ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (02/05/85)
We are thinking of replacing our electric hot water heater, mostly because it costs too much to run. We do not have gas service. Our local oil dealer is offering to sell us an oil-fired hot water heater made by Ford Industries (no relation to the automobile manufacturer). The manufacturer's literature claims that it can recover about 120 gallons per hour (!). It is available in tank sizes from 30 gallons on up. The oil dealer claims that anything bigger than a 30 gallon tank is simply unnecessary: the only large-tank models they install are in restaurants. The argument is that the unit can sustain a flow of two gallons per minute of hot water indefinitely, and even if the tank is entirely depleted it will reheat in 15 minutes. It seems to me that using four gallons per minute of hot water would deplete the thing in 30 minutes, but I have no idea how likely that is to happen. Questions: 1. What is a reasonable hot water flow rate to count on? 2. Does anyone out there have any experience with this unit, or any other oil-fired hot water heater? 3. What is a reasonable price for this unit? 4. My calculations show that we should save a factor of 2 in our hot water costs by switching to oil. Can anyone refute this (or back it up)? 5. Is 30 gallons really enough?