One more question... New barn shell is done. For those of you who have wash stalls in the barn, how did you do the water heater, or for those who have experience, what do you recommend.
I'm going to install the pipe soon and want to only do the backhoe work once, so your input is appreciated.
I put a "wetroom" next to the wash bay. I picked up a used restaraunt sink with huge double tubs for bucket cleaning, etc. Then, I put a toilet and an 80 gal water heater in that room. I have frost proof faucets feeding through the wall into the wash bay. I had 4" pipe fed into that room when I did the concrete floor. That made it easy to run the water line in later. The main supply comes in and feeds two hydrants in the barn aisle as well as the wetroom.
Go to the expense of using electrical plastic conduit if you plan on doing it like I did. That way, you can use a "sweep" 90 rather than the short PVC white plastic 90's. Makes it easy to feed that one inch water pipe in.
I chose an 80 gal heater over a POS heater because I have a double wash bay. Rather than use space for grooming, my wash by is 16 feet wide and 12 feet deep. I have a divider about 6 feet long to somewhat separate the stalls for safety. The bay is like a big "U" so timid horses can be led around the divider if they have a backing problem as well as making it easy to access the hoses which are in the one back corner area. I have four frost proof valves, hot and cold for both sides. I then got two of those hoses that feed two lines to one so the water can be tempered to a person's liking.
I have a drain that catches hair and other debris even though the drain feeds into a 15" pipe that was installed for runoff water control. Technically, it should run into the sewer but I have an onsite system as I expect most barns would. I don't want all that extra water and dirt, etc. in my system.
Wouldn't the infrequent use of the hot water in such an operation make the "instant" tankless heaters (gas or electric) a consideration. You have standby losses all the time with a tank whether or not you use water. Of course if money is no object or you pay 3 cents per KWh or have your own natural gas well then disregard the above.
Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
I think the use of an instant heater would require heating the room that it goes in to keep the pipes from freezing... The hot water heater can be enclosed and insulated, keeping the pipes from freezing. Frost free spickets can be placed in the wall and then there is a solution that doesn't freeze the supply pipes and doesn't require room heat.... Someone else may have a different point of view... Speak up...
We run our horse operation as a business so we can deduct the electric bill which is on a seperate service. I just got my latest bill. The weather has been mild so we have not been running our barn fans so the power demand is limited to mostly the water heater and the lights during the evening.
That bill was 28 bucks. No big deal. For that, we never worry about running out of piping hot water.
Our "wet room" has an electric heater which we keep set at around 55 degrees in the winter. Fifty five feels good if you come in from a 20 degree barn. As we winter closes in, we will simply leave the 100 watt incondescent ceiling light on prior to turning the heater on.
We can accomadate about 23 horses. We tend to do chores such as scrubbing buckets in marathon sessions so we can use a lot of hot water in a short period of time.
At 80 gallons, our heater is a bit large actually. Our area has a high iron count. Once I start to smell sulfer, I know it is time to cool down the heater to drain and flush it. I have also lived in an area that was rich in limestone deposits. Limestone will readily collect in a heater and you won't know there is a problem until the lower element burns out.
One size does not fit all.
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