Does it work well for you. I live in NY out on Long Island. We're looking to use this model to supply hot water to our whole house. We only plan on running one item at a time whether is be the shower or the washing machine etc... Do you feel this model supplies enough hot water for a shower and if so, can you run three consecutive showers in a row without any issues? Thanks.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the video Dan. I've had this unit for about a year now without any issues. It is set up for the whole house (1 shower/tub, 1 bathroom sink, a kitchen sink, dishwasher, and washing machine) and I am the only user. With that said I have taken 1 or 2 long extended showers and never ran out of hot water. However, I usually try and limit my shower time to under 5 mins because it does use a lot of electricity when operating. Hope that helps!
@@relik0fages I typically set the temp to 129 degrees which works well year round for the shower. I did notice an E5 error which means because of the flow, the heaters can't keep up. The water coming out is usually around 110 degrees. To combat that, I changed my shower head to a low flow and the error goes away. It does come on when the washing machine or the dishwasher turns on. I probably should have bought the next size water heater but the electric bill would have been a lot higher.
Do you know how to clean the filter on that particular model I have one like that and sometimes the water gets too damn hot or too damn cold I don’t know how to clean the filter it’s just like that one I really appreciate it if you let me know thank you so much
Thank you for the kind words. Overall it's been working great. I have to clean mine out about every 3 to 4 months being on community well. My electric bill usage has gone down since the install, but I am a single person household. It can use more if long showers are taken since you never run out of hot water.
Hi I know this video is a bit dated, however, by any chance can you confirm if this unit has a reset switch/button? Recommendation from Rheem for a faulty unit is to reset it, I read instructions on how to reset it but I cannot locate said reset switch. 🤷♂ Thank you
after installing mine yesterday , unit is working good, but some off the lights in the house be flickering while unit is running, anybody else have this problem, my breaker box is a 200amp
This is a commonly-reported issue with this unit. As I understand it, the control board can only turn individual heating elements fully ON or leave them fully OFF. Unless the heating demanded exactly matches the full output of one of the elements (or both), it rapidly modulates one of the heating elements to create the desired output temp (either the first element is modulated for low heating demands while the second element remains OFF, or the first element is steady ON and the 2nd element is rapidly modulated to produce the desired temperature). It won't just add a little current at a constant time, it'll rapidly cycle the entire element ON/OFF/ON/OFF. Because each element is drawing a lot of current, this results in voltage fluctuations into the whole house's electricity. It becomes visible with sensitive lights like LED's. I'm still researching this, but it's not clear to me if this happens only with dimable LED's, or non-dimable LEDs or both. Might be an issue only with LED lights on dimmer switches. Still looking for that answer before I buy.
@@rjh1166 it becomes an issue with LEDs both dimming and non. In particular cheaper LEDs - these tend to cause flickering due to your description above. Avoid low cost LEDs.
Look through the comments under this video. I believe a lady named Stephanie called the manufacturer and asked and posted the response. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Qzyyn1Y_9kY.html
If you only have 125 amp service coming into your home, you might want to consider a smaller unit than the 18kw. Going smaller might not suit your hot water needs though. I would ask a professional electrician and I would also suggest to call the manufacturer and tell them your amperage at your box, how many people live in your home, how many fixtures and hot water appliances you have, and your geographical location because you might have to go a different route or upgrade your box.
I can tell you right now… I need to have the valve turned off 90% or else I get the E5 error code. Of course this means my GPM needs to be pretty low for this unit to function properly.
Hello i live in San Diego and i can get a rheem 220v 8 kw one or a 13kw , we only have one bath and we going to be running one service at a time, we just use hot water to take baths. Maybe clean the dishes but never at the same time. Which one do you recommend 8kw or 13kw? Its a family of 3.
so 18,000 watts to run this lil thing? that seams ULTRA inefficient and especially since most homes only have a 100 amp service. a very limited market.
You're absolutely right on both parts! However, newer construction homes usually have 200 or higher, so the limited market is getting smaller. Also, I'm just a one person household and I don't spend forever in the shower, so my electric bill actually saw decent percentage usage decrease.
I just rewatched this video and I never noticed me once saying the word "remote". Can you give me a time counter at when I say it? As far as turning it on, try pushing the dial in. If that doesn't work you might have a wiring issue. I have a wiring video for this unit as well.
