Ranein Natural Gas Tankless Water Heater with Vent Pipe, Indoor Max 4.3 GPM, 100,000 BTU Instant Hot Water Heater

My twenty year old 40 gallon (traditional) hot water heater finally sprung a massive leak, leading me to research LPG heaters that were available. My recollection is that the heater cost around $300 in 2005. The local big box hardware chains had heaters that began around 800 and seemed to accelerate from there. Since I live by myself, this seemed to be overkill, when I had the bright idea to look at tankless heaters. The chains had some that were even more expensive. Then, I checked Amazon. I found this 3.8 gpm / 80000 BTU heater on a black Friday price of $239, with a minor delay in delivery. For the price difference, I thought I would give it a try. I also ordered a HYDRO MASTER Tankless Water Heater Service Valve Kit (62.46) to provide fittings for the water connections. I waited a couple more days for my friend (Thank you, Andrew) to assist me in mounting and plumbing the unit in. His expertise, while not absolutely necessary, allowed me a two hour installation, with no leaks. He helped me determine additional parts necessary (PEX fittings, PEX hose, exhaust pipe and couplings available locally (around $120). (One caveat: when attaching the water valves to the unit, use teflon tape and teflon paste to seal. Do not apply too much torque when installing, it can be difficult to counter hold the connection.) All plumbed up, turned on the cold and hot water valves, plugged in the electric, turned on the LPG, no leaks. turned on the hot water spigot and the unit fired right up, I could not have asked for a better outcome. I noted on the outside of the cover, the date of purchase and the 1 year warranty. We'll see how long it lasts.

The water heater works very well. It is small enough it does not take up very much space in our tiny home. We have hot hot water most of the year but once the coldest days of winter get here you have to slow the water down coming in so it can heat it sufficiently. The heater is very durable offers excellent water heating quality. We only have to slow down the incoming water for showers, sinks work fine full flow and I haven’t checked the washer but we have had it a year with no issues and we do have 11 people in our house.

2nd edit!—— it’s been almost a year and want to say through the winter I was almost certain it was going to be broken with the water frozen even inside the house, we had issues with the gas company (propane) blot being able to come fill so we went without heat off and on all winter, we ended up just filling a 100lb cylinder every 2 days 😳 it was expensive. But during the times we didn’t have heat and inside froze my fridge broke, (water and ice don’t work) all shut offs busted when we got heat and water thawed. But the shut offs to this didn’t! And it didn’t break! We’re still going strong and still working properly 🙌🏻 Editing to update, it’s now been about 3 months and I love this so much! Bills went down about 100$ and it’s just perfect! I got this about 3/4 weeks ago it’s been installed 3 weeks or so. My dad installed and I was helping. It was easy to install and hook up. The packaging comes with everything basically, you need to hook up. I’m pretty sure we had to buy the shut offs. But either way it’s cheap and works great. I have 5 kids almost 6-11 years old plus 3 adults. So far no problems with it heating and keeping temperatures. It’s quiet and definitely space saving!!! So now I can use the bathroom closet instead of having a big tank taking up all the space. This is the propane not natural gas. Sorry for the long video review but wanted to let people to know some details cause I was hesitant my own self after reading some of the reviews. Questions for will it work or not work cause I was told by Lowe’s a few years ago I need a 9-11gpm for the people I have in household. It’s actually by faucets and the rating they have and how many you have and want running at the same time. So I bought all my fancy faucets (waterfall, rain shower head) etc from Amazon as well and they do take a good bit of water output so I just checked the output and f it, let’s give this a try. My main concerns was the reviews like “I got propane but it won’t work it’s only for natural gas” or “it leaks upon installation or after a few days” I’ve had it for almost 3 weeks and it’s been good to us no leaks nothing. I’d definitely recommend this tankless heater

Since the return portal doesn't work, here is my problem. Worked well for a week. Today, water started to pour out of bottom of unit, burner does not ignite. Trying to return but can't get further than adding comments, almost like they don't want you to return the defective product... Update: Opened the cover to see if was just an o-ring or bad connection. Nope. Copper had split open and ruptured. Several other bends in the copper show cracks along the outside. Unit is installed in climate controlled utility room.

I purchased this a year ago and got around to installing it in late August. Living in south Alabama, I figured this would work well for our home. For what it does, and the price of the heater, I’m very pleased. Tonight is the coldest that the water heater has seen. The water coming in was 62 degrees. The output was 127 with the thermostat set at 149. Two important things to note: 1) I have a ball valve in-line at the outlet and it is throttled back a little over half way. 2) I have a well so I don’t take showers because of the inconsistent water pressure (cut-in set at 40 psi, cut-out at 60 psi). Once I install a pressure regulator, showers will be okay. I’m giving it 5 stars because it does work, it has been cheaper to operate than the electric tank water heater that I’ve had, and it is very affordable. From September 1 through today, we’ve not used but about 8 gallons of LPG to heat water for my wife, myself, and grandkids. If you’re considering this, do be aware that 3.8GPM isn’t much water. I miscalculated the volume of water from this old well pump. In my own experience in process control, it was easy enough to regulate the temperature by throttling the output of the heater to get the desired water temp/flow rate through. So, be forewarned, if you don’t have low volume water, you may need additional throttling to slow the water down through the heat exchanger. I installed it myself within about 40 minutes. Very easy to install, however, at one point we did have LPG tank heater installed so the existing exhaust vent was used. This heater mated up perfectly with the existing exhaust stack so that was extremely beneficial.

Ive been pleasantly surprised with this unit. It’s lightweight, easy to install(assuming all your connections are close by. My only hang ups are the fact that when there is no power, regardless of whether or not you bought a gas heater, you have no hot water because of the igniter and electrical panel on the unit run on electricity. The other only issue I have had after my one year of daily use and abuse, is that the unit keeps reverting back to Celsius. I just stopped resetting g it because it got so annoying. It’s durable and functions perfectly. And my natural gas bill went from $40ish to $15ish per month. I couldn’t be happier about that.

Converted my mobile home from a tanked system to this some time ago. Vented it vertically against the instructions recommendations which made me nervous at first but it works great. Hot water on demand always. Showers, baths, laundry. All good. Occasionally it times out on me while doing dishes but I just turned the water off then on again. Does not require any push of a button in the event of a power outage if you have it installed somewhere not quite so convenient like myself but it is very compact so you could always put it somewhere more accessible if you can route the plumbing and exhaust.

So far so good neeeded a.3/4 inch female flared to a 3/8s male.to hook to 100lb.propane tank