Customer Reviews

Bosch GL2.5 Ariston 2-1/2-Gallon Point-of-Use Indoor Electric Mini-Tank Water Heater

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I live in the northeast. It gets cold here. My basement is warmer than outdoors, but, despite copiously wrapping my pipes in insulation, I get cold water in my kitchen sink for something like 8-9 seconds (at full blast) before the water becomes passably warm. Working from home, having rambunctious teenagers and more than a few dogs, I do a lot of cleaning and hand-washing. I wasted a lot of water (water which was previously heated at some expense) trying just to get a little warm water. Worse, the dishwasher didn't change water fast enough to keep the water in the line warm, so the dishes would get rinsed in cold water every time, even if you use the water heat option for the wash. Certainly this is not a big problem, but I lived with it for five winters and decided this was the time to do something about it.

I purchased this point-of-use water heater (the smallest of three versions) so that it would fit underneath my kitchen cabinet. I've been using it for a few days now, and am thrilled that I get warm water every time, day or night, whatever happens, in about 1-2 seconds, max.

Now the challenges. It was relatively easy to hook up, as long as you can, for instance, install a new faucet, and are passably familiar with plumbing sizes and patch cords, like between your water line and sink, or between the water line and toilet, etc. I bought a new one from the line to the heater, and another from the heater to the sink. The most time-consuming thing was the drive to the hardware store. Some relatively strong turns of the attaching points, a little contorting under the sink to reconnect the hot water faucet (and a little help from the "shop light",) and it's not an overwhelming task. Don't be shy or hesitant to look carefully for leaks. Better to make adjustments or do tightening sooner rather than later, after something gets potentially damaged.

Possibly more challenging might be having an electrical outlet that can be dedicated to the water heater, which takes 1500 watts, and will certainly blow your circuit every time if you try to combine it with a dishwasher, microwave, toaster, or anything else "thirsty" (most things are) in the kitchen.

I am very pleased with the thermostat in this product, and have done a lot of trial-and-error adjusting to make it the right temperature for me (warm, but it won't burn you.)

I do have a "main" water heater, which heats water for the house, so if I am using a lot of hot water, the main water heater takes over, basically. This is okay with me, as it's cheaper to use my main gas water heater, but not cheaper to run a lot of water trying to get it. This seems a good compromise and a good solution for me. I recommend this product for anyone with my situation who can resolve the challenges of the plumbing adjustment and electrical requirements.

While I have only used this product for a few days, I have not noticed a large spike in my electrical use, and it does not seem like this is going to cost me lots to use. Hopefully the savings from using less water and less hot water will cover some of the cost of the convenience.

I bought two GL2.5 water heaters in 3/2006 & installed one for a master bedroom and the other for the kitchen sink w/a T to dishwasher. Very nice to have hot water fast. Otherwise have to wait for it to come from attic quite some distance. BUT the directions suggest CLEANING it out every year. This pretty much means uninstall it if in a tight location! Turn upside down to drain, descale element and REPLACE ANODE! Every YEAR! Have you ever done that with a water heater... and they last 10 yrs. no problem! Well here, I did not do that & the first started to fail in late 2007. The thermostat breaker would kick off & I would reset it. Then that stopped working and I ordered a replacement thermostat in 4/2008 from Grainger. That worked & then we had our main circuit breaker kicking off easy. I think it was shorting through the mineral deposits! Unknown to me at the time... Then the tank fails mid-2009. Soon in Fall 2009 the 2nd unit had a tank failure (fyi, it never had the breaker or thermostat trip first). Both units were a mess to clean up. Lucky we were home. These are not safe w/o access and the recommended pan. The pan should be deep and have a drain & water alarm. The yearly service MUST be done. Just not worth it so I put everything back the way it was originally. Why not use a better tank and design? How they are now is asking for trouble unless you are very good w/scheduled preventive maintenance.

I hooked this up in the kitchen sink to avoid a 30 foot run from the main HWH. It took about 1 hour under the sink and another 30 minutes installing another power outlet. The heater works great. The 2.5 gallon supply is plenty to handle dishes and hand washes. I disconnected the main supply and have not missed it.

We have a long run from the hot water tank to the basement sink which gets a lot of use. After waiting for 45 seconds, or so, for hot water the furnace will start up to replace all the hot water being used to travel the long distance. The solution was the Ariston GL 2.5 gal.electric mini tank water heater. I installed it under the sink and the hook-up was simple using stainless, flexible water lines. I was fortunate to have an outlet on a dedicated circuit nearby. Hot water is instant and there is an indicator light on the "off/on" switch to let you know when it is heating. It works well and it's made in the USA.

Great little water heater. The outside plastic case doesn't even get warm on the highest setting; really well insultated. Some changes I made:

- Used a different 110v circuit to avoid overloading dishwasher or disposer circuit. The nearby disposer outlet was switched and not usable for this anyway.

- At first I plumbed the garage water heater as input to this little one, but realized that would just keep wasting the energy used to heat the long line of water that arrives cool anyway. So I plumbed the cold water to the input side of the 2.5 gal unit and it still works just fine. We just have to avoid running too much hot water unnecessarily like we did previously waiting for the hot water to arrive.

- (While doing this replumbing, I also moved my dishwasher line from the hot to the cold water side since it has it's own water heater element. This means the garage hot water heater no longer supplies any hot water to this sink location. I figure this somewhat offsets the added energy use of the little one.)

- I drilled holes in the covers of the Ariston to put a knob on the thermostat shaft. This allows us to dial in the lowest setting that will provide sufficient hot water for normal use. The highest setting is very hot, and can easily hurt your fingers unless you cut it with cold water.

