My electric water heater was very old so I decided to replace it with a new one. I had heard about tankless water heaters before and they sounded pretty good: unlimited hot water, no tank to break, energy efficient, space saving. With the recent tax credits I figured I’d try one out.

I ended up buying the Rinnai tankless water heater. The Rinnai is made in Japan and has a good reputation so I figured it would be a good choice. Brennan Heating had the best price of the companies that I contacted and seemed like a good company so I setup an install date with them.

The old electric heater was in the garage near the center of the house. Unfortunately Brennan said that the new Rinnai couldn’t be installed there because the vent to the outside was right next to the front door. So instead they installed the water heater on the other side of the garage to vent it and then ran water pipes back to the other side.

Unfortunately this extra pipe makes it take longer to get hot water to the faucets because the water has to travel through the longer pipe. I didn’t think it would add all that much time but it added a significant amount of time.

The second problem is that if you turn the hot water on and off frequently the water does not heat up consistently. Once the water starts flowing the burners cannot fire up fast enough, so cold water gets into the pipe. So for example, if you’re washing dishes and turn the hot water on for a few seconds at a time then the water will never get really hot. So you have to learn to wash dishes in a different manner by combining all your hot water in larger batches.

For things like showers the Rinnai has no problems. Since the hot water is used consistently during a shower the heater has no problem keeping the shower nice and warm. Plus since all the heating is done on demand it is handy when you have guests staying over. People can take showers back to back all day long and nobody has to worry about running out of hot water and being force to take a cold shower.

The Rinnai is a nice hot water heater, but there are some downsides to it. I’m not sure if the benefits outweight the drawbacks. If you are really into having the latest technology and energy efficiency then go ahead and get a tankless heater. If all you really want is just hot water then it might just make sense to stick with the old tank style.

My 35 year old Ruud furnace had been working ok, but it was getting pretty old and was really inefficient compared to newer models. So I decided to look into getting a new high efficiency furnace with the $1500 tax credit that is available. Here is my review:

I ended up getting a Coleman Echelon Furnace with a 97.5% efficiency rating. I was somewhat unsure about getting a Coleman at first since I was only aware of them making low end camping equipment and coolers. But after more research I found that Coleman is actually the same furnace as the York brand, just with the Coleman badge attached.

The Echelon is Coleman’s top model.  It has a fully modulating burner and blower which in theory should output the exact amount of heat required. Instead of being either off or 100% on, the Coleman can output only say 40% of the maximum heat if that is all that is needed. The Echelon costs more than their other models, but I plan on keeping it for 30 years like the old one so I may as well have a good one.

In theory Coleman’s modulation sounds great. Instead of a non-modulating furnace cycling on and off all the time, the Coleman is supposed to run more often at a lower setting. This should keep the temperature in the house at a more constant temperature. Unfortunately the furnace doesn’t really seem to do this. It might do it a little because I hear it come on at a lower speed and then ramp up after a few minutes. But it doesn’t really perform like their description says.

From what I have read the best furnace is the Rheem modulating furnace. The Rheem has a special thermostat which can tell the furnace the exact temperature of the house. If the house is at 65 degrees but the thermostat is set for 70 then the Rheem furnace knows that it will need to output a lot of heat so it outputs 100%. The Coleman only knows that it needs to be warmer so it doesn’t know how much heat to output. I probably would have gotten the Rheem, but the Rheem barely missed the efficiency cut off for the tax credit so I didn’t get it.

The Coleman furnace was installed by PPS Heating and Air Conditioning. Their install seems to be pretty good. But they couldn’t get a new thermostat wire run. They were supposed to go do some research and then call me back to get it fixed. But of course they never bothered to call back. I guess once they have their money they don’t care about doing the things that they said they would do.

I’ve had an old rice cooker with an aluminum pot for a few years and it stopped working the other day. I’d been meaning to look for a new one with a stainless steel pot. With all the talk about plastics and aluminum leaching into food I’m trying to convert to an all stainless steel or glass cooking tools.

