ECO Electric Tankless Water Heater, 27 KW at 240 Volts, 112.5 Amps with Patented Self Modulating Technology, White

The Good As for the item itself I would only suggest that the purchaser make sure they have sized the unit correctly for their needs and have taken their area's ground water temp into account. The unit has a sublimely simple design and its shell is both space efficient and cosmetically pleasing. Unlimited hot water is a decadent luxury and Ecosmart makes it affordable to all. My lady is finally able to take her time wash and shave without ever running out of hot water (yikes for my water consumption). Regarding water consumption I'v found that this unit works amazingly well with the "Spa Fire-Hydrant" shower head, Economy and Performance. The Bad This pertains to the install process and NOT the unit. -- The plumbing is very straight forward and should be doable by a moderately experienced DIY'er with basic plumbing tools and a little soldering know-how. The electrical work is also not very difficult, BUT requires two Double-Pole 40-Amp Breakers and sufficient sized service to handle the unit (which is actually comparatively large). But if you've got the space or are willing to upgrade your electric service, this item is a must-have. Final Warning The large cost for this unit will come from the install by licensed professionals without which you cannot quality for the lifetime Warranty, My advice (if you are not planning to install yourself) would be to get quotes for the install (both plumbing and electrical) and compare those numbers to the cost of the unit if you end up paying more for the install than the unit is worth you might be better off forgoing the warranty because if you do have a problem it would still be cheaper to by a replacement unit. ***One year Update I've had this unit for a year now and recently blew a heating element, (an issue caused by a plumbing change and NOT the unit itself). I only bring it up because its a bit of a pain to have to order a replacement from Eco-Smart since no other place I found (Even Amazon!**(CAN be purchased on amazon now)) carries this odd element size (9kW 240v Screw-In). So I would suggest having a spare on hand to avoid the shipping time wait if it becomes necessary. Also having seen first-hand what kind of scale and build-up can occur at tragic speeds on the heating elements, do yourself a favor and drop the extra $65 on the recommend 'Aqua-pure' scale inhibitor. Most users can only tell you that it seems to work having nothing to compare it against. I have seen both sides and it makes a world of difference! Aside from that, I am Extremely happy with this purchase, there is no going back in my household, Even with my girlfriend's new 45-minute long shower ritual (compared to the 25ish she use to get), I have seen a consistent 20-30% electric consumption drop when compared to the two years proceeding it. So my unit will have paid for itself after another year of usage. If your experience is anything like mine you will NOT be disappointed with this unit, so I'd say buy with confidence ***5-year Update At the 5 year mark, I have been through 2 heating elements (since installed) and always keep 2 on hand to be prepared. I am positive that the unit has paid for itself at least twice and is still working strong. There is absolutely no going back to a standard tanked unit. Until a recent trip out of town in a hotel shower, I'd completely forgot about running out of hot water. The moment this unit breaks I'm replacing it with an identical unit. (A decision made over 2 years ago) every home owner should have one of these units. Save space, save money, and enjoy your unlimited hot water as a bonus for your wonderful investment! *** 10-year update, Just blew another heating element (5 in total now after a decade), and they are now available for purchase on amazon! My unit is STILL running strong and my girlfriend has built her own home and installed an Eco27 (As I mentioned, once you've experienced unlimited hot water there's no going back). This device has already well exceeded my expectations and I'm overjoyed to give an amazing review. Love this product and WILL buy again in the home I'm planning to build.

