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143 of 150 found the following review helpful:
 Two Fail in 2 & 3 years Jan 29, 2010
By Keith M.
"BSME Ohio State"
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.
127 of 133 found the following review helpful:
 The solution for point-of-use warm water Mar 12, 2007
By Michael L. Wiersma
"ksmichael"
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.
35 of 35 found the following review helpful:
Great price, works great also!! Sep 30, 2007
By G. Austin
"vulcan"
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.
32 of 33 found the following review helpful:
Installation ideas May 06, 2008
By B. Breckenfeld
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.
26 of 26 found the following review helpful:
Solving slow hot water retrieval Feb 17, 2008
By Woodworker
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.
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