I thought there would be a better selection of rice cookers with stainless steel pots. Unfortunately there only seems to be one that is manufactured, the Miracle Exclusives ME81. I’d never heard of the Miracle Exclusives brand. It kind of sounds like some product that they would sell on TV but I went ahead and ordered it since it was the only stainless steel version I could find.

I got it in a week or so. The rice cooker seems to be fairly high quality. The stainless steel pot was amazingly shiny, I’m not sure if it will stay that way but it looks pretty nice. The cooker part seems of decent quality too. I tried cooking brown rice in the cooker and it came out fine, just as well as the old one. The cooker is also surprisingly big, a lot bigger than my old one. You could cook rice for a lot of people in this one.

The stainless steel pot seemed a lot easier to clean than the old aluminum one. With the old pot I had to let the pot soak overnight before I could get it fully clean. With the new steel pot I was able to clean the pot right after using it without too much effort. This is nice because I don’t have to leave a dirty pot sitting on the counter overnight.

I wish they would sell a stainless steel rice cooker with some of the advanced electronic features of some of the other cookers. But personally for me I’d rather have a safe steel pot that I don’t have to worry about, rather than a Teflon coated pot with fancy electronics. All in all I’d buy the Miracle Exclusives cooker again. Hopefully in the future as people become more aware of the problems with Teflon there will be more stainless steel options.

For years I have used the cheap plastic ice cube trays in my freezer. Recently I’ve gotten tired of them because the ice is difficult to remove and the trays add a plastic taste to the ice. Also I switched to Klean Kanteen bottles recently after all the talk about BPA in plastic water bottles. So I thought that now would be a good time to switch to a stainless steel metal ice cube tray to go along with the steel bottles.

After looking around I found that there are not very many manufacturers of metal ice cube trays. I only found one ice cube tray made out of stainless steel. Unfortunately it is somewhat expensive, but considering it will probably last for decades I went ahead and purchased it.

I ordered it with the cheapest shipping on Sunday night. It was at my house in Washington state on Wednesday. Super fast shipping! The ice cube tray is stamped with the company name Onyx. The tray looks very nice and seems to be of high quality. It has a handle to release the ice which is so much easier to use than twisting the old plastic trays.

I only bought one because the price was on the higher side. I may eventually order a second one so that I can make more ice. In my search for a new ice cube tray I found that there are vintage aluminum ice cube trays that are available on the secondhand market. Personally I would avoid those because aluminum could possibly leach into the ice. Stick with stainless steel because it has been shown not to leach into water or ice.

Update 8/15/2009:
I’ve used the ice tray over the last few weeks. The only problem I’ve had is that it is sometimes hard to get the ice out (I have the same problem with plastic trays too). I think the key is too not overfill the tray. If you put too much water in then there is too much ice to crack when you use the handle to get the ice out. By putting less water in it takes less effort to get the ice out. Also running a little tap water over the frozen tray, top and bottom, seems to help get the ice out.

With all the news recently about the chemical BPA in plastic water bottles, I started looking for an alternative. I just want a water bottle that doesn’t leach chemicals that also has a lid so that if it falls over it doesn’t spill water everywhere. Some of the stainless steel bottles look nice but they are expensive and even metal could eventually leach chemicals.

The next alternative I looked into was glass. Glass seems to be the safest material for water storage. The strange thing is that there seem to be very few manufacturers of glass water containers with lids. The only one I can find is here.

In reading the reviews of that water bottle I found an alternative. Voss water sells Norwegian water in what appears to be the exact same bottles. You can buy a 24 pack of Voss water here. But unless you need 24 bottles of it you can also go to Cost Plus World Market where they sell individual bottles of Voss water. The water is pretty expensive at over $2 per 375ml container, but since you’ll reuse the bottle many, many times it is actually a pretty good deal.