Saving space is invariably one of the prime attractions in switching from a storage tank-type water heater to a tankless system. Most applications involve mounting these medicine-cabinet-sized appliances on an exterior wall, which frees up precious floor space for more productive uses. Even multiple-unit commercial systems, whether hung on the wall or placed into some sort of racking system in the middle of a room, tend to command substantially less space than a comparably sized tank-type system.
While the limitations of the mechanical room created the opening for tankless on this project, its space constraints generated its own set of challenges for the design and installation team. Fitting seventeenThe all-natural product is now being merchandised in drug stores, supermarkets and other retailers in this country as well as in Canada, according to president of sales Arthur Dessein. He adds that the company, which bought the brand in August, is devoting significant capital to a marketing plan that includes trade promotions, $2 off mail-in rebates, product sampling, health care professional recommendations, full-page newspaper advertising, digital marketing and sponsorships. In addition, BPI has featured the product on "The Balancing Act," a Lifetime channel program targeted to women.The retailer's back-to-basics strategy is good news for OTC suppliers, because going back to basics at Walmart also means going back to a broader product selection. Between the resumption of Action Alley and a recommitment to assortment, Walmart already has grown its carrying inventory by 4%, and the company plans to grow its inventory at a rate of half the expected sales lift.IMPOSSIBLE PREDICAMENT"The pressure through each manifold is maintained at a preset level by a modulating fan that is directed by a controller," Gill explains. "The controller, in turn, monitors exhaust pressure through a sensor located at the end of the manifold run.""Anthony and I told the hotel owner that we could make it work, barely," recalls Jason Veal, who works as a full-time outside salesperson for Tallman, also based in Florence. "But if one unit ever needed servicing, both would need to be pulled from the space, because there simply wasn't enough room to work. That, in turn, would mean the entire hotel would have to go without hot water until maintenance was finished.""The ceiling height was the most serious hurdle," says Gill. "First, you've got the 10-in. PVC manifold and the 2-ft-long water heater, plus an additional couple of feet of required clearances. Beneath the water heaters are the hot-water, cold-water and gas lines. Somehow, Anthony managed to fit all those elements into the available space, but another foot or two of ceiling height would have made things much easier.""We expect each water heater to be delivering 4.6 gal of hot water per minute in the winter, assuming a ground-water temperature of 50[degrees]F; and roughly 6.8 gpm in the summer, based on 65[degrees] ground water," says Tim Gill, Noritz Southeast regional commercial sales manager, who worked with contractor Crouch and Noritz rep Tim Morales of Tim Morales & Associates on the design of the system.The most prominent element of each venting system is the massive manifold pipe itself, measuring a hefty 10 in. in diameter. Given the dimensions of the surrounding space, including 9-ft ceilings and a 4-ft by 6-ft louvered fan for importing makeup air from outdoors, the Crouch installation team found itself coping with some fairly tight angles.Instead of using 1.5 million Btuh to keep 1,500 gal of water at a specified temperature 24/7/365--per the original spec--the tankless units would work in sequence, firing one by one as needed, to meet present requirements. Once those requirements were met, the units would turn down or off, minimizing energy consumption.Contractor Anthony Crouch, owner of Crouch & Sons Plumbing LLC in Florence, reviewed the original specification with his plumbing distributor, the Tallman Company, and quickly concluded that the installation was all but unworkable."Many consumers also like our 'on-the-go packs' (12 capsules per pack) that they can carry in their purse or store in their automobile to use as needed," notes Dessein.Once again, the team delivered an innovative, alternative solution, one that Noritz recently unveiled specifically for commercial installs: a fan-assisted, common vent system, whose components are made by Exhausto Inc. The Residence Inn project uses two such manifolds: one to remove all of the emissions from the units servicing the guest rooms; the second for the five units supplying the common areas and work spaces.Action Alley also affords Walmart a ready vehicle to showcase new product launches. "From a supplier's perspective, you can get your product out there and get market share and trial and penetration much faster through our system than you can anywhere else," Bill Simon, Walmart U.S. president and CEO, told analysts earlier this year.Indeed, the installers literally ran out of space on one of the units supplying the guest rooms.So the installers compromised, removing the last water heater in the 12-unit line from the manifold and equipping it with its own 4-in. direct vent. Thus, the final through-the-wall tally came in at three terminations. As Veal notes, three punch-outs look a whole lot better to hotel management than 17."We'll be running other promotions through the year," says Dessein.To no one's surprise, hotel owner Giri Yadla immediately dismissed the notion of going without hot water for any length of time: Were there no practical alternatives? Veal, whose company distributes tankless water heaters made by Noritz America, immediately saw a fit for tankless because of its space-saving benefits.The effervescent product, available in 4- and 8-ounce bottles, dissolves quickly in a small amount of water.By convincing hotel management to switch from a pair of large gas boilers to a multiple-unit tankless water heating system, Crouch and Veal spared the facility potentially major maintenance problems--and a legion of unhappy hotel guests--while also enabling the owner to cut his ongoing fuel costs substantially. In addition, the innovative venting system recommended by Noritz made sense not only from an engineering perspective, but also helped preserve the appearance of the hotel property.MAXIMIZING EFFICIENCY, MINIMIZING COST
"Because owners and managers stand to save so much on their gas bills, more and more commercial jobs will opt for tankless," Crouch predicts. Of course, the use of tankless on the Residence Inn project was driven by the need for more space. "In that situation, we really had no choice but to take a different approach, because the original spec just wasn't practical. Going tankless has worked out super."
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