Takagi Water Heater T-H1

takagi heater t-h1, very green The Takagi T-H1 water heater is one of their newest models and certainly their greenest – its average efficiency is an impressive 95% with propane and 92% with natural gas. It is meant to meet the needs of just about any large family as Takagi states, "The T-H1 can provide at least three showers' worth of water simultaneously along with one appliance at input temperature of 60ºF or greater." This does mean that in colder places in the winter, where the incoming water will be below 60 degrees, that you might have to get by with only two showers and another use!

Where you live does make quite a difference in the flow rate that any tankless water heater can deliver. With this one, for instance, let's say that you have the hot water output set at 120 degrees. If the incoming water is 60ºF then you can expect about 6.1 gallons per minute. In contrast, if that incoming water is 40ºF or less, your flow rate would likely be about 4.3 GPM – a significant difference, but still a lot of hot water! And under ideal conditions, this water heater can put out over 10 gallons a minute.

I mentioned an output setting. The T-H1 has four preset temperatures: 113ºF, 122ºF, 140ºF, and 182ºF. If those don't suit your needs for some reason, there is an add-on temperature controller available.

This is more than just a home unit. It can be used in small businesses and industries. That's why there is the very hot 182ºF water setting; sometimes codes require water that hot for sanitary applications.

The gas input is variable, with the maximum being 199,000 BTU per hour. This will require some good-sized gas pipes to the unit. It then uses two heat exchangers rather than the more ordinary one, and this is how Takagi achieved the unusually high average efficiencies. As explained on their website, "Takagi has added a stainless steel secondary heat exchanger to recover waste heat from the vent stack before it leaves the unit to preheat the incoming ground water. This second heat exchanger and the resulting condensation that forms from the high efficiency operation, classify it as a "Condensing" Water Heater. The condensate that these types of heaters produce can be slightly acidic, so it's collected and sent through a built-in neutralizer, allowing for disposal into standard drainpipe."

If any units of the Takagi water heater T-H1 are currently at eBay, they should show up here: