Tankless Water Heaters for Commercial Applications

Tankless water heaters are a great solution for commercial applications. In fact, larger commercial applications that require more hot water have a larger savings potential when switching to tankless water heaters. This is why commercial applications have a lot to gain in efficiency and operational advantages. Not to be overlooked is placement, size and added security of redundancy that play a big part in benefitting commercial use. With proper sizing, piping design and installation, multiple tankless units in commercial and other higher demand hot water usage are a perfect choice.

In plumbing design, water fixture counts has been the design tool and criteria to calculate all building plumbing system sizing and applications. With regards to hot water, this is further broken down into hot water fixture units or HWFUs. The combination of pipe sizing and hot water demand capabilities is the then determined by diversity factors calculated for the specific application. One commonly used is the “Hunters Curve.” Assistance with sizing a specific hot water application is also offered by our NaviSizer™ calculator.

In some instances, it may be physical size, capacity, ratings, and approvals. But in Navien’s case the same products may be applied both commercially and residentially. The only thing that changes is the heat exchanger warranty periods. Navien’s robust design and proven performance makes Navien a smart choice for all types of hot water applications. Having the industry’s strongest commercial warranty and customer support gives everyone more peace of mind.

Navien offers the NPE-240A2 (Advanced) and NPE-240S2 (Standard) models in a 199,900 BTU/h capacity.

Offering the following GPM flow rates from a single tankless at the perspective temperature rises:

80 °F (44.4 °C) rate/4.9 GPM (18.5 l/m)

100 °F (55.6 °C) rate/3.9 GPM (14.8 l/m)

140 °F (77.8 °C) rate/2.8 GPM (10.6 l/m)

By cascading multiple Navien tankless units, up to 12 - 199,900 BTU/h capacity tankless units may be common vented together for a total 48 GPM/(182 l/m) at 100 °F (55.6 °C) temperature rise. Also with the ability to cascade up to 32 - 199,900 BTU/h capacity performing as one system, 125 GPM/(475 l/m) at 100 °F (55.6 °C) temperature rise is achieved to meet some extremely large peak GPM flows in all types of circumstances. These large flows, and performance is all achieved with also one of the industries lowest firing rates of 13,300 BTU/h capacity. With a 15:1 turndown ratio (TDR) this modulation, sequential firing, lead/lag unit their operation is controlled automatically via integrated control panels and system.

One word – Absolutely! Navien has been a provider of commercial tankless hot water systems for many of the major retail food restaurants as well as locally owned and managed food service operations for over 14 years. Many restaurants require and benefit from the redundancy of multiple tankless (2 or more) to meet the high demands as well as serve as backup redundancy to never go down in service or operation due to lack of hot water.

Plumbing and design professionals are well versed in sizing and selecting a proper commercial hot water system to meet the needs of the various applications. Navien also offers a free sizing program accessible from the Navien website called NaviSizer™. This simple online program assists via custom selected applications, location and requirement inputs to help aid in proper sizing with various application options.

Most maintenance required is entirely dependent on water quality and if there is a need for water treatment. The expected maintenance intervals beside the normal screen cleanings of the air and water intakes which is usually 1-2 times a year could also involve a simple flushing process dependent on incoming water quality to assure they are operating at their peak efficiency and output performance(s).

With durable, dual stainless steel heat exchangers, Navien NPE-2 series tankless water heaters offer some the longest and best warranties in the industry commercially. With 5-years parts and 8-years heat exchanger warranties, Navien condensing tankless water heaters solve issues of reliability, durability, operating efficiency, energy and water conservation, installation and customer support for commercial applications throughout North America.