06/09/2018
Q&A With Navien Tankless
1. First, we asked: what current regulations are impacting tankless water heater manufacturers?
Eric Ashley, product development manager at Navien, Inc. had this to say: “Navien, and tankless, has benefited tremendously from the new and evolving efficiency standards. Navien has always produced product that are the most efficient in every category they compete in. We don’t try to hit the minimum in efficiency; we try to set a new standard of excellence. Now that the industry has changed to the Uniform Energy Factor (UEF) for all residential water heaters, people can now truly see a level comparison of tank vs tankless. This change switching from an EF to UEF will allow more growth in the tankless segment of the market.”
2. We wanted to know how technology has been used to meet recent updates in codes and standards.
Vikas Chopra, director of marketing, Intellihot Inc. observed: “We view technology as being the leading trend in the Tankless Hot Water industry. Our innovative and intelligent IoT enabled units allow for predictive analytics, which ‘smartifies’ the mechanical room, giving them actionable insight that will help them save money.”
“Navien is the industry leader in innovation in all market categories we compete in. We have taken engineering innovations and applied them to our automated manufacturing process allowing the highest level of quality and performance.”
— Ashley, Navien, Inc.
3. Next, we asked: What technology are you using to combat scale build-up?
“At Navien, we use stainless steel for our primary and secondary heat exchangers – something we have done from day one, and now many competitors have begun to copy Navien. Stainless steel is a more noble metal than copper, allowing for a significant reduction in scale buildup. Navien offers a scale inhibitor called PeakFlowE, which is designed to prevent scaling in tankless water heaters where you have 12 grains of hardness or greater.”
— Ashley, Navien, Inc.
4: We wondered about new breakthroughs and ideology around tankless that are unique to commercial settings, and whether anyone had completed any recent projects or installations.
“Navien tankless water heaters are designed to deliver an endless stable supply of hot water in all commercial applications. With Navien’s stainless steel heat exchanger and industry leading efficiency, we provide the ultimate solution for commercial hot water needs. We see a trend in the commercial market going toward redundancy and easy, quick installations. With this trend in mind, Navien has created the Ready-Link commercial racking system. The Ready-Link system is field-assembled and features a free-standing rack along with preassembled hot water, cold water and gas manifolds in various configurations to meet any applications needs. The Ready-Link manifolds can be installed on the wall or on the Ready-Link Rack. Navien’s systems are compact durable and reliable with the ability to common vent up to eight units. In commercial applications, Navien is capable of cascading up to 16 NPE series units.”
— Ashley, Navien, Inc.
5. Next, we asked: What are you seeing in terms of remote connectivity?
“Is there anything that we can’t control today remotely? Requests to adjust the temperature, recirculate the water and check the run time, service reminders and alerts have become common.”
— Ernest, Vesta.DS, Inc.
“Navien pioneered remote connectivity for tankless water heaters in offering the first Wi-Fi control for residential and commercial applications: NaviLink-compatible with NPE series tankless water heaters. With the ability to get real-time data and notifications, we felt this was a tremendous opportunity to extend comfort to all aspects of our products. “
— Ashley, Navien, Inc.
The benefits of tankless extend far beyond longer showers – they will lower water heating bills, ensure demand is always met, and free up space in a utility closet.
