EcoSmart ECO 11 Electric Tankless Water Heater, 13KW at 240 Volts with Patented Self Modulating Technology

This water heater works great. It is so much better than having a traditional water heater. It takes up so much less space and showers can last forever if you want them to. It heats up quickly and provides steady hot water for as long as you need. We are in Ohio and this runs a shower in the winter. Flow does have to be limited but its still a very enjoyable enjoyable shower. Setup was mostly easy, but you will probably need adapters to replace your current water heater. Overall this is a great value and I can recommend it.

We purchased this water heater based on comments here and like others, we agree that it is a great water heater. We are using it as a whole-house water heater replacing a sixty gallon tank that started leaking. We expected that there would be some adjustment in going tank-less and using an 11KW as a whole-house water heater, for example like not using other faucets while showering, etc., but we were willing to make that sacrifice because we were going to be saving money on the heater, and on electricity with the bonus of doing the right thing for the environment. Well, this heater exceeded expectations by a LOT. We keep it set at 110 degrees which makes for very hot shower but not scalding and no problems using other sinks at the same time. My wife told me she took a shower while the dishwasher was running and expected it to be "cool" but to her surprise there was no problem handling the dishwasher and shower at the same time. It has been about a month since we installed the water heater in our 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house and we have forgotten that we are heating water on demand because there is no noticeable difference compared to when we had a sixty gallon tank. One of our showers is a double shower and I tried that out, no problem the heater handled both fine with no reduction in temperature. You should be aware our house is a Florida house so our city water comes in at around 68 degrees. If you had well water you will have different results as you will be heating much colder water. One other thing to note, if you take a bath you will want to crank the heater to higher temp, it is so easy with the knob and digital readout I taught my daughter to crank it before her bath so she can add extra hot water to "freshen" up her long and hot bath otherwise 110 degrees isn't hot enough to heat up a cooled bath do to rapid heat loss. You can buy the remote control for about forty bucks and adjust the heater setting from anywhere, or just keep your heater set to a higher temp. We like running it at 110 so that we have maximum energy savings and eliminate scalding risks. I highly recommend this heater, keep in mind that you need upgraded wiring, you will probably have 220 volt electric for your existing water heater but ours was only 30 amp and this one calls for 60 amp so that means getting MUCH thicker wire that is expensive and hard to pull. If your heater can be located close to the breaker box you will save money in wire and the hassle of pulling super thick wire. I bought wiring and breaker for 50amp by mistake and didn't notice until after the installation was finished. We must have never drawn more than 50 amps because the breaker has NEVER kicked even running two showers so I plan on keeping the 50 amp breaker as the wire we used is safe for only up to 50 amps and I'd need to replace the wire to even thicker.

It's surprisingly easy to install and works great. I'd anticipated a significant performance loss when switching from a traditional water heater to a tankless model, but this thing is awesome. Instead of using a low flow shower head I went with a pressure enhancing head, the thought being that why should I limit the flow of water before I had the chance to find out exactly what the capability of the heater is. If the heater wasn't capable of keeping up with the flow I could simply turn down the volume of water, and the pressure enhancing shower head would make it tolerable. As it turned out water pressure wasn't a problem. One neat thing about a tankless heater is that you no longer have to use cold water to bring down your hot water temperature to a tolerable level. If I want hot, but not scalp scalding hot, I simply turn the hot tap to full and I'm set. If I want crazy hot I turn the hot water volume down about 20 percent and I'm lobster red in no time. I'm saving money on the electric bill by not preheating water 24 hours a day, and I have unlimited hot water for when I wanna zombie out in the shower. If that's not a win - win I don't know what is. The only real downside to a 220 volt tankless heater is that because it pulls much more current than a standard water heater you will most likely need to upgrade your existing electrical wiring. The paperwork says that it needs 6 gauge wiring, the largest I had on-hand was 8 gauge. For my short wire run it turned out to be plenty. Even after a long shower the wire temp remains perfectly cool to the touch. I also had to upgrade the existing breaker to a 60 amp model. Changing a 220 breaker sounds intimidating, but it's extremely simple. There are only three wires from the water heater to deal with. The red and black wire go to the new breakers wire terminals (doesn't matter which goes to which terminal) and the ground wire goes to a ground lug inside the electrical panel. Study up on the components of your electrical panel and follow basic safety procedures and you'll be fine. The water connections are super simple. The heater comes with a choice of a compression fitting for copper pipe, or a threaded fitting for use with whatever type of plumbing pipe you're using. I used the threaded connector to connect pex piping. If you've never used pex, think plastic bendable water pipe that can be snapped together to whatever configuration you need using press fit connectors. Press fit connectors are also used to connect your new pex to existing copper pipes. Snip snip, click click, and you're good to go. Gone are the days of soldering copper pipes till you're mad at the world. Having installed this unit in just a couple of hours as a newbie, when and if this unit dies I feel confident that I can easily install its replacement in less than thirty minutes. A water heater that will pay for itself in less than a year, AND reduce future headaches? Why the heck not?