I've had this for 10 months (updated: 2 years now) and it's worked great. I have really high powered water pressure in the showers here, and sometimes also am running a laundry washer and sink. I tried running the washer on Hot, then I turned on 1 sink and both showers to very hot and they all had plenty of hot water. It was pretty easy to set up. While their disclaimer says that you need to have a licensed electrician install it to get the warranty, over the phone 2 people there explained that it's fine for a handyman to set it up, and that they will still honor the warranty as long as the problem clearly is not due to bad installation. In other words, if the problem is due to poor installation, then obviously they won't want to send you a new one. That's more than fair and means that you can save a lot of money having your handyman do it if he has electrical experience. I spoke to some people who said that most companies will put that a licensed person is required to install it for liability purposes to protect themselves. In real life, Ecosmart will cover it even if a non-licensed person installs it. Just write their name and phone number on the warranty registration card and send it in. Also, though their site says (I think from memory) that it needs 120 amps total, we asked them if putting it on a 100 amp subpanel would be enough, and they said yes, and we did that and it's fine. I was told by a number of people that if you put it on a 100 amp subpanel and for some reason it gets more than 100 amps, all it does is switch the subpanel off. That's the point of a subpanel. It makes it so only 100 amps can reach your main panel. So even with 2 showers, a large washer and a sink going, it didn't go over 100 amps. And my showers have great water pressure, so it probably would be like 3 showers in most houses. I only have 150 amps total, and everything has worked great. I found customer service great to work with. If you have a tech question, ask them if you can speak to one of their technical people. They were happy to help me figure it out. The price for this was much lower than other places I researched, and not much more than a tank. I've saved a lot of money on my energy bills as it only heats up water when you need it. I think the savings will pay for the difference in 1 year, and after that it's extra money in my pocket every month. I believe Amazon was a little cheaper than getting it directly through them but check because that could change over time of course. Also, it doesn't take more than about 10 seconds longer to get hot water than with my tank. With a tank, the water in your pipes cools off, so 90% of the wait for hot water is the old water running out. I used to have to wait about 1 minute to get hot water in my showers. With this unit, it adds only 10 seconds to the process as it quickly cranks up and starts heating the water flowing through it. For the occasional mindless person who claims that because their one unit was a dud, that all of them are - get a brain and learn some math. If you buy 40 units and 10% of them are duds, then you can make some claims about overall performance. If you go to any tank or tankless heater that has more than 80 reviews, you'll find at least a couple of reviews by people who got duds. It doesn't mean they all suck. Be honest and just say, "Mine broke and I was unhappy," and don't try to make up that everyone is going to have a problem because you did. In this day and age, pretty much all manufactured things have some duds, even high end computers like Apple. I got a dud iphone and had to have it sent back for a new one. Does that mean you will? Chances are low. I have another property where I still have a tank, and just as many things can go wrong with a tank as with a tankless. And when they go wrong with a tank, it can wreck the floor of whatever room it's in or close to, along with whatever things (furniture, cabinets etc.) are in touch with the floor. I can't wait to replace the tank with a tankless. When the time comes, I'll research what the best buy is out there for price and performance. Ecosmart was when I did, but I'm not wed to them or any other company. I also regained half a closet as it takes up almost no space. I put it in the upper corner of a closet out of the way. You can set the water temp with the turn of a knob. I love it. I will never go back to a tank. UPDATE: I've had it for 2 years now and still super happy with it.

I bought the Ecosmart Eco 27 a month ago to replace a Hubbell 280-3 tankless heater that LITERALLY blew up catastrophically. (You can read more about this below if you are interested). I have to say that this unit is head and shoulders above the Hubbell products in a number of ways and if you are in the market for a tankless heater I'd strongly recommend staying away from Hubbell after my experience. Overall, this unit does a great job in coastal British Columbia where inlet water temperatures in winter are 50 degrees F or below. Unlike the Hubbell unit, it doesn't struggle to put out 140 degree water with a faucet fully open. The Hubbell never achieved this kind of performance even in the summer months even though it was exactly the same power. Of course, if you open multiple faucets or showers you are likely to see a drop in the temp but most people do not require 140 degree water and should have little problem. The controls on the unit are easy to use but you may need to go to the Ecosmart website to find full instructions as the Owner and Maintenance (O&M) Manual they provide doesn't describe things like trouble shooting and the various Error messages you can get. But they are on the website. The Eco 27 digital display only lights up when there is a demand for water, and the temperature display can be switched quickly from F to C just by pressing the main rotary temp control knob. Pressing and holding the knob brings up further information including inlet and outlet temp and flow rate. All very easy to access. (Not nearly as easy on the Hubbell) I installed this unit myself and as you can see in the photo had to install an additional electrical sub-panel in order to comply with the need for three separate 40 Amp breakers because my main panel didn't have enough space to add extra breakers. Not that difficult if you know what you're doing but it did add about $150 to the cost for the sub-panel, breakers, and cabling. Conveniently, the spacing of the inlet and outlet connections is exactly the same as the Hubbell unit so I only had to do minimal plumbing work. Additionally, the mounting holes are at 16" centres so it can be mounted to standard wall studs. Lastly but certainly not the final or least great feature of the Eco 27 heater was the price which is about 1/3rd that of the Hubbell 280-3 it replaced. As I mentioned previously, the Hubbell blew up and the price I was quoted to replace JUST the heating chamber on it's own was DOUBLE the total price of the Eco 27!! So, overall, I've been very impressed by this unit. For those interested, my Hubbell 280-3 caused me a number of problems over the years including the fact the the original flow meter was made of a hard plastic compound and when I disassembled the unit in order to replace burned-out heating elements, the threads crumbled and rendered the unit unusable due to leakage. I finally replaced the flow meter with a newer brass-bodied unit (that on it's own costs about 1/4 of the total price of the Eco 27) but when I turned the unit back on one of the heating elements burned a hole the size of a pea through the side of the heating chamber in what was, literally, a catastrophic explosion. Very fortunately, I was standing right by the heater when this happened and was able to shut off the power and the water otherwise significant damage from flooding or fire could have resulted. What makes this failure most alarming is that, when I contacted Hubbell about it they admitted that they KNEW this could happen but fail to mention it in the O&M manual! I was using the unit 100% in accordance with the manual and yet it still blew up. To make matters worse, once this issue came to light Hubbell completely stopped communicating with me, taking absolutely no responsibility for the fact that their unit can fail catastrophically in normal use. Buyer Beware!!

