Condo Fees vs. Home Ownership

[W. K. Lis]

Some condos now have their own water heaters in the unit. Some are electric but now some are natural gas. If natural gas, they may also use that for heating as well. If the units do have natural gas, it maybe cheaper to ask for a natural gas stove and clothes dryer.

Individual bills for whatever you use, as well.

 

[rbt]

Some condos now have their own water heaters in the unit. Some are electric but now some are natural gas. If natural gas, they may also use that for heating as well. If the units do have natural gas, it maybe cheaper to ask for a natural gas stove and clothes dryer.

I've seen per-unit water heaters in Quebec but their units (and cost of space) tend to be a lot lower.

I suppose this is an effort to take things out of the maintenance fees to make the cost of living look lower at the sales office?

Next up, coin operated elevators.

 

[doug]

I have never heard of this. Please show me an example.

The Garment factory lofts on Carlaw is an example.

Every condo I have ever seen utilizes a central chiller and boiler (unless it is older and uses electric baseboard heating)

OK, I guess your experience isn't very extensive.

The cold water is converted to cold air which is then forced out through ducts.

I understand what a heat exchanger is and how it works. My point is, not all condo buildings use this approach these days. You're lack of knowledge of this isn't proof of anything.
Your heat pump explanation is cute though

 

[Eug]

My condo was a condo townhouse, and my unit was the top two floors of a stacked 4-floor low-rise setup. I had my own tank water heater and my own heating and cooling, with my own electricity and natural gas bills. The AC was on my rooftop patio. One nice benefit was my gas outlet on the rooftop patio, for a BBQ.

This is in downtown Toronto by the way, with "downtown" meaning north of Front, south of King, and east of Bathurst.

P.S. TV and internet access were exclusively Rogers initially. Thankfully this exclusivity was dropped a couple of years later because by that time, Rogers' broadband access in the area became extremely oversubscribed.

 

[W. K. Lis]

My condo was a condo townhouse, and my unit was the top two floors of a stacked 4-floor low-rise setup. I had my own tank water heater and my own heating and cooling, with my own electricity and natural gas bills. The AC was on my rooftop patio. One nice benefit was my gas outlet on the rooftop patio, for a BBQ.

This is in downtown Toronto by the way, with "downtown" meaning north of Front, south of King, and east of Bathurst.

P.S. TV and internet access were exclusively Rogers initially. Thankfully this exclusivity was dropped a couple of years later because by that time, Rogers' broadband access in the area became extremely oversubscribed.

Is the hot water tank a rental? Could you change it to a tankless?

 

[RT2020]

I understand what a heat exchanger is and how it works. My point is, not all condo buildings use this approach these days. You're lack of knowledge of this isn't proof of anything.
Your heat pump explanation is cute though

Okay, so what approach are they using then? What is it called? Please educate me?

 

[cdr108]

Depends on the building, not all have these.



Actually, a lot of newer condos are sticking leased chillers on balconies. You pay for the maintenance of the leased unit.

I have never heard of this. Please show me an example.

Every condo I have ever seen utilizes a central chiller and boiler (unless it is older and uses electric baseboard heating). This system is the most efficient approach and uses the least amount of energy overall. For air conditioning, a chiller unit on the roof generates cold water which is circulated through the building to individual fan coil units in each suite. The cold water is converted to cold air which is then forced out through ducts. Likewise, for heating, the central boiler sends hot water through the building which your fan coil converts to hot air which is then blown through your suite.

i believe it's very common in menkes projects.
i can't recall the name but their new project by yonge/finch has them on their balconies.

 

[dlam]

^ultima?

 

[Eug]

Is the hot water tank a rental? Could you change it to a tankless?

It was a rental. I would imagine I could have changed it to a tankless had I lived there longer but I probably would have gotten another tank instead, to save money. The cost premium of going tankless wouldn't be covered by the ongoing savings of tankless over tanks. Plus you have to maintain a tankless with yearly flushings, which either costs time or costs money, or both.

In my current house I most definitely wanted to get a bigger tank than my current 50 gallon, because I run out of hot water in the winter just half-way through filling my soaker tub. I was considering getting a 75 gallon tank, but they're huge and wouldn't fit at all in the existing tank spot, and wouldn't fit easily in another spot either. Plus, good 75 gallon tanks, either direct vent or power vented, cost a crapload of money vs. conventional 50 gallon tanks, so the cost savings over tankless isn't huge. So, I'm getting a tankless.

Come to think of it though, on second thought though I don't think I'd be able to get a tankless for that townhouse. My tank in that condo was probably something like 36000 BTU. The tankless I'm buying now for my house is 200000 BTU, and in fact I may even have to get a new gas meter to support it. For a condo like that I'd expect a tankless to be about 120000 BTU. At that type of gas utilization, I'm not sure the gas piping was properly sized for it, and all the venting would need to be replaced too. I'm sure the condo board would simply say no, and the cost would be prohibitive anyway. Plus, the water in the place seemed pretty hard. Tankless water heaters are very prone to scale buildup in hard water conditions.

 

[cdr108]

It was a rental. I would imagine I could have changed it to a tankless had I lived there longer but I probably would have gotten another tank instead, to save money. The cost premium of going tankless wouldn't be covered by the ongoing savings of tankless over tanks. Plus you have to maintain a tankless with yearly flushings, which either costs time or costs money, or both.

