Navien Tankless Water Heater Installation

This Is How You Do It

Watch our Video and You’ll Learn:

• How To Install A Navien Tankless Water Heater Properly.
• Right Sizes Of Water Pipes For This Tankless Water Heater.
• What To Avoid When Installing A Tankless Water Heater.

Listen To The Audio

Enjoy this transcript below!

Chris: Hey everybody, Chris from Champion Plumbing. We are out in Eagan today. We’re removing this existing water heater from a customer’s house. Looks like we have a 50 gallon water heater. Got Billy and Tito here today. They are installing a tankless water heater for the customer. Take you right in real quick here. We got Tito and Billy. Hey Billy. Tito say hi.

Tito: Hi.

Chris: All right. So customer had a 40 gallon, probably what? 50 gallon?

Billy: No, that was a 75.

Chris: That was a 75 gallon.

Billy: That was a 75 gravity.

Chris: All right. So, where was that water heater sitting? Was it right where Tito’s at?

Billy: Right where Tito’s sitting right now.

Chris: Perfect. And you can see here we have the Navien tankless water heater. And right now, Billy, what are you working on?

Billy: I’m working on the gas regulator. Tankless water heaters take 200,000 BTU, which is quite a bit more than your standard gravity water heater that you have in your home.

Chris: Perfect. And Tito, what do you got going on, Tito?

Tito: I’m just doing the… Getting the water piping done, making sure that then it’s straight.

Chris: Perfect. All right. That’s what we like to hear. And you can see all the new water piping that they have installed already here. It’s all the shiny copper is all the new water piping. So, you can see we have some work to do here. We got the venting, which is right on the top. We’re going to have to connect that venting. Billy, are we going to use the existing duct that’s right above it?

Billy: No, actually it can’t with a tankless. It’s got to be PVC. So, we’re going to shoot it up underneath the furnace or the air duct there and shoot it up outside the house.

Chris: That’s probably right on the backside.

Billy: Yeah.

Chris: Right back there. So, then we’re going to have to go through the house. Are we just going to take that duct and cap it off?

Billy: I was going to actually ask the homeowner about that. He wants to get rid of all that. So, if he’s looking at getting rid of it in the very near future, in the next week or so, I just don’t know the schedule is… If he’s getting rid of it in a week, we’re probably just going to tape it up for now, so no wind comes in, but if he’s looking at a month or so, I’m going to cap it off.

Chris: Perfect. Sounds good. All right. I’m going to let these guys continue on. Again, Chris, from Champion Plumbing, out of Eagan, Minnesota. We will check back in a little bit to see how this install turned out.

Billy: All right. So we’re all here. We put this Navien tankless in this thing is quite the unit she holds up against time. She’s got quite the warranty compared to your standard water heater and holds up for 10 years on the heat exchanger. That’s the words I’m looking for, total brain fart moment. But anyway, so we had to vent this guy up and out, homeowner had a 75 gallon right here that vented up in a natural draft.

That thing, it was just quite the unit, huge. And this is why they say, “Call a plumber.” And it’s not because you want to call a plumber because he knows what he is doing. It’s because you don’t want to carry out a 400-pound water heater. You want to have someone else do that. Okay? Just have other people do the work. My back hurts on a daily basis and that’s to save you guys from breaking your back, but we’re going to get rid of this vent right here.

Homeowner wants to redo his roof and also needed more space where this chimney is going up on his remodel. So, his options were to go with a power vented water heater, or actually skip this guy out, going to tankless. So, that’s why he went with tankless, a little more efficient on a water or gas bill, and just all-around kind of more interesting unit on that one.

Really don’t get a whole lot to say about it other than it’s quite nice. We were able to get a new gas line in here. We had to really up the gas supply, goes from off right around 78,000 BTUs on a 75 gallon all the way up to 200,000 on this bad boy.

She really pumps out some heat. We got an intake coming from fresh air outside. It sucks so much air, you can’t actually have it on the inside unless you have another fresh air intake somewhere, call that a combustible air intake.

This house doesn’t have one. This guy doesn’t need one. Now, he’s a got its intake and its exhaust that goes outside. We probably won’t take a video of that. And this is able to keep it all tucked up nice and tight and then kept it all up here. Then we tucked it right up and out right there. So, just keeps everything clean in the basement.

You don’t got to deal with the headache of a giant hot metal vent. PVC stays cool to the touch. You got kids climbing around on a ladder. I don’t know why you have kids climbing around on a ladder, but they touch that venting right there while the heater’s going, they’re going to burn themselves, and you got a fun time. Second and last, but not least, always read the directions.

Okay? Start with “read installation manual before installing.” Well, that’s all you need on this guy, after that, throw it on the floor and just send it, right? There you go. That’s how you do it.