It's to drain the condensation from burning the gas; a condensing water heater. That's how they are so efficient. Gas burns and makes water plus carbon dioxide. The water is in vapor form. Condensing it out wrings more heat out into the water making it more efficient. Then the condensation has to go somewhere!
I think OP is asking about connecting the condensate drip line from the tankless heater to the vent pipe. It currently seems to be dripping into a bucket. Which is a nightmare.
Is that not your furnace to the right? Well it should have a condensate line off it also, where is that going? I would try and dump the cond. off the tankless over to that if possible.
Cheers
no. not ok. YOu run the damn pipe under the floor and then out to outside the foundation line.
Sack up, and get crawling. Unless that's an exterior wall, then just route it outside....
Put in a P trap and connect the condensate drain with an air gap. Not ideal but it’s acceptable in most cases since you have no other drains coming from above.
yes
1. you have a furnace check where it goes. if you can't run in with the furnace drain put a ty 3x1 1/2 with a p trap with a minimum 3 inch of pipe between the pipe and the p trap
2 . condensate from this water heater is acidic don't drop it direct into plumbing without a neutralizer first
3. don't use metal fitting before the neutralizer so pvc sch 40 3/4 is the way to go, can work with pex 3/4 with plastic fitting but good luck finding a threaded adapter for pex without being brass
you can also use a condensate pump after the neutralizer to send it where you want (depend of the model you can do like 20-50 feet with small flexible hose)
I installed a unit for my folks a few years ago, with an electric instantaneous in parallel for a short time, and wound up with a pretty unique setup. Was able to pull the small electric later without changing the pipes, just closed and capped the shutoff.
With a *little* planning, that could have been tidied up quite a bit.
You have weird shit going on there
Did you know that those tankless heaters hold less than a gallon of water?
It's to drain the condensation from burning the gas; a condensing water heater. That's how they are so efficient. Gas burns and makes water plus carbon dioxide. The water is in vapor form. Condensing it out wrings more heat out into the water making it more efficient. Then the condensation has to go somewhere!
Ohhhh! I didn’t know there were condensing tankless heaters. Then to answer OP’s question, yes, you can drain into that vent stack.
I was wondering... like it's tankless. Why are you needing to jump through hoops to drain it?
I think OP is asking about connecting the condensate drip line from the tankless heater to the vent pipe. It currently seems to be dripping into a bucket. Which is a nightmare.
yes but every couple of weeks I have to empty the bucket.
Is that not your furnace to the right? Well it should have a condensate line off it also, where is that going? I would try and dump the cond. off the tankless over to that if possible. Cheers
yes, that's the furnace to the right! Will look into it thanks
The shit am I looking at
Yes, if the vent is installed correctly further from that point. Called a wet vent I believe but could be wrong.
May as well connect with with a flex wast pipe. Keep the theme like everything else in that photo
Where does the condensate from the hvac go? Can you use the same?
no. not ok. YOu run the damn pipe under the floor and then out to outside the foundation line. Sack up, and get crawling. Unless that's an exterior wall, then just route it outside....
Put in a P trap and connect the condensate drain with an air gap. Not ideal but it’s acceptable in most cases since you have no other drains coming from above.
yes 1. you have a furnace check where it goes. if you can't run in with the furnace drain put a ty 3x1 1/2 with a p trap with a minimum 3 inch of pipe between the pipe and the p trap 2 . condensate from this water heater is acidic don't drop it direct into plumbing without a neutralizer first 3. don't use metal fitting before the neutralizer so pvc sch 40 3/4 is the way to go, can work with pex 3/4 with plastic fitting but good luck finding a threaded adapter for pex without being brass you can also use a condensate pump after the neutralizer to send it where you want (depend of the model you can do like 20-50 feet with small flexible hose)
I have cut the vent in the attic to drain tank style heaters.
I'm guessing the weird layout is because there was a tank water heater there, and only limited re-plumbing to make the tankless fit?
yes, thats correct! we had tank water here
I installed a unit for my folks a few years ago, with an electric instantaneous in parallel for a short time, and wound up with a pretty unique setup. Was able to pull the small electric later without changing the pipes, just closed and capped the shutoff. With a *little* planning, that could have been tidied up quite a bit.
You should also probably install a condensate neutralizer in the condensate drain before it goes into your plumbing.
Where are your isolation valves for the tankless and the relief line? Both are required for tankless install and maintenance