Okay, I've had this installed for a month now. This is being used as a backup heater to my solar hot water system so I've had to wait for some really lousy weather to see how well it would work. With a fully depleted solar tank (73 degrees) It will keep up with my shower or any tap. It won't keep up trying to fill a bathtub at full bore but does work if I slow the fill rate down ( I didn't expect it to anyway). Under normal circumstances my solar tank rarely drops below 100 degrees and under those conditions this unit will keep up with nearly any draw I can make. I do have several observations about operation. First, it can take up to a minute to come up to full temperature since it seems to ramp up the power level gradually. water is hot enough to use in about 30 seconds but takes a bit longer to get to full hot. Secondly, although I can set the temperature as high as 140 degrees on the front panel, the unit will not output more than 120 degree water. I even went so far as monitoring the input and output with thermocouples. If my input is more than 120 degrees it will flow though but if the input is below 120 it will only heat to 120 no matter whether the flow is .25 gpm or 2.5 gpm. I sent an e-mail to EcoSmart about this but haven't had a reply. I can set a lower temp and the heater will do that just fine. I installed the unit myself so the warranty is void. I understand the fact that this unit shouldn't be fired up without water flowing through it but it just isn't hard to install a water heater and a 60 amp circuit to power it. It shouldn't void the warranty to self install unless the failure is immediate and caused by poor workmanship.

After using this product for a little under 2 months I have managed to debug some of the other reviewers negatives, at least to my satisfaction. I do live in Arizona, my initial/incoming water is warmer as compared to northern states. First make sure your wires going to are of the proper gauge. (my wires and associated hardware cost half as much as the unit) If not enough current gets through, the heater will not work right. I originally installed steel connectors and pipe to the unit. Messy, time consuming, and is a potential for rust layering onto the heating elements. Disassembled and went copper tubing with "Shark Bite" brand connectors on copper tubing. A little more expensive then piping or soldering copper connectors, but the ease of install, time savings, and no mess was a real deciding factor for me. Once installed, followed instructions of running water from all hot water faucets at the same time, and while they are running to then turn the unit on. The first few uses I had the hot water turned only slightly on and more cold water than hot. I experienced the hot/cold cycling the some users have noticed. I did leave the input screen on the unit and my shower uses the medium/low flow controllable head. I have found to avoid the cycling hot/cold completely, I turn the water to the higher flow and all is well. I have noticed that when the water is routed from the tub outlet (warming up the incoming water prior to shower) to the shower head, the water temp cycles once. I think it is adjusting to the change in flow to get outgoing temperature correct. Might be why there is cycling at low flow rates. The temperature setting is left at factory 140 F. My old tank water heater was set at approximately 105/110 F. Comparing month to month for the last 3 years, the lowest by far is since the tankless water heater was installed. Performs as advertised. Saves money. Five thumbs up in my book.