- Might be a good idea to put a low metal tray under the unit which is a code requirement in my town for standard water heaters.

- I'm considering adding a timer to turn off overnight and when we are away; need a heavy duty one with high wattage capacity.

The only problems I encountered were during installation and were of no fault to the manufacturer.

1) Make sure you have an outlet that can supply a dedicated 15 AMP draw to this appliance. I was fortunate to have a 20 AMP outlet servicing my dishwasher which only draws 7.5 AMP's and decided to share the circuit and have not tripped the breaker once in the past year with this setup.

2) At the time of installation, there was no drain pan small enough to fit under my kitchen sink so I had to fabricate my own out of a plastic storage bin. I have every confidence that the mini water heater will last a long time, but since these devices are too new on the market, there's no telling how long the tank will last before it deteriorates and springs a leak to which you need an external drain.

3) I had to make a trip to a specialty plumber's store in order to route the pressure relief valve into the garbage disposal inlet. These parts are not readily available at Home Depot or Lowe's. I chose to do this in order to protect my cabinets should the thermostat fail (and get stuck to the "on" position) within the unit.

4) The thermostat was set to the lowest setting by the manufacturer and I had to turn it up in order to achieve the desired temperature to which I now get near instant hot water at the tap. The best part is that by the time the 2.5 gal tank has drained all of it's hot water, I get fresh hot water from the main water heater in the garage filling the tank back up.

This is definitely the best alternative solution than buying a tankless system which requires 60AMP+ dedicated electrical that can substantially add the expense of the project. I've outlined the only additional costs above which were about $50 in parts and took about an hour to install.

Before this small water heater was installed under my bathroom sink, I had to run 2 gallons to get hot water. Now I have hot water instantly...and the price at Amazon was cheaper than anywhere else.

I purchased a Bosch GL2.5 Ariston 2-1/2-Gallon water heater 3 years ago from Amazon for placement under my kitchen sink. Prior to installing this heater, it took a long time and a serious waste of water before the water became hot, which is unacceptable for kitchen sink use.

I installed the unit myself which is very easy if you have even the slightest knowledge of plumbing and a few typical tools.

The heater worked great for about a year. Then one morning, I got out of bed and went to the kitchen to make coffee. My kitchen floor was flooded. The relief valve on the top of the heater was leaking badly. Fortunately, I have tile floor in the kitchen and after several hours of clean-up and cussing, the kitchen was usable again. My kitchen cabinets were soaked, so I left the doors open and used a fan to circulate air for drying purposes.

Can you imagine what would have happened if we had been gone on vacation when this happened?

I called Bosch customer service in Vermont and told them of the failure of the unit, and that my kitchen was a flooded disaster. I sent them pictures of the heater and the kitchen before cleanup to verify what had happened. They were very responsive and sent me another heater that day via FedEx.

I installed the new heater, and put a drain pan under it to catch any leaking water...lesson learned! Even if I had placed the drain pan under the first heater, there was way too much water for the pan to hold even one tenth of it.

So, I installed the new heater, but it wouldn't hold the set temperature. It was either cold or very hot. I again called customer service, and they sent me a new thermostat which is easy to install. The new thermostat helped a little, but it still didn't hold anything close to a steady temperature. So, back to customer service. They sent me another thermostat. That one worked better, but it still had substantial swings in temperature. Sometimes warm and sometimes hot, but I was tired of working on the heater, and just learned to accept that it would vary in temperature. At least I didn't have cold water at the sink.

That water heater lasted about 18 months. Last month, I noticed a rusty leak coming out of the relief valve fitting on top of the heater again. I had purchased a backup heater after the first debacle, and I got it out of storage and installed it. So far it is not leaking, but I still get temperature swings. This morning, my wife asked why the water from the sink wasn't very hot. That question was the catalyst for writing this review.

So, after 3 years, I am on my 3rd heater. I really need a point-of-use heater for my kitchen sink, but I do not have much faith in the Bosch heaters. By the way, they are made in China.

There are several other manufacturers of similar heaters, but I have no experience with any of them. If I could find one that was reliable, I would replace the Bosch in a heartbeat.

My advice to those of you who have one of these, or who are considering getting one, is to keep a close eye on it, and if you notice even the smallest leak, remove it immediately, or you will be cleaning up a flooded kitchen like I did. And don't forget the drain pan!

We've had the 2 1/2 gallon heater for several weeks now, and I love it. I'd been wanting something for a long time because my regular tank is on one end of the house and the kitchen is in the middle; and it took only 1 minute for the water to start getting hot before, but that is an eternity when you just want to quickly rinse something and be done with it. My husband and I installed the tank under the kitchen sink. We needed one additional flexible hose and two small adapters to hook it up. We measured the inside and outside openings on the connections and went to Lowe's and found what we needed. We had an electrical plug under the sink already for the dishwasher and disposal. I don't use the disposal, so I used that plug. You probably could have an adapter for a third plug-in, but you might have a power problem if you tried to use two things at the same time though. It's REALLY NICE and convenient having instant hot water.

Easy to install. Good instructions, good online info.
I had some warm water in about 15 minutes.
Just take note- one must hook up the relief valve pipe as well- easy to overlook.

Good unit, simple operation. I'm not paying the bill for the electricity, so have not paid attention to the cost.
Wondering how long it will last, but for the moment quite satisfied with the simplicity and clean design.

I'd read somewhere in a comment that the unit is made in USA-Wrong!
Made in China, like everytning else.