Ecosmart POU 6 Point of Use Electric Tankless Water Heater, 6 KW

First heater was DOA - bit of an aggravation since there's no way to test it until it's installed. Amazon resolved my problem by immediately sending a new unit which worked like a champ. While it comes with a flow reducer (0.5 gal/min) I didn't install it. Didn't need it. Live in VA where the average cold water inlet temp is about 60*F. This thing has no trouble getting it hot enough to wash your hands comfortably. I'm sure it wouldn't work in a shower, but I've got it serving a garage deep sink and powder room. Great purchase. Wiring and connections appear to be of very high quality. Good mounting template and instructions. Would definitely recommend to friends and family. Update: There's a "feature" about this unit that isn't well documented and caused some initial grief (after replacing the DOA one). Turns out there's a tiny impeller in the inlet coupling/line inside the unit that needs to move freely up and down its shaft. The purpose of this is to trigger a relay to turn the heater on/off. Impeller up - water is flowing and pushing it up its shaft to make contact. Impeller down - absence of water flow inhibits the heater from turning on. Nowhere in the documentation is this described or mentioned. No big deal, right? Wrong. If you get any debris (say PVC dust or glue from the installation or junk from inside the original plumbing) inside that inlet, the impeller will likely not move freely up and down. That happened to me and in my case, the heater never came on. After about a 10 minute call to the company, I realized I had to completely uninstall the unit (a plumber installed it and didn't use any compression fittings, so everything had to be cut away and reinstalled) in order to clean this impeller. Good idea to let your water run and flush anything out before hooking it up to the unit. Wish I had known about this design before installing. Doesn't change my impression of the product or my rating, just something that could have been mentioned in the installation instructions.

I admit, I was disappointed when I turned this unit on and ran it for the first time. I wanted instant hot water. It appeared at first that this was not going to be possible. It seemed very finicky - just a lot of adjusting the flow rate ... not 'simple hot water'. When I turned the faucet all the way on the output was cold. When I just cracked it, the temperature was cold. I thought, "my wife will never accept having to tinker with these faucet handles in order to simply wash her hands. It should just WORK!" But then I came to the realization this heater works well at a very specific flow-rate. I was either shoving too much water through it, or not enough. The output was cold and I was hot. Once I installed the .5 GPM aerator which came included, the heater began behaving consistently and as desired. Just turn on the faucet and the aerator will govern the flow down to a level it can keep up with. We don't need 2 GPM flow in our bathroom sink. (I wanted so bad to not have to return the unit and start all over). I asked my wife to come try it while I held my breath. Thank goodness I'd worked out the bugs and she loves it! I am a hero, not a zero. The temperature is just fine and the heater is now very simple and consistent to operate. I am planning to purchase another for our laundry room sink, which is at the end of another long run. Life is good after all. UPDATE! (its now a few years later) THIS IS THE BEST PURCHASE I HAVE EVER MADE ON AMAZON. JUST A GREAT LITTLE PRODUCT WHICH I AM NOW USED TO.

It used to take a full 5 mins., in the winter here in the mountains of NC , to get cold water from the basement to the kitchen sink. I installed this under the sink (easy-peasy) except for the electrical, which I had an electrician do. Having almost instant warm water is such a luxury! I love it. Be warned however, you cannot set the top temperature. It warms the cold water immediately, but as the water from the basement starts getting warmer, the water at the tap gets HOT! I have seen it get up to 135 degrees. You can easily get burned - be careful with kids. Also - the unit is 'flow' activated. After you plug it in and turn it on, the display doesn't light up and you think it's not working. Turn the tap on - then the display lights up and the unit heats the water. A great value for the money.

ONLY REASON I bought this was because it replaced it's twin that shot craps 2 years ago after 2 yrs. and hoses and electrical were already in place. The AERATOR is BETTER ? than the other one and does not splatter the entire vanity top! (as much) YEAH! These are a piece of crap with 30 second delays (or MORE) in temp rises. If you shut the hot down to use cold to cool your boiled hands and do not shut the faucet ALL THE WAY off the heat does not come back on until you do. I do Handyman work and water pressure here is 42 PSI, lines were fairly new plastic, flushed and clean and 30 AMP Electrical was done by a Certified Electrician. These are Just JUNK! If I wouldn't have had to rewire to go to a different heater I would have. I WAS STUPID and gave Ecosmart a second chance. BAD MOVE (and expensive) on my part. JUST SAY NO ! and get a different brand. CRAP! ------LOOKS GOOD -----but Crap!