Ecosmart 11 Paid $3000 to have 6awg 60amp lines run especially for this unit to be used as point-of-use in 5 locations in my house I ordered a new unit and received used. It was very obvious when opening the box that it was used. There was excessive cosmetic damage to the unit, and the seal that voids the warranty was broken. Amazon of course will return the item without argument, but I have to go through the hassle of boxing it up and dropping it off at UPS. The quality control needs to step it up. I don't appreciate being sent someone else's junk unit when I paid for a NEW item. I will post pictures. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update #1 I received a replacement unit. A new one this time. I installed it and it does not work. I called Ecosmart tech support and they had me break the warranty seal, remove the cover, and use my volt meter to check the voltages of the heating elements. Everything tested good. 244v on one side and 133-215 on the other side depending on flow rate. I was planning to use this as a point of use system for my kitchen. It only has a kitchen sink and dishwasher connected to it. With the kitchen sink all the way open there is no change in water temperature. Running at .5 gpm, which is little more than a trickle, I could tell a very minor change in temperature. I would guess that the water temperature went from about 55F to 75F. This is not sufficient for a dishwasher or common kitchen tasks of washing items. The Ecosmart tech said it should be able to take 57F to 105F at 1.5gpm flow rate. I asked him what could be wrong with the unit. He told me the unit was working as intended because all of the voltages on the heating elements were correct. I told him something had to be wrong. I asked if there could possibly be anything else. He said since I had a single handle faucet it could be mixing cold with hot. I told him that was not the case since I had just installed the faucet and tested. I have water cut-offs on all of my lines, so it was a simple matter of turning off the cold water line to the sink to rule this out as a possibility. I asked if there could be anything else, no. I told him that if the unit is working as intended I would have to return it as it is not working. I suspect I received a bad unit, and they likely send a lot of bad units. There are a lot of good reviews on these units, and a lot of bad reviews. For some people these units work great and for others they don't work at all. I think there is a serious problem with the components, assembly, or testing of the equipment. I will return this unit and not purchase any more Ecosmart products. I cannot recommend this product. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update #2 Since I still had the first unit that was sent to me, the used one, I went ahead and installed it because I was curious. Apparently the unit wasn't "working as intended" like the Ecosmart support told me. The first/used unit heated the water. The water got scalding hot if I didn't run the faucet at full blast. Running the kitchen sink at ~1gpm with the temperature set to 140F the water would get so hot it could burn you. At 140F with the faucet wide open at ~2.5gpm the water would get warm. I would guess around 90-100F. I can see why the unit was returned though. It cannot maintain temperature and it makes some strange noises. There were hissing sounds coming from the faucet and the temperature fluctuated greatly. I still cannot recommend this product. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update #3 I bought a Rheem RTE 13 to replace the crap I had been getting from Ecosmart. I received the Rheem from Amazon today and installed it. It works pretty good. The flow rate on my kitchen sink is about 2.5 to 3gpm, and the Rheem is rated for 4gpm. With the Rheem turned all the way up the water gets warm but not hot when my sink is all the way open. Only opened about halfway the water gets very hot. It is going to work great as a point-of-use system for me; which was the intended purpose anyway. It will only be supplying hot water to the kitchen sink and a dishwasher.

I owned this product so far for a month and has been doing great. Excellent performance, consistently hot water and great energy savings. I installed it my self and I have a few tips: Make sure you use #6 electric cable, it's the recommended and safer cable width. You will need three cables and a 60 amp breaker. For the water pipes. You will NOT need any water heater hose. You only need to adapt the house water pipes to the heater with pressure fitting (which are included with the water heater) make sure that after you install all, BUT before feeding the heater with electricity, open all the house hot and cold water faucets to remove all the air inside the pipes. THEN, feed it with the electricity. After this you will be amazed by its performance. The only thing that I am concern is: how much time will this water heater will last without any problems? For me anything beyond 2 years is acceptable. Before 2 years will be very disappointing. So I will be informing you during time, to tell about it's performance. If you have read all my review, like it, so I can be more motivated to give you more updates. So far this product is definitely a MUST BUY... And if you have any doubt if this water heater will work for all your house, the answer is yes. It has more than enough heating capacity for any normal house unless you have a huge house with 3 bathrooms or more and expects 3 or more persons taking a bath or shower at the same time. FIRST UPDATE: WOW, My first electricity bill came and I save 33 dollars compared to the previous month. Nothing in my house has changed from previous billing cycle to this current cycle. At this pace the investment will pay for itself in like 6 months, that its VERY IMPRESSIVE!!! SECOND UPDATE (DEC 9, 2013) It's been 14 months since I installed this water heater and it is working beautifully and it paid for himself in energy savings alone. This product is worth every cent. I hope it last more years...

