The winter storms and freeze cycles have done in the old on demand water heater. The poor little appliance ended its life with a rather impressive popping noise, and the inside of it is damaged beyond repair now. Thankfully nobody was hurt, as basic safety precautions were taken when installing,and using it.
The old water heater was for outdoor use only, and was a smaller model. It worked for a couple of years without issue, and was well worth the money paid for it despite its short life.
Instead of replacing the heater, we opted to upgrade to something that will hopefully be easier to plumb inside and will provide water for more than one use at a time. It had to run on propane, and have battery powered ignition.
We chose a Marey heater, as it seemed to have all the options the old water had, and some extra settings for summer vs winter water heater needs. This heater has a vent stack on it, and can be installed inside. Very cool!
We built an insulated box right off the porch for the new heater, and installed the vent. The box has a hinged door on it and the whole thing was coated in a rubber seal product. It was made mostly from scrap materials that were around the place.
The heater performs well from the showering use it has gotten so far, but we still need to plumb the hot water back inside. It's a simple matter of moving an existing line from the old heater and finding a fitting to bring a T off the heater's output line. For now though, the woodstove is burning constantly and I've been bringing rainwater inside and heating it on the stove. This helps keep the water tanks full, no sense in refilling them a bunch of times during the winter when the toolshed has such a nice water catchment gutter on it.
