I love this guy! He knows of which he speaks and he has a way of speaking that keeps me listening. He should be a VERY recurring guest on this podcast. Oh, I responded to this particular comment because, that pointer is on point.
That's the word Robb. Unpretentious. You find these kind of subs and you hang on to them and you pay them well for their expertise and no bull presentation.
“It goes outside………somewhere….” Don’t know why that made me lol so much. Delivery is perfect. Especially appreciated the pointer! You guys should keep doing plumbing videos:)
We have had our Rinnai tankless water heater running for 9 years now in Tucson, AZ, where water is off-the-charts hard. The "flushing kit" Phil installed to allow flushing the unit with vinegar is very important. We put together a flush set-up with a small pump and two washing machine hoses with a 5 gallon bucket. Per Rinnai's instructions, we flush the heater once a year (circulating 4 gallons of white vinegar in the bucket) and our unit works flawlessly. Also great advice to look for the packing nut on ball valves and quarter turn angle stops.
A master plumber on another video I watched said he uses a clean sock on the return side to filter out all the minerals, you could also use a a small washable filter. Then when he's done he empties the vinegar and cycles clean water to flush out any vinegar. There is a small screen on the inlet side to clean also. This is the most helpful tip I've found so far.
@@landonlandon5533 Yes, that inlet filter is important to clean - especially when the home is new and all the crud from construction clogs it up after the first week someone lives in the home. Another tip, we pout the 4 gal of vinegar into our sinks and tub to let it sit for a little while to remove the mineral build up you get in hard water areas around the drains. We then flush well to dilute the vinegar when the vinegar goes down the drain.
You're right... these need descaled every year under those circumstances. Same at our house. I just decided to have the plumber do it as a PM service call. That way, when my wife is here after I've left this life she won't have to worry about it.
Phil is the coolest dude and also very entertaining just like Cy. I could listen to these two men all day. Love the channel. P.S. Phil should market that "finger" pointer..."Phil's Phinger" 😂
As always, Phil does a great job explaining plumbing. I especially liked the explanation on smart purchase of a ball valve. I didn't know that. I loved watching Phil use his Knipex pliers. Great tools, I've used them since the '80's. I really hope there are more gas mechanics that can work on these heaters. I installed a gas tankless heater in my house in the late 80's. Worked fantastic the first year. As soon as the rubber piece that controls the gas flow wore out, I could not get a repairman to replace it properly. After about 3 or 4 tries, I removed it & put in a tank. I did not feel qualified to replace it myself, even though I could see what the guy was doing wrong.
I learnt something very important today: water heater condensate is quite acidic. I collect it for my garden, but now I'll be careful to only use it on acidic soil plants. Thanks Phil!
I've very much enjoyed the Spec House project from start to finish here on TH-cam. My only worry is that with this project wrapping up we won't see Phil as often as we should! He's been a bright star during the house build, and a testament to people in the trades. Good luck to us all in 2022!
Yeah. That "water" is basically carbonated - water plus CO2 from the combustion process. (you get the same thing in the tailpipe of a car, btw.) I've never actually measure the acidity.
@@paulkolodner2445 Actually, I'm pretty proud of it. The only thing making me stand in the corner will do is keep you from seeing me smile. 😁 And, patiently ponder plumbing puns, in all probability*. Your groan is duly noted. __ *Homework from my Adult Alliteracy class.
I absolutely love Phil !!! He is such a wealth of knowledge and at the same time very down to earth!!! He is a true tradesman, maybe EC should think about doing a spin-off channel that works with Phil everyday!!
We, homeowners, have all looked at tankless water heaters in classified ads and thought seriously of upgrading. Thanks for telling us viewers we would have to upgrade the gas line. I have never had given that a thought.
Had a Veissmann B1KA installed 18 months ago. No complaints. Heats water for the baseboards and showers. The piping looks like a Rube Goldberg Machine on the wall. Gas use has gone down. The old Laars mini Therm was on its' last legs as was the water heater. The gas company gave me a nice size incentive for the retrofit. My utility room is more roomy, added a small work bench and cabinet for tools.
I love the point about spacing things apart enough so that you can actually work on them! That's so very important, and it's part of why classic cars are usually (with a few notable exceptions) much easier to wrench on than the newer stuff where you have wires and ducts and coolant pipes and transmission fluid lines going every which way around the engine bay making it so you have to tear half the things out of there just to get at one tiny thing that on a classic car would be right out in the open and replaced in like 15 minutes. I mean have you seen how long some service manuals give you to change something like an alternator these days? I'd bet that roughly half that time is just to remove and replace other WORKING things out of the way in a non-destructive manner so that you can actually get your hands in there to work on what's actually wrong with the vehicle in the first place. Some of the Volkswagens and BMW's out there have taken the right approach to this IMO. As part of the normal service procedures to replace certain parts connected to the engine, you remove the front bumper! It might seem like a drastic step to take, but that's the thing, they DESIGNED the bumper to be removed easily! But for a company that usually gets a reputation over here in the States as just finding new and interesting ways to make it hard to work on them, it's not deserved. What people need to do is swallow their pride, and read the dang service manual. In that regard, you might actually have better luck if you've never worked on an automobile before (but are familiar with the use of hand tools like wrenches and such) Chances are they thought of a way of doing something that you didn't think of, like that whole "remove the bumper" thing I just mentioned, and it's all laid out for you clearly in the service manuals. Funny how Honda and Toyota do almost the same thing with their maintenance procedures, but they get reputations for being massively reliable machines, whereas Volkswagen vehicles don't. Of course it does help that those machines are sometimes able to take massive amounts of abuse, like not getting an oil change for 20k miles (DON'T DO THAT, PLEASE, THINK OF THE MECHANICS!).
I really enjoyed Phil as he used his very professional pointer. I am happy my chemistry teacher in high school used an old fashioned wood stick instead of this pointer. I would have been laughing the whole class. Very good video and explanation.
Quick and clear run down 👍 Jungle gym comment was funny but truly a very serious concern . I am a safety freak but it was obvious to me. Thanks for bringing it up….true experience speaking
Phil is a great teacher and explainer! Thanks for this video, I thought I knew as much as a homeowner needs to know about condensing boilers, but the recirculation pump is a neat thing!
I have the condensate pipe from my Noritz Tankess drain around my Azalea, Hydrangea(pink flower)and Aralia bushes. They love acidity and are super green and healthy. I also installed a Aquasana whole house water filtration system with a descaler tank. It has pre and post filters, never have had any scale or sediment issues with my tankless or appliances. I highly recommend it if you are going to invest in a tankless system.
@@Allen-eq5uf It's legitimately wasteful, same as anything else we import. I just wish Channelock would get with the times and stop churning out antiquated garbage.
Had mine installed 2 years ago and love it. An annual cleaning’ (do it yourself)and a little delay in receiving the hot water is the only “negative” I’ve found . Great product
The other negative is the fact that you have no hot water in a power outage. Tank heaters have a significant reserve of hot water. On the other hand, once that is used up, you're done, whereas you can put a UPS on a tankless to run it during an outage, since they require so much less power.
I wish they would have made this video about five minutes longer and had him take apart both styles of valve and showed how to replace packing and how both styles of valve work.
The pvc exhaust is