Via Andrea at spleenville, via Markunas, I read this editorial at The Angry Liberal: The Bush Tax Cut, Part II: The Free Ride for Stockholders.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted to suspend collecting taxes from the idle rich for three years. That's right. While you and I continue paying taxes on our income, those who live exclusively off of the labor of their fellow Americans will dodge the tax man completely from 2004-2006, if the Senate republicans have their way.[emphasis added]
Right. Because there's no difference between slavery and return on capital.
About two weeks ago, a leak developed around the valve that draws hot water into our humidifier system. I was able to manage it with a 5-gallon beer bucket raised up on blocks, with a hose running down into the drain, but that obviously wasn't a pretty or permanent solution. I tried draining the system and applying some heavy-duty plumbing epoxy, but the leak continued. So we decided to call a plumber.
And while we were having the plumber in anyway, we had him pull our old hot water heater and install a tankless heater. Our old hot water heater was original equipment -- 40 years old -- and was not providing a whole bathtubful of hot water even when turned up to the "scald" setting. We got a Bosch Aquastar 125B, mainly because that's the kind of tankless water heater you can get at Home Depot in Canada. Here's a picture:
I'm not sure I would do it again, knowing what I know now. The conversion cost -- replumbing the corner of the basement where the hot water heater sits --was pretty high. The plumbers had to run new cold water, hot water, and gas pipes to accomodate the fittings on the new heater.
Also, with the input water temperature being around 45-50 F and the maximum heat rise on this unit being about 110 F, we wind up with a hot water temperature of 150 F. That's nice but hot. I find I get the perfect shower temperature when I turn the hot tap on full and the cold tap on just a tiny trickle.
In order to get the maximum heat rise, the heater throttles the amount of water it delivers to the hot water system. The maximum flow rate at maximum heat rise is only 2.5 gallons per minute. That's enough to have a decent shower, even with our high-flow shower head, but it means that filling the washing machine, dishwasher, or bathtub takes longer than before. Maybe about twice as long.
Also, the initial wait for hot water can be long. Not only is the system full of cold water -- as usual with a tank system -- but the hot water heater has to detect the flow through the hot water system and ignite before the water starts to be heated. And then it takes a minute or two before the heat-exchanger is fully hot and the water reaches peak temperature. In a network I would call this "high-latency".
Of course, the trade-off is that we now have an infinite constant flow of hot water, instead of running out after 30 gallons.
The electrical analogy is handy (this is the first time I've thought of plumbing in electrical terms -- usually it's the other way around). With a hot water tank, you have a constant voltage source; with a tankless heater, you have a constant current source. With a tank, opening several hot water taps at once doesn't visibly affect the flow, because the total hot-water system pressure is always larger than any one tap can deliver in flow. With a tankless heater, if I open three taps, each one gets approximately 1/3 of the total flow passed through the heater.
For the first week, we were consciously adjusting to it, but now it's normal. When I go into the bathroom to take a shower, I turn the hot water on full and then go get a towel from the linen closet. When I come back it's fully hot.
I was able to start a load of whites (hot/warm) and then go load and run the dishwahser with no problem. The two appliances were not drawing hot water at the same time, and even if they were, it would just take a little longer to fill them up. With our old tank heater, after running those two, I would need to wait an hour to have a supply of hot water again. With the new heater I had as much hot water as I might have wanted.
Overall, it seems OK so far. We'll see whether it brings down our gas bill enough to justify the capital and conversion costs.