Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsOnly a matter of time until it breaks...
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2013
My hot water heater sprung a leak so I decided to "upgrade" to the tankless unit. I have a 3 bedroom two bath home and this 27kw unit seemed to fit the bill for water supply, especially based on the reviews. I mean, who wouldn't love an endless supply of hot water. The rest of the reviews were so great, I figured it was worth the investment.
The unit ends up costing around $600-$700 after you buy all of the supplies needed to install it properly (8-gauge wiring, breakers, etc). I was prepared for that so, not a big deal. I figured the investment would be worth it, especially with the warranty included...except there pretty much is no warranty. The lifetime warranty only applies if you have a separate and licensed electrician and plumber install the unit and have their license numbers sent to EcoSmart (unless you happen to have one person licensed in both). Basically, lots of $$$ that the manufacturer is probably gambling you're not willing to spend. The unit is a piece of cake to install though, a couple of wires and two pipes. Not really rocket science that the average homeowner can do. I went the self install route because a professional install was going to be more than another unit and I needed hot water soon.
So, I get everything wired up and plumbed up. The unit is only a few feet from the breaker box so install was a snap for me. I fire everything up after purging the lines and was happy when hot water came out the faucet. Everything seemed good...until my wife wanted to take a bath. So it turns out that when they say "low flow", they really mean it. We could only turn the bath faucet maybe an 1/8th of full throttle to keep the water running hot. When taking a shower, I didn't even use the cold water to even the temp out like I normally did as leaving only the hot on kept the water at a tolerable temp. I don't have kids so scalding is not a problem. I was disappointed that the hottest setting wasn't unbearably hot but I let it slide as I was just happy to have hot water again.
Fast forward to the next day and the wife is complaining that the hot water is taking forever to come on. I check the unit and nothing is working. I turn the breakers off and on again and it seems to start back up fine. Third day rolls around and the same problem happens. I go through the troubleshooting area and check all the values. Everything checks out so I reset it and hope it was just a glitch. The fourth day goes by and the unit just quits heating altogether. The temp lights stay on but the heating elements refuse to turn on. At this point, you have to decide to either call customer support and see if they can fix it or get something else. I figured if I was already having problems with a new unit, I definitely didn't want to gamble on it lasting six or more years as a normal heater does with ease, especially since you get no warranty support. I packed it up and sent it back and bought an old fashioned tank unit. Lesson learned...the world is not ready for this tech yet. Sure you don't have a tank that can get a leak, but you now have about 10 times the electronics that can go bad as mine did.