Hi - a few accumulated questions:
- I was visiting the UK a few years ago when it was pointed out to me that boiling water in the kitchen with a stand-alone plug-in device takes less time, since the voltages are higher. I boil water in the US with such a pot, and am happy with it, but would it be worth it to see if somehow I could install a 240 Volt plug in my kitchen and task it exclusively to a small water boiler pitcher? Or is this a bad idea. In using such pitchers, I am always paranoid about whether a low-quality or broken one will stay on after the water has boiled off and then cause a fire, so I tend to get rid of ones that don't seem good, and unplug them when not in use, regardless of recommendations.
- A tankless water heater was recently recommended to me again. I had stayed away from this I think because my solar hot water heater requires a tank of some sort anyway, but is there a tried-and-true solution to combining solar hot water with tankless? I need electric heating during winter months, rainy periods, or when I have visitors. Maybe tankless can just be added to a system that has a tank with no problem? Searching my memory, I don't think I was hung up on just the wording (Tank/tankless) but maybe the decision-making here for me was influenced by whatever answers I got from a solar installer. I'll have to revisit this with them.
- I have a long-standing battle to figure out a better solution to "softening" the water at my house. Looking back, I see that we discussed this a year ago in the forum, so I'll go back and re-read some of the answers I got at that time.
addendum:
I think some of these projects could get expensive pretty quickly, for me, and so maybe that's contributing to how long it is taking me to make decisions on some of them. I did recently purchase a piece of equipment to try a new tack on the hard water issues.