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EMERYVILLE — Sean McGovern: Hi! So, today, I want to talk about a couple things about high-efficiency boilers, and what you can do if your boiler happens to not be working, before calling for service. A couple things to check for on most of the high-efficiency boilers nowadays: there’s an actual display screen. This display screen can output specific information: what’s going on with the boiler itself. So, a lot of times what will happen is when your boiler is not functioning, the control will cause an error lockout code.

So, the things to check for is to go down into the mechanical room and take a look at the display and see if your boiler happens to be in a lockout condition. Yeah, so what we are looking at here is the typical lockout on a high-efficiency boiler. You notice that in the left-hand corner, we have a fault LED that is illuminated, a prompt to call for service, and a lockout code: “AO1: Ignition Error.” So, what we want to do to reset that, in this instance, is to come up here, notate the code, hold and release the reset button, and you’ll see the fault code light has cleared, and the boiler should go into normal operation.

Some boilers, what you’ll have to do is cycle the power switch – off and back on – to try to reset the boiler. Once you’ve completed those tasks, you can look into the touch – the display window and see if the error code is cleared. The boiler will display a status: normal operating status, or so on.

Now, the other things to check for if your boiler isn’t operating, if you’re hitting the reset codes and they’re not clearing, is ideally, most high-efficiency boilers are ventilated in a plastic pipe, typically through a side wall or through a roof. If you have access to look at these terminations, this is also a helpful thing to make sure we don’t have any bushes or trees obstructing the exhaust or the air intake.

The other things I’d like to ensure that’s happening is the condensate drain. Now most of these, all these high-efficiency boilers have a condensate drain that has to drain moisture out of the heat exchanger. So, if you follow your drain line, you want to make sure you’re not having any clogs or obstructions that would inhibit the condensate drainage from the unit. So, hopefully that’s a helpful tip to get your boiler started up again before calling for a maintenance.

Host: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.

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EMERYVILLE — Host, Sarah Rutan: If you’re planning to replace your old, traditional water heater, it’s important to know the full extent of your options. Today we’re in Emeryville with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Leigh Marymor of The Lunt Marymor Company to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Leigh Marymor: When it comes time to replace the old, leaking standard style hot water heater – this one’s thirty years old – there’re many options on the market to think about in terms of what you want to install next.

The least expensive installation is going to be to replace like with like, and put a new standard hot water heater tank right where the old one was. But, there are a couple of cautions in making that decision. And, the one that’s most important is to realize that the replacement models are all going to be taller and wider than the one you’re replacing. And, this is due to the new federal energy efficiency rules that have come out this year that designate a higher energy factor for these water heaters. So, if you are at all space constrained, either by height or by width, you’re going to want to think about another option. And, many of those options are the new high efficiency energy models which we can take a look at now.

Jim Lunt, co-owner of The Lunt Marymor Company: So, an option for a high efficiency water heater to fit in the space that’s currently occupied by a conventional water heater that we spoke of, is an on demand water heather. As you can see, they’re quite small, quite compact. This one is condensing, so it’s quite efficient – very high efficiency. However, there are considerations – what we call the installed cost – that can be markedly more than you might anticipate.

One is, undoubtedly, it’s going to need a larger gas line than what you have now. These require quite large gas lines. Two, you a 120 volt outlet. They require a plug that they can plug in to – an outlet they can plug in to. Three, you’re going to have to change your flue. You cannot reuse the flue that you have with a conventional water heater. In addition with this one, you also have to have a combustion air piping system. And lastly, you have to have a drain for the condensate that this unit produces.

In addition, with any on demand water heather, you need to be aware that there will be what’s called a cold water sandwich. And, what that is, is when you turn your hot water off at your sink, and a little bit later you turn it back on, there’s going to be, eventually, a slug of cold water. And what that is, is it’s the time it takes cold water to begin flowing through the unit, the burner coming on and heating that water until it’s finally hot and going out into the hot line.

So, these units offer flexibility in terms of where they can be installed – spatially they take very little space – they are potentially quite efficient, but you do need to consider the installed cost. The unit cost is not that much, the installed cost may be substantial. You should certainly – in thinking about high efficiency water heaters – be considering high efficiency storage tank water heaters that have their own set of advantages.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Leigh Marymor: This system uses a very simple and inexpensive venting system. It’s literally constructed of two inch PVC tubular pipe. One to carry combusted gasses, and the other to bring in intake air for the burner that terminate either at the roof or through the side wall of the house. We mentioned the condensate – the condensate comes off that venting system, and that moisture ultimately will be directed to a drain, or possibly to a gravel sump out in the yard.

The other thing that we like about these units are their track record and their longevity. There are manufacturers that offer this unit with a stainless steel tank, for example, and that tank will go many, many years. We’ve yet to see one fail. At the end of the day, living with this style hot water heater is going to be very much like living with the conventional tank style hot water heater, but with the marked advantages of producing copious amounts of hot water at very high efficiency, and avoiding the nuisance of the cold water slug. 

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.

Complete Video Transcription:

EMERYVILLE — Host, Sarah Rutan: Every year, we use thousands of gallons of water on our homes. Today, we’re in a San Francisco Bay Area condo with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Leigh Marymor of The Lunt Marymor Company to learn a few ways you can conserve water in your home.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Leigh Marymor: We are here in the East Bay in a condo and we are here to talk about water conservation. In California, the drought is particularly onerous this year and we are all looking for ways to save water in our homes.

One of the biggest problems is the amount of water that we waste waiting for the hot water to arrive. In this particular condo, it takes 50 seconds for the hot water to come from hot water heater to the shower and all that water goes down the drain.

What can we do to prevent that? Well, one solution is to install a hot water recirculation pump and I have one here that you can take a look at. This particular pump is located underneath the sink cabinet. Its activated by an on demand motion sensor so when we walk into the room, the pump knows we’re here, it turns itself on, it pulls the water that is standing in the hot water pipe that is currently cold through the pipe to the pump location and by the time the pump turns itself off, the hot water is standing by ready to use.

Let’s talk about a little bit about how to save water while we are showering. The standard shower head flows water at the rate of 2 ½ gallons a minute but the new robust 1 ½ gallon a minute water saving heads are really quite comparable to use and have some interesting features that enable us to save even more water.

Let’s take a look. The head on the right is a water saving head and has a very robust pattern of spray. So the nice feature about this particular head is while I’m waiting for the water to get hot over here and I’ve walked over to the bathroom sink and I am brushing my teeth, this shower head will turn itself off until I can get back across the room so I can step into the shower compartment. A nice feature.

A common historic complaint about low flow showerheads is that they weren’t very comfortable to use and they weren’t very satisfying bathing experience but I think you can see when we compare these two heads side by side, all that has changed. You can compare the two stream patterns, pretty much equivalent.

We took a look across the room in the shower to see how we could save water by changing the shower heads that we use. We can do the same thing here with the laved sink. The standard sink aerator boils water at the rate of 2 1/2 gallons a minute. But we can adjust that by changing the aerator that will retrofit on almost all common faucets and get the flow rate down.

Let me show you the difference between the standard 2.2 gallon flow and the water saving 1.5 gallon flow. Here we have the 2.2 gallon per minute flow and here for comparison, 1.5.

It goes without saying a dripping faucet wastes water, but really how much does it waste? I’m going to use drip gauge to actually measure the water loss and we can find out. Here is a simple five second test. I am going to catch the drip. 2, 3, 4, 5 and I am going to read the gauge. The gauge tells us that a drip at this rate will waste 27 gallons a day, 9,720 gallons a year for this drip to continue. It’s really worth fixing.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.