Anyone ever tried it? I know there is a rule of 5 watts per gallon but is there any suggestions as to flow rate per hour?
My pond is 1200 gallons.
My pond is 1200 gallons.
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You'll need to run a gas line to the unit, which you shouldn't try doing unless you really know what you are doing. The unit will come with details in regards to flow rate requirements. The burners won't come on unless you achieve a certain GPH threshold and each manufacturer is different. My tankless fires up when flow hits .5GPH.
If you are talking about using an electric tankless water heater, you might as well just buy an appropriately sized inline heater. The Thermakoi heater and the Elecro inline pond heaters would be good options.
They will hold the temps just fine as long as you have an appropriately sized unit. Keep in mind that you will need to run dedicated circuits (220V) to power it...you can't just plug these into a standard electrical outlet.
Rough estimate on cost to run:
If you get a 4KW unit, it will likely come on for around 6 hours per day to maintain 78F (depending on how well you insulate- could be more, could be less). I'll use the national average of $0.14/KWHr to determine cost. You can swap out what you pay into the equation below to get a more accurate figure. Again, these are just estimates.
4KW x 6hrs x 30days x 0.14/KWHr = $100/month
My rates always seems to change, but at my highest tier ($0.36/KWHr), that heater would cost me $260/month. But electricity is crazy expensive where I live.
No worries. Just a head's up that going with 2KW won't save you any money on running costs. The unit will just run twice as long to maintain your desired temperature. But if you go with the 2KW unit, you should be ok plugging it into a standard 20AMP circuit as long as you don't have anything else on that circuit.