FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. - Noritz America recently extended its 12-year/6,500-hour warranty to all Noritz residential tankless water heater products that feature its durable, commercial-grade heat exchanger. Included are the new NR83-DVC concentric tankless water heater, as well as the NR98, NRC111, and NR111.

“Twelve years typically translates into roughly 1.5 hours of water heater combustion per day,” explained Bob Hitchner, senior vice president of sales, marketing, and business development. “A residential system that circulates warm water for a couple of hours in the morning and another couple of hours in the evening should make it for the full 12 years.”

To qualify for protection under the new residential recirculation warranty, a Noritz tankless water heater must meet the following key stipulations:

• The unit must have been installed on or after Sept. 1, 2010, and equipped with a controlled recirculation pump system that has been installed in accordance with the Noritz installation manual.

• Water heater operational time must not exceed 12 years, or 6,500 hours, whichever comes first. (Note: Operational hours are the hours of actual usage, as counted and stored in the water heater controller.)

• The recirculation pump must be controlled by an aquastat, which activates the pump when the water temperature falls below a minimum set point and deactivates it when the water temperature reaches the maximum set point.

Noritz also strongly recommends the usage of demand-type timers and sensors to confine pump activation to peak usage periods, further reducing the load on the water heater.

“We made the decision to extend the warranty after extensively testing our commercial-grade heat ex- changers,” Hitchner said.

“We clearly demonstrated to ourselves that Noritz commercial heat exchangers could withstand the additional operational time of a recirculation application.”

Publication date: 10/18/2010