Question Re Hurricane Use

[Dick Simonis]

I haven't really used the Hurricane to provide supplemental heat for hot water, but now that the temps are dropping into the 30's where we are, I may need to use that function.  Just wondering how effective it really is as it take several minutes or so before the fluid gets hot.

Normally we never have a HW issue unless Pat is doing laundy and we need to take showers (after wash cycle is finished), but with the incoming water in the 30's or so, the heater recovery will be slower.

Thanks for any tips.

[Joel Weiss]

We leave our Hurricane on all year since we are often in locations at which heat is needed even in mid-summer.  As a hot water heater we think it is quite good. We like to take long showers and never worry about depleting the H/W tank.  If the system is completely cold when you first need supplemental hot water you will notice that the temp goes down a bit, but not enough that you can't adjust the water.  Within a minute or two the temp will go back to normal.  If the Hurricane is already warm (if it has been supplying heat) then you'll never notice the switch-over from the H/W tank to it.  The Hurricane has a 45,000 Btu burner which is equivalent >12kW so it's pretty powerful.

[Tom and Pam Brown]

Dick, I turn mine on before we start our showers.  By the time the DW takes hers it is warm enough for me to shower.

[Joel Weiss]

Dick, I turn mine on before we start our showers.  By the time the DW takes hers it is warm enough for me to shower.

The Hurricane doesn't actually heat anything (regardless of the position of the master switch) until two different things occur:  

First, the "operating aquastat" has to be below the turn-on temperature which, I believe is ~140F.  This is, of course, likely to be the case if the system has been off.

Second, one of the thermostats or the aquastat on the hot water heater has to "call for heat."  The aquastat on the H/W tank only switches on when it notices that the temperature of the water in the tank is falling (in other words when the electric heating element is failing to keep up with demand.)

So there's no particular reason to switch the system on just when you want to take a shower.  It's not going to turn on until the conditions above are met.  By leaving it on, it also runs while we're washing dishes which we find helpful.