Trying to get rid of gas heated anything in the house to protect the family - I bought this - problem with it is only one thing..... for a LARGE 3 full bathroom house if you used the furthest away bathtub from the unit (downstairs garage) you could not put it on highest setting to get water out of the bathtub - you had to put it on like medium flow of water coming out to get it to super scalding hot - it could not keep up - that being said - showers were no problem - scalding hot - also cut down on my bills - no more gas bill at all plus increase in the electric bill b/c of this unit was about 1/2 of what gas was b/c only ever turns on when water flows period... it was fine to use in multiple bathrooms and kitchen at same time also FYI.... so these were all my worries thinking I was totally screwing up buying one of these devices - but it works!!! one last note::: it cost me $800 to have an electrician put in 4 of the 40AMP connectors necessary to run this device which cost in the end more than double the cost of this device - it will NOTTTT work without a 40AMP and it's very unlikely you have 4 extra 40 AMP connectors on your electric grid in house and if you do they are used by something else guaranteed ! this is something they did not mention!! even though it's on the box it's umm wow... ugly cost - also the cost to BUY the 40 AMPs switches were ummm $60ish or where they $100 ish I forget ... so over $1000 total cost on electrician plus switches! sheesh... but I'm saving about $50 per month by switching to this so in 2 yrs it's paid for anyway but still - sheesh - I will give also another word of advice - I looked thru 100 of these devices - OMG so much work - let me tell you that had I spent that amount of time searching instead of a person who installed 100s of these before (a full plumber/electrician company) I would have probably saved crazy money b/c I don't thing I would have been spending that $1000 to $1200 for an install - I think they would have handled the whole thing for like $700 ish (install for plumbing for this device PLUS upgrade of electrical PLUS 4 switches cost etc) ... OOPS... I did not find this out until RIGHT AFTER the electrician was done - my friend had called me the day of or day after I had it all electrically upgraded to tell me they had found about 3 others that do this all the time in addition to working all sorts of other construction jobs - they did say however these devices are all quite GOOD if you do not go cheap like $187 one - notice I got the 2nd to most powerful one in existence the 27 version with 4 of the 40amp connectors and so on... they said they just dont have trouble with these devices but they do require maintenance like de-scalling the calcium scales off every few yrs - I never need that though b/c I have a water enhancement unit that forbids scaling for life - hehe....

The Eco 18 has been working great the few years I have had it: Never run out of hot water! Easy install! (Recommend having some experience) Small size! No lugging water heater to basement. I replaced my 30 year old gas water heater with the Ecosmart 18 after it started leaking. My eventual goal is to switch my house completely to electric appliances, so the furnace is the only one I am still running on gas. I haven't seen my electric bill change drastically from this, and my gas bill definitely went down some especially in the summer. In my case I live alone in the Midwest and the only thing I use hot water for is showers and my dishwasher. If you don't know the GPM flow of your shower head, get 5 gallon bucket or other container that you know the volume of and time the fill-up to figure out your needs, then use the chart to determine model. I did try using the Eco18 with my clothes washer and got an error that flow was too high, so if I did ever decide to use hot water for clothes washing I could put a reducer and the washer would just take longer to fill up. If I did ever have more people living with me I might need to get a more powerful model. As for electrical, they recommend using a 200amp or bigger service to run the required two 40amp breakers to power the water heater. In my case, since I don't use the electric oven (50amp) while I take a shower, I am actually doing just fine running it off my 100amp home service. You just need to be aware of what your total electric needs are and plan accordingly. In my case, the water heater could draw 70 amps and the dryer or air conditioner would add another 10 to 15 amp to that, still coming in below 100amps. Again, if I were to have other people living with me I would probably like to have more power available for that plus a more powerful unit. Eventually I plan to upgrade my home to 200amp service, when I replace my gas furnace with a whole house heat pump. Because I have experience with plumbing and electrical I was able to save a sizable amount by making a DIY project of this. As some other reviews have suggested, I keep a few spare heating elements on hand. Highly recommend, would do it again in a heartbeat!