Ultra with indirects

[tarz]

I'm looking into bidding on a job installing a 230 Weil Ultra and also replacing the 4 electric water heaters with indirects. This is a 4 unit apartment building. Does this sound feasible to you guys and has anyone ever done this? I imagine I'd have to upsize the boiler to the 310 with 4 indirects but I was hoping for some input here.

[johnsp]

There's 4 HWH's becaue each unit has it's own electric meter? If not (common utility) I would just get one large (120 gal) indirect.

[tarz]

Yeah, separate meters, but owner specifically wants 4 tanks.

[beenthere]

The 230 can easily handle the hot water needs of 4 apartments from a single tank, 80 or 100 gal.

Your going to run into trouble with 4 tanks, because domestic takes priority over heat. (Might be able to get away with small tanks that hold less then 40 gals.)

Plus the fact that indirects are expensive up front.
You'll need a 0011 for each indirect. A zone panel just for the indirects.


A 230 can recover over 200 gals an hour, coupled with an 80 gal tank you'll have about 300 gals of hot water first hour, and about 200 an hour after.

If he wants seperate tanks, is he going to install timers to charge them for the hot water?

[johnsp]

Strange. Sounds like it's gonna cost him more to do it this way. I guess you could get 4 30 gal indirects. But as said, you can't put them on priority or you could be without heat for a long period if each tank started called for BTU's at different times. Is each apt. zoned seperate for heat? Might be more cost effective to get a small combo wall hung for each apt.

[tarz]

Thanks for the replies, I was thinking the same thing. I'll call the guy back and try to convince him against his idea. I guess he's going to start paying all the utilities, I'm not completely sure but I'll pick his brain on his rationale.