I emailed Harold about it yesterday and he emailed back with something along the lines of "you don't need to turn it off on warmer days because there is a theromostat built in, so it won't run unless it's cold".
I want to know what temp it runs at and what temp it will stop. But ya, they took it off on purpose for sure, the screw is still on it, so I can still kind of turn it on/off if I tried to. I actually had it off this whole time, so maybe when they saw it was off they removed it on mine. I left a note for them on my counter asking why does it need to be left running if your furnance/hot water is used on a consistent basis? He wrote "in case your furnace or water heater stops working".
Vandyk should not have moved the water heater outside, especially since they went with tankless, could have easily fit in the laundry closet.
I'm surprised building code allowed them to move a water heater outdoors that requires consistent heat in the winter months from a space heater.