Here's my story review. I live in a mobile community, one college guy who can't buy a real house. Lived here for 25 years, one day the bathroom looks all wet on the floor, walls stained. The old waterheater sprung a leak and had to go. No floor pan was installed back in the old days so it seems *slaps head*. I shopped around for waterheaters but there were $300< starting price range. I decided to shop around and my main influence is comments (yes like this one) and youtube reviews. Found out tankless ones might save me money. Plus the initial cost was amazing I paid less than $250 for my 11kw EcoSmart unit. I use a drip/drain pan just in case it leaks somehow on the floor. I waited for this review to actually use it for 3 weeks now. I learned how to solder pipe (easy, fun, use lots of flux!!) to make some small 1/2" thread to 3/4" thread copper shortie pipes to adapt to the unit. I upgraded my circuit breaker to 60 amps dual pole (240v) from 40 amps. I was supposed to upgrade the wires to 8g but I did an infrared heat test on the current wires with hot water running and no heat problems, But I will upgrade the circuit to 8g when it's warmer out in the spring it's cold out now (winter 2011). Over all I'm super happy I bought this unit. It's perfect for one guy like me. It saved me a bundle over a regular water heater and install work (this unit was so small and so easy to install) and I'm happy to be participating in environmental/energy savings just by using this unit too. I did void the warranty by installing it myself, I'm kind of a self taught handy man, but I figure the whole unit only cost $250> so I could just buy a new one if anything goes wrong vs some novice electrican ruining stuff and I ended up paying the same amount anyway. If this brand ends up bad, i'll just switch brands. It's the darwin theory for appliances. But every review I've seen on this unit is that it is top notch quality, and when I got it I believe it also the thing is made Awesome, it has a digital dial for the temperature and it simple to install and use. I am so happy I went this route and the 11kw unit is perfect for my simple (one guy) purpose. What that really means is, one sink/shower at a time. At 120 degrees on the dial my showers are Insanely Hot and last forever. I had 3 people in here before (girlfriend and kid) and we all just respected the "showering" person by not using the water. Had to do that with our water heater before anyways. I live in the Seattle area. And MyRubberneck is a good seller too. I got my unit from UPS in about 6 days, the weekend interrupted the (3-5) delivery by a day. That's fine i'm not upset about that though. He saved me about $30 over Sears and their promise was two week delivery for online purchases (ya go check Sears). He sent it in the raw unit box, I kind of wished it had a cardboard sleeve or even a grocery bag sleeve, or bigger box for it. but the box was intact. The Benefits: endless hot water, power bill savings, no more tank pressure/old leaks etc. The Cons: my only complaint is that the warranty is nullified if you install it without a licensed electrician. Oh well. And also the documentation does not say which wire is power, neutral, or ground. The colors were Red, blue, and yellow/green. Ya I figured it out (red+, blue-, and yellow/grn=ground), but dang shouldn't documentation HAVE THAT in there? Maybe it was designed for licensed electricians only. LOL. *Also, an important factor. The water heat temp consistency directly depends on the temperature of the "ground" water coming into the unit. sometimes my shower temperatures got hot or cold (only slightly) but I'm sure it was "cold water sandwiches" but from the ground water temps, especially in winter. The unit is probably taxed to adjust to your preffered temp. Think about that in a "thermal" way. I think if you had a buffer tank or something say (a turned off small water tank 20-30gallons) that had a constant temperature before the unit heated it up then showers would be no problem. My water heater room is totally empty now sans the EcoSmart unit in there, I could put in a buffer tank easy. Or a more powerful EcoSmart unit might make this a non issue. My work around though...just turn up or down the shower dial accordingly, not that big of a deal to me. I give this thing 5 stars!! I get the feeling the big water heater, or power companies don't want people to get their hands on these types of new technologies. It was SUPER hard to find any in the stores that weren't in the thousand dollar range, this was a 1/4 that price. And this had THE BEST reviews from the internet I researched for 10 hours straight, ya I'm a nerd. When I get a real house I will probably buy the EcoSmart 27kw model. I love this unit very much. Take care. ~TZ