In my current house I most definitely wanted to get a bigger tank than my current 50 gallon, because I run out of hot water in the winter just half-way through filling my soaker tub. I was considering getting a 75 gallon tank, but they're huge and wouldn't fit at all in the existing tank spot, and wouldn't fit easily in another spot either. Plus, good 75 gallon tanks, either direct vent or power vented, cost a crapload of money vs. conventional 50 gallon tanks, so the cost savings over tankless isn't huge. So, I'm getting a tankless.

Come to think of it though, on second thought though I don't think I'd be able to get a tankless for that townhouse. My tank in that condo was probably something like 36000 BTU. The tankless I'm buying now for my house is 200000 BTU, and in fact I may even have to get a new gas meter to support it. For a condo like that I'd expect a tankless to be about 120000 BTU. At that type of gas utilization, I'm not sure the gas piping was properly sized for it, and all the venting would need to be replaced too. I'm sure the condo board would simply say no, and the cost would be prohibitive anyway. Plus, the water in the place seemed pretty hard. Tankless water heaters are very prone to scale buildup in hard water conditions.

when i replaced my furnace and a/c in 2010, the various dealers were heavily promoting tankless because of the gov't incentives. but i did the analysis and came to the conclusion that the savings to heat were dramatically offset by the initial high cost and the maintenance costs for annual flushings, problems with hard water in GTA which would shorten the lifespan of the tankless system, poor reliability with high repair costs, and the delay with getting hot water (supposedly one has to run the hot water for few minutes before it actually heats up) were all negatives for me.

as an aside, i found that alot of the dealers also inflated their prices because of the gov't incentives, and most consumers are not in the know since how often do we change things like furnaces, A/C, water tanks, etc.

 

[Eug]

If I just went with a regular direct vent 50 gallon tank the price would be much, much cheaper. However, because the quote I got for a 75 gallon direct vented high BTU tank was within $350 of the tankless, and because of the fact that 75 gallon was a very borderline fit in the cramped space I was considering, I decided to go with tankless. The guy claimed his dealer cost for the tank was super high. I initially thought he was pulling my leg so I went online only to find that the online direct sales cost was even higher than his claimed dealer cost, so he was telling the truth.

As for the hard water, I have a whole house carbon filtration system, which definitely helps.

Mind you instead of sticking with the tankless quote he gave me, I told him to install an electric buffer tank as well. I'm getting a 6 gallon electric tank heater placed after the tankless. Since the water coming into it is usually already heated, it should be inexpensive to use. This solves the problem of the added tankless delay, and also solves the cold water sandwich issue. It also solves the tankless minimum flow rate problem. Tankless units won't activate unless a certain threshold flow rate is reached, usually 0.4 - 0.5 gallons per minute.

In terms of condo usage though, it's all moot as a retrofit. Tankless isn't a drop-in replacement. The high BTU requirement and specialized ventilation requirement changes everything. Plus they're higher maintenance, which is something condo dwellers generally may not like. In my condo too, there was no water filtration system or water softener, nor was there room for one in my unit, which means if I didn't religiously maintain the tankless, it'd probably go on the fritz within a couple of years.

Tankless can work in condos though if the condos are built to support tankless. They, and tanks for that matter, are less suited for high rise condos, but for condo townhouses for example, tankless does make sense. The building designs would have to include proper gas pipe sizing, proper utility room locations for inexpensive but appropriate venting options, and properly placed drains.

 

[dlam]

As for the hard water, I have a whole house carbon filtration system, which definitely helps.

Eug, are you sure your carbon filtration system will remove hardness from your water?

What activated carbon does NOT remove


Similar to other types of water treatment, activated carbon filtration is effective for some contaminants and not effective for others. activated carbon filtration does not remove microbes, sodium, nitrates, fluoride, and hardness.

Source: http://www.apswater.com/article.asp?id=24&title=Activated+Carbon+Filtration

 

[Eug]

It's a Nimbus system, but I guess it's not really a pure carbon filtration system. It's supposed to be a 2-in-1 softener and filter, but when I talk to them next I'll verify the details. No salt needed though.

So, to bring this back on topic... Many of these things in many condo buildings are included, but many condos don't have the stuff at all. Soft water is not something I'd expect in a condo complex, and tankless is often (usually?) not an option.

 

[vz64]

It was a rental. I would imagine I could have changed it to a tankless had I lived there longer but I probably would have gotten another tank instead, to save money. The cost premium of going tankless wouldn't be covered by the ongoing savings of tankless over tanks. Plus you have to maintain a tankless with yearly flushings, which either costs time or costs money, or both.
.

I don't think the model we use require annual flushings, at least not according to our manual (we have Navien model, don't remember which one). There are some non-monetory benefits, such as not worrying too much about running out of warm water, even if three sources are using water at the same time; very useful feature with our big family (3 kids). Talking generally about cost of maintaining a house, we paid a lot at the beginning when we were building our new house a year ago, but, one year later, we haven't spent any money on maintenance and our utility bill is in negative balance so far. We have a 3.5K PCV solar system, which returned $4.2K since last year (15% ROI). All our utility bills (gas, water, electricity) are covered by this amount, with some extra remaining. Beside tankless water heater, we insulated house with some extra R-values and we installed geothermal heating and cooling system. We paid $28K for PCV solar system and $38K for geothermal exchange system, the cost that can be spent easily on expensive decor.

 

[Eug]

According to the guy who quoted me a Navien, it should ideally be flushed once a year. Of course, it depends on how hard your water is though.

---

I think this thread turn illustrates the important points about condo fees vs. home ownership. Home ownership offer a lot of choice, but there is also potential headache to go along with that choice. Condos force you to pay the fees for more limited choice, but with more convenience.