It was missing the proprietary compression nuts that came with it, and are necessary for installation. Fortunately the hardware store person figured out that one half inch MIP faucet supply hoses fit, and that's how I customized my installation so the plumbing part works. Unfortunately after hooking up the electrical the water heater does seem to heat water as expected, but the LED screen does not light up. Later the screen did start to work and is still good, so I've changed my review. For the price it's quite good, it is important to understand that the automatic temperature refers to the maximum temperature the water will come out which is preset and can't be changed. If you have too much water flowing through the heater of course it will be colder than the maximum because of the limited heating ability of this small point of use heater

While this heater can't do what a regular tank-type water heater can, it is OK for a single faucet that isn't used often. It provides about 120 degree water if the faucet is only opened half way. I didn't use the flow restricting aerator which was included, as we prefer to have the higher flow rate, and it isn't difficult to control if we need hotter water. I selected this particular unit because I have a couple of the higher output tankless water heaters from this manufacturer, and they work really well. The only thing is they require two 40A 220V circuits, and I only had a 30A 220V circuit available for this application. The infrequent use and low-volume needs didn't justify the expense of the additional wiring to install a larger unit. I just used the existing wiring to the old tank-type water heater, mounted a waterproof junction box to the wall, and wired this tankless unit on the wall next to the j-box. A couple of compression type connectors (the type with the rubber grommet) were all that was needed to secure the existing flex conduit and the wire from the heater to the j-box. I did purchase two brass bushings to permit me to use 3/4" NPT male connectors from some braided hoses that had shark-bite connectors on the other end to connect to the copper pipe. That is where I had a little trouble. I couldn't get the female threads on the bushings to quit leaking where they fit to the 1/2" male threads on this heater. I had used teflon tape initially, and then tried paste, but neither prevented a slow leak. I had some red loctite handy, and was running out of patience, so that ended up fixing the leak.

Have 4 tankless heaters, one gas for the whole house, and three Electric for each bathroom to get hot water to the sinks faster. High cost, high current draw, fluctuations in temperature, and high maintenance all plague these units. Seals, circuit boards,thermistors,heating elements, flow sensors all go bad in a harsh water environment. But, if you want fast hot water, and don't want the expense of recirculation, it is your only choice. I have a low flow guest bathroom sink that had a seisco 9kw under the sink heater. After 2 circuit boards and a thermistor that went bad, I thought I should try this. I like the simplicity of this unit, either on or off, and the low cost. The size is small and the activation flow rate is .25 gpm which is the lowest of all comparable units. This is an important number because with a 1 GPM flow and a high flow activation, it's hard to get warm water. The documentation is all over the map, some places say 5.5 kW, some 6, and some 7. Some say 40 amp breaker, some 30. I called and emailed them with questions but never got a response. First red flag. So I bought it anyway. It's small and light, easy to install. You can't take the cover off or do the plumbing yourself or you will void the warranty. Scew that. It would cost over $300 to connect 2 hoses and three wires and I can buy 2 more of these units for that. I live in FL, and the water temp is 63 to 70. The sink GPM is 1 GPM. Got it installed. Water temp on full flow is mildly hot and gets very hot as the flow is decreased. Seems to work good. I used a 30 amp breaker. This unit has a push button on/off switch and I was concerned that if the power went off that I would have to go under the sink and turn the unit back on but that's not the case. Once it is turned on it stays on. I tried the .5 GPM water restrictor and the water was either scalding hot or cold so I kept the 1gpm reducer. Then after about a hr, it stopped working and displayed an error code of E1. I emailed them about this but didn't expect a response, and didn't get one. I immediately sent it back and due to amazon's excellent return policy got a new one in a week. It seems to be working fine now, time will tell. So in conclusion, only use this in a warm climate an for a very low flow application. Probably works better than an under the sink Minni tank heater. Don't expect any customer service. Low cost and small size but requires a plumber and electrician for the warranty. I assume this uses a 6kw heating element which is not easy to find so maintenance/repair may be an issue. The .5 GPM reducer did not work. Water is too hot and if you make the water warmer, the flow is reduced to the point where the unit turns off.

UPDATE after 5 years, still works great, no issues or problems, just semi annual flushing of the unit. Works great, connected mine to my 240v line, takes 10AUG wiring and a 30-40 amp double pole breaker. I have mine under my kitchen sink and also ran a line to an outdoor shower by the pool. No longer any cold water showers before going in my pool and getting out. My shower runs about 1.5 GPM and it was a toasty 118 degrees coming out of the shower. Had to remove the restrictor and now comes out about 105 degrees on full blast. At the sink and to the dishwasher, has no problems heating up to 130 degrees. Was going to install a mini hot water heater but with all the problems of leaks or not working according to other reviewers, went with this one, as this is highly reviewed in other models. As a side note, I live in SW florida with water temperature 72+ degrees year round. If buying in Canada or the north, you will need the .05 GPM restrictor on this most likely. Mine wouldn't work on my kitchen sink but it comes out hot enough anyway. Also as another note, when you first kick on this heater, it does take 15 or so seconds for the coils to get very hot, but will instantly give you warm water as soon as its turned on