Excel Pro Tankless Gas Water Heater NATURAL GAS 6.6 GPM Whole House and for Hydronic heating Compare to Rinnai, Rheem,Noritz, Bosch FREE FLUE KIT

I’m a penny pincher and love to save a buck. So, when I found that I could buy this and pay to have it installed for around $550, I jumped on it, especially since it was tankless and that’s all the rage! HOWEVER, it came with the wrong size FLUE/fittings kit to work correctly AND put off a very bad smell-chemical/something getting hot. I began to get sleepy, but honestly, it was late. My tongue started tingling & I thought it was just my imagination UNTIL, my carbon monoxide detector went off!!! I know it is odorless and tasteless, but that’s my experience. I quickly got my three kids and two dogs out of the house. The fire dept, gas company, & plumber all had to be called. My family could have DIED! Thank got for those detectors! If you don’t have them, install several!!!Thankfully, I didn’t have to shell out $$ for a hotel (none would have taken my dogs anyway) & I stayed at my mom’s.Initially, i wondered if it was a faulty installation, but when I purchased another water heater, I had to use a different plumber due to a scheduling conflict of the first one (I needed hot water ASAP because I had Beene without it for three days and had been bathing at my mom’s) but the new plumber said the initial installation looked correct when he removed this water heater. He kept getting an E2 code when he first arrived and tried to fix it rather than purchase a new one too.I will say that Amazon & the seller were WONDERFUL to work with on my refund& I hate to leave a negative review. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t want someone to deal with what I did and if someone without detectors had bought it, they would have died!!! Lesson learned though-don’t take the cheap way out because it could cost lives!

I returned this unit as it was missing parts and did not function, as if it was used before, and the seller kept over $100Not recommended!!!

Our 14-year-old Rinnai tankless water heater developed a pinhole leak in the heat exchanger and wasn't worth fixing, so we opted for this unit because of our tight budget. Naturally, all the plumbing and fittings (such as the shut-offs, maintenance valves and pressure relief valve) were already in place, having been installed by a plumber. There was already a hole in the wall for the exhaust, and there was already a grounded outlet nearby. (Obviously if you're using this for new construction or replacing a tank-style water heater, you'll have to start from scratch.)Installing the unit was a matter of turning off the gas and electricity, draining the old unit, removing the old unit and venting, and installing the Excel in the same place. It fit even better because it's slightly smaller than the old unit. We did have to make adjustments because the Excel gets combustion air from vents on the side of the unit, so the exhaust vent pipe (which is included--bonus!!) is just 3" in diameter, whereas our old Rinnai had a dual-layer exhaust pipe that drew in the combustion air from outside the building, and thus had a larger-diameter pipe. (We ended up re-using part of the old Rinnai vent almost as a wall thimble, which centered the new vent in the oversize hole.)There is a certain minimum flow required for the unit to kick on (just like our old Rinnai). You may have to turn the hot water faucet up to full blast for a few seconds to before you hear the "whoosh" of the gas jets coming on. After that, you can usually get away with turning the flow back down to normal.We would absolutely buy this unit again. We were quoted $1,500 to replace our Rinnai with a tank-style unit (because supply lines would have to be moved) and over $3,000 to replace with a new tankless unit (because apparently the plumber thought we were easy marks.) So this easily saved us a thousand dollars.PROS• You cannot be the price for a 6.6 GMP unit.• Even with the extra $38 for the buyer protection policy, this unit is still cheaper than the other units I looked at by over $125.• It comes with a brass reducer for the gas line fitting.• It comes with the horizontal venting.• The LED display is super-simple and has animated blue flame and showerhead icons that appears when the hot water is running somewhere in the house.• The unit makes more than enough hot water for our 3-bedroom house. It's not uncommon for someone to be in the shower when someone else is doing laundry. No problems at all.CONS• The instructions read as though they were translated by Google Translate from Chinese into German into English. They're mainly nonsense. However, if you are replacing an existing tankless unit, it will be obvious what goes where and you will rarely refer to the instructions. The only nugget of wisdom I got out of the instructions was a factoid that the unit will shut itself off as a safety once it has run continuously for 30 minutes. You're supposed to turn the water off for a second then back on to reset it. Ours has been installed for 2 weeks, and I have honestly not noticed that it has ever turned itself off.• You may have to buy a couple of reducing fittings for the cold in and hot out nipples, depending on your setup.• Very minor--this unit was manufactured for the European market so the display is in Celsius. Just ask your smart phone to translate that into Fahrenheit for you so you can set the temp.• Not sure how I feel about this, but it does have a manufacture date sticker that makes it about 15 years old. It is obviously brand new/never used, and I don't think tankless water heater technology has changed that much since it was manufactured, so I'm OK with it. I did buy the extra protection policy, however.

Works perfectly,just as described. The best comparison I've read is "this unit can do anything a 40 gal tank can do". The main reason I'm not giving the product 5 stars is the tolerance level of the fittings used. This issue is well worth the $aving$ when compared to other similar units, just a little disappointed at the tape and putty needed for a tight, water proof connection and had to file down the threads on the gas fitting just to get it started. Small price to "pay" for $100 - $200 in savings over competitor's models. Functionally a 5 star item - so far.Also, if you are running in combination with a tank (house has two hot water sources) and use energy efficient shower heads/faucets - the draw may not be enough to start the tankless heater. We had to change from a shared duty system (2 hot water sources) to 2 individual systems so the tankless unit has enough of a draw/flow.

My water pressure isn't the best and the water heater won't come on unless the faucet is full open. Will have to get a water pressure booster. Also the manufacturing date is 2004. Maybe a newer model would have this issue worked out... if I would have known it was 15 years old I wouldnt have bought it..

I've only had this installed for a couple weeks but I am very impressed so far! Installation wasn't bad either. It keeps up perfectly fine with two showers and one sink running. Perhaps it's just the hippie in me but it seems so primitive and inefficient to have a 40 or 50 gallon tank of water being kept hot around the clock. Very happy with my purchase!

Great price, BUT check out there website before buying in Amazon. I could have saved $50 by buying on the website. What I really like about this unit is that I could use my existing venting. I also bought a Rinnai, and ended up having to spend another $300 on the venting. I did purchase the extended warranty with this item, because I am not sure how long it will last. It was easy to install, and works perfect.