Time Plumbing & Heating

After our tank water heater failed we needed to replace it - quickly. We wanted to upgrade to a tankless or hybrid high efficiency system. We spoke with Morris at A Time and he was able to provide an estimate and do the install within 24 hours of our request. He suggested an Eternal hybrid tankless water heater that operates at 98% efficiency. I was aware of the product and decided that in spite of the higher cost, it would be worth it. This was a somewhat complex installation because the new high efficiency water heater required a new PVC gas flue to be installed. He could not replace the old metal flue due to it being used by our furnace. Our water heater was in a poor location to get hot water to the bathrooms, so we asked him to also install a recirculating pump. Finally, our water heater did not originally come with an expansion tank, and he was able to add that as well. His install was completed well and professionally and they did a pretty good job of cleanup afterwards. However, there were two issues: 1) The Eternal water heater creates a lot of condensate which is typically drained to a floor drain. Our house did not have a floor drain in the utility room, so he tied the condensate lines into our air conditioner's condensate pump which drains to the exterior of the house. A few days later, we noticed the pump was not draining and started to overflow a little. We called Morris and he said the pump was probably bad. The pump was only about 1-year old so, we called the company that installed the pump with the AC. They indicated that the pump and exterior condensate line can only be used for summer loads. In the winter, the condensate line will freeze as the water exits the house. I purchased a small piece of PVC line and routed it to our floor drain in the room next door and it works fine now. 2) When installing the PVC flue, they routed the flue through our garage where it pinched a staple holding the garage door opener control wires, shorting out the garage door opener. I was able to loosen the flue and remove the staple and the garage door was operable again.