Insinkerator Water Heater
I've never liked electric hot water heaters as a lot of energy is lost in transmission from the generating source, but I've made an exception for this little 2-1/2 gallon hot water heater that goes under the sink of our office kitchen. It has a switch that I turn on for maybe an hour, then turn off. The water temperature can be set with the thermostat. The tank is well insulated, so it stays hot for hours. It seems a very efficient use of electricity.
In the house, we've had a 5-gallon electric water heater under the kitchen sink for about 15 years. It's minimal in electric power usage, and doesn't waste water getting from cold to hot (in pipes coming from a more distant water heater). And yes, I've got to get more of our water heated by the sun. It's on my list of things to do, honest.
- bathroom
- heating
- kitchen
- plumping
- water
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Dick
"electric hot water heaters".
Why would you heat hot water. It's called a "Water Heater", not hot water heater.
Just saying.
Oliver Hulland
It is a bit redundant, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate the product's use. At least we know it's not a warm water heater.
-- oliver h
Glenda
We've had one of these for years with a separate spout. It is wonderful and worth every penny!
ssszzzz
I've gone through three of these. Every time the tank has leaked. Then instead of just being able to buy the tank they change the design so the old faucets don't work with the new tanks.
I'm out. I now use a counter top water heater that heats 1.5L pretty dang fast and cost around $25 instead of $200.
Kevin
Before I purchased a small water heater like this, I would look at tankless water heaters, also called on-demand water heaters. They heat the water instantly as it flows thru the pipe, and are small, typically the size of a phone book, and available in both electric and gas models. The Bosch AE-9.5 PowerStar makes a good unit for about $200 (Amazon's price).
A possible downside to tankless water heater vs. a small tank variety here is that they often need a 220v connection and that may not be readily available under the sink, whereas 110v may be (garbage disposal, dishwasher, etc).
Casey
I agree with Dick's post. Stop saying "hot water heater"--it's called a water heater. Why would you need to heat hot water, it's already hot.
Steve
Actually, Dick and Casey, in normal use a standard tank-type water heater is adding heat to water that is already fairly hot, so (to be persnickity right back at you) it is completely accurate to call it a "hot water heater." The only exception would be an on-demand type, where the water starts out cold and becomes hot in one pass.
burritoboy
I loved mine until it developed some sort of funk that made the water smell and taste bad. It probably came from something in the water feed, but no amount of flushing could get rid of it.
I've been using a teakettle on the stove although I should probably switch to one of those $25 countertop ones for the speed and energy savings.
Tom Sackett
I just did search in Google Books for the phrase "hot water heater", and found that it's been in common usage since 1835. I also did a timeline search on the phrase "water heater", and found that the earliest reference is 1800, and it's "hot-water heater". I know that, in some cases, the early uses of the term were for ways of heating a building, and it was necessary to distinguish "hot-water heaters" from "steam heaters". However, I believe that large systems like this were used to produce both room heat and heated tap water, so it's possible that the common use of the phrase "hot-water heater" for devices used only for hot tap water could have been borrowed from the hot-water furnace technology. There are also many references in the 1800s to "feed-water heaters" for livestock, and engineers may have needed to be clear when they were talking about system that provide hot water for household use. In any case, it seems likely that there is a perfectly reasonable reason why we call them "hot water heaters", and saying that the term is incorrect makes as much sense as saying the word "Worcester" is misspelled because its has too many unnecessary letters.
ideasinca
We had one of these for several years before it leaked, then broke. It seemed to be more or less constantly drawing electricity and we found we didn''t use it much anyway, so when we couldn't find a replacement, we lived without it just fine until I adopted a low-tech solution that has worked very well for us --
What I do is, instead of heating just enough water for that first cup of tea in the morning, I heat enough for the tea plus one quart. Then I preheat a quart thermos container with a splash of the hot water, fill it to the top, close the lid, and voila, instant hot water for the rest of the day.
Sacramento
I think several of you are mistaking this unit for the one with the little faucet atop the sink for dispensing steaming hot water to make tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Unless I'm mistaken, this unit seems to be specifically for the hot side of the mixing valve that is your faucet, not the other. And 1835 or not, I'm in the redundancy camp. :)