Customer Reviews

InSinkErator H-WaveSN-SS Involve Series Wave Hot Water Dispenser with Stainless Steel Tank, Satin Nickel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

We have owned hot water dispensers since 1987. We love them and use it every day, mostly for tea and soups. This model will be our 4th Insinkerator hot water dispenser. We are remodeling our kitchen and wanted a new style to fit. This model looks great with our new kitchen decor. I installed it easily. Quick connect tubing and pipe fittings make it simple. However, there is one drawback. The hot water has a very strong plastic taste that ruins the flavor of tea or soup. This is due, I believe, to the plastic tubing from the hot water tank up to the dispenser spigot. We discovered that letting the hot water run a few seconds before filling the cup does away with any plastic taste. Not very energy wise, but they should have used copper tubing instead of plastic in that particular place.

I bought this and started installing it. I'm sure it's exceptional for someone who wants to mount this on a stainless steel sink. I have a 1-inch thick stone counter-top. While it does have a 3-inch plastic extender sleeve for thicker counter-tops, the sleeve makes the unit WIDER and this means drilling a wider hole in your stone counter-top. If you want to drill wider than normal holes in your stone counter top, you might like this. I really don't want to be drilling non-standard holes in my counter-top. The box and instructions don't tell you this. They say it will work on thick counters, but they don't say you'll need to drill non-standard holes in your counter-top to do it. You might think this is fine, but for me, The counter-top is way less replaceable and I want it to conform to spec. I'm just saying, folks with stone counter-tops need to think this through before they buy this particular hot water dispenser. I boxed it back up and plan to return it.

I would definitely reccommend this unit.

I purchased this unit to replace a Hot-1 unit which I felt was a great little unit.
The Hot-1 was a little noisy and the handle broke once but was replace without question
by calling the 800 number on the unit.

The new unit is definitely superior to the hot-1 as it makes no noise and is of heavier construction.
I installed it on my 1" granite counter tops with no problem but you will definitely need a 1 1/2" diameter
hole. The installion was easy but you will need something to mount the tank on as it is seperate from the faucet itself.

Since this was a replacement, installion wasn't a problem but if this is your first, instant under counter water heater,
connecting to the existing water line may be best left to your plumber.

First of all, I find having the instant hot water to be great. You get used to the convenience of having it. So much so, that when our older tank started leaking, we decided to replace it.

This unit looks good, the valve and spigot seem to work fine. Installation was pretty easy. So, it would get 5 stars from me if this one was the first one I had.

HOWEVER, this is the THIRD one in about 10 years. The first one was an earlier InSinkErator model and failed after 3 or 4 years. (I forget what the failure was). So, since the spigot was still good, and InSinkErator had a new stainless steel tank heater, we replaced the tank. It was the same model as this unit. We installed it in 2007. It worked fine until a few weeks ago. Got up one morning and the floor was all wet, and inside the cabinet was wetter. The leak was coming from inside the heater tank unit. (Fortunately, we got it cleaned up before the laminate floor was damaged)

I did some searching and all the other models had similar (or worse) reviews.. convenient, but lots of failures. So, we decided to stick with InSinkErator. And, since we had changed the faucet on that sink last year, we got this unit with a spigot that (sort of) matches the new faucet. Amazon delivered it promptly, installation was pretty easy (well as easy as any plumbing that involves crawling under the sink!). The "feel" of this valve is nicer than the old unit we had.

Once I got it all installed and working, I had the old, leaky tank sitting in front of me. I am an engineer. I design and build things.. and I have ALWAYS wanted to take apart things to see how they work (or don't work). This tank was about to go in the trash anyway, so I could take it apart with no worries about it maybe not going back together again. So, I did. A couple of screws, push and pry in a few spots and the case opened up. It turns out that the leak was in a plastic tube that was in direct contact with the stainless steel tank. I don't know the exact kind of plastic, but it was NOT a type for high temperatures. The tube had aged, turned brown, gotten brittle and cracked where it was in contact with the hot metal tank. This tube MIGHT have cost ten cents. They could just as well have used tube made from a better plastic or rearranged things a bit so the low temperature tube was not in contact with 190 deg F metal. It MIGHT have cost them 10 cents more.

So, they saved 10 cents, but the result was this thing leaked after 4 years. I had to spend $200 to replace it, and if we had not caught it when we did, we might have had to spend a LOT more to repair or replace the kitchen floor.

Actually, looking at other reviewers here on Amazon who had these fail just after the 3 year warranty expired, maybe they intended this to happen. And, maybe the new one I just bought has better tubing. (I did not open it up to look). They did change some of what were copper pipes to plastic tubes on the rest of the system.

Anyway, these are nice to have. In spite of the problems, I got yet another one. But we warned, they seem to fail right after the warranty expires.

And, based on prior experience, this time I installed the unit with a FloodStop leak sensing automatic cutoff valve FloodStop for Sinks Lead Free Water Valve FS3/8-CD. They seem to work fine, and will beep and shut off the water if this tank (or anything else under the sink) starts leaking.

One final thing, I said they failed in 3 or 4 years, but two of them lasted 10 years. The reason was that for a couple years we had a relative with dementia living with us. She could not understand that the little spigot was scalding hot water and would try to use it for washing dishes or her hands. So, for that time we had it turned off. The valve handle is pretty hard to activate, so kids small enough to not understand about it probably could not turn it on, but you do NOT want this if you have an adult in the house who cannot understand that its not "normal" hot water.

I debated a long time before I decided that I couldn't live with the way Franke vents their hot water dispenser, aka, The Little Butler. Franke uses their spigot as a pressure relief valve. As a result, we were plagued with dripping and sputtering. My wife kept a glass in the sink and would water her plants with the discharge. I called Franke and was told to turn down the temperature. Yet, if I turned it down to where it didn't drip, it was too cold to make tea. Ultimately, we decided to bear the significant cost of removing the Little Butler and have now replaced it with the ISE H-Wave unit. The controls are firm. The unit is solidly built. There's nary a "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz" (for those of you who remember the old Alka-Seltzer commercial) and, "Oh what a relief that is!" 5-stars.

This is a very good instant hot water dispensor. It was installed by a previous homeowner 1 year ago. I have had no problems. Insinkerator informed me that if anything went wrong within the nest year, they would replace all parts under warranty. Enjoy your hot cocoa and teas.

Top notch product, very easy to install. Replaced an older model. Works like a charm. Best price I could find was Amazon.

Works great as expected easy to install One HOT item

One of the best investments we've made. It is wonderful to have instant hot water and I think it saves money not having to heat up the stove every time I want a cup a tea.

After using this product for about two years the push handle broke and cannot be replaced, which make this product useless...