Second one I've installed awesome bit of kit

Funciona perfectamente, el agua caliente comienza a salir en menos de 1 minuto. En casa la distancia entre el calentador y la regadera mas lejana, está a aproximadamente 15 metros. Al abrir la llave de la regadera, en aproximadamente 1 minuto comienza a salir agua caliente. Una vez alcanzada la temperatura, se mantiene totalmente estable. Es sorprendente que un aparato de estas dimensiones proporcione tanta agua caliente en tan poco tiempo, y con tan buen flujo, pues la regadera que menciono es tipo ducha, no es una regadera "ahorradora", y caliente perfectamente. Ahora bien, todo esta maravilla viene con un precio, y es el consumo eléctrico. Lo tengo configurado a 35ºC y puedo medir el consumo energético de toda mi red eléctrica. Un baño de 15 minutos consume aproximadamente 1.5 KWh. Si consideras que en México, una casa promedio consume entre 5 y 7 KWh diarios, el consumo de éste calentador es enorme. Estos datos son para finales de febrero, en Guadalajara, Jalisco, en donde la temperatura del agua que se recibe del SIAPA es de alrededor de 20ºC. En tiempos mas fríos el gasto energético consumirá mucho más, en tiempos más cálidos bajará el consumo eléctrico. Necesitas considerar cuidadosamente si esto es una opción para ti, puesto que, dicho en pocas palabras, instalar este calentador en una casa o departamento implica casi en automático pasar a la tarifa DAC (Doméstica de Alto Consumo) de C.F.E. (Estoy en México). De manera que la decisión de compra debe ser respaldad contra lo que actualmente consumes de electricidad. Como guía muy básica te puedo comentar que si tu familia es de 4 integrantes, y usas agua caliente esporádicamente para lavavajillas, lavadora, etc, este calentador fácilmente te consumirá entre 8 y 9 KWh diarios. Yo tengo paneles fotovoltaicos, calculados precisamente para este tipo de consumos, de manera que este calentador es solar, indirectamente, pero solar, sin embargo, instalar un calentador solar de agua propiamente (de esos de tubos de vidrio al vacío) es mucho, muchísimo más económico. Otra cosa a considerar: Necesitas una instalación eléctrica a 220V. y en tu centro de carga requires un breaker de 60 Amperes. Considerando que en muchas casas, el breaker principal de la casa no pasa de 50 Amperes, necesitarás considerar que es probable que necesites actualizar tu centro de carga, tu breaker principal, en resumen... NO es para cualquier casa. Ahora bien, la tecnología que ofrece este calentador, la automodulación es realmente efectiva, no veo bajones repentinos de la intensidad de la luz mientras está en uso, pero definitivamente, el consumo eléctrico es enorme, fácilmente se va a los 50 Amperes en los primeros 30 segundos para lograr calentar el agua rápidamente, una vez que alcanza la temperatura, tiende a bajar el consumo un poco, pero siendo de paso, mientras tengas la llave abierta, el calentador sigue activo, lo cual, por un lado te da agua caliente interminable, por otro lado, en 1 hora de uso fácilmente puedes consumir hasta 13 KWh. Como verás, decidirte por este calentador depende de un cuidadoso análisis, solo es adecuado para situaciones MUY particulares.

works find. very Good product.

استخدمته بدل السخان المركزي استخدمه في ينبع على ١١٠ فولت خطين (٢٢٠) مع قاطع ٥٠ امبير لك خط في الطبلون يحتاج الى سلك ٦مل استخدمه من شهرين حتى الان ممتاز

I read some positive and not so positive reviews. After using this 11kw unit for more than a few months it is nothing short of outstanding. I replaced my gas hot water tank with this unit when the gas valve about to cost me $450 for a new one. Please read the tips I have provided below from what I have experienced. First off, you need to get your hot water usage under control. Hot water is not required for your laundry anymore and for sinks your water just needs to be warm so your hands don't get cold when running hot water. Your dishwasher has a heater to heat the water. I use the "Sanitize" option on my dishwasher so don't worry about the incoming temperature of the water. For my shower I purchased a 0.625 GPM (2.2 LPM) shower head that is meant for RV but I honestly find it to be more than enough. Your mileage may vary since people are as insane about their shower as they are about their coffee. I also have a 1.2 GPM (4.5 LPM) rain shower head in the second bathroom which also works well. For the 11kw model this flow is as much as it can handle. You cannot run two showers at a time but I couldn't do that with my gas hot water tank without being severely pissed. I used a ball valve to adjust the incoming flow to a point where when the sink is full on the unit still keeps up. I set the temperature to 103 degrees F and find this temperature to be perfect for the shower at full hot so you are not heating up water that needs to be cooled at the shower. At this temperature and flow the unit draws about 32Amps at 240V but you'll need to provide a 60A breaker with #6AWG wire I live east of Toronto so incoming water temperature is very cold in the winter. This unit has no problem keeping up to that. If you have a 200Amp service I would recommend the 18kw unit. I have a 100amp service and this is great. I'm putting in a basement apt and plan to use a second 11kw unit for the basement with a second 100amp service. I estimate this unit to cost me about $2 a month for the electricity to run it. With low flow shower heads I don't have to run the exhaust fans anymore when showering which saves even more. Overall I am very happy with with purchase. It fits in a little corner of the basement and frees up the space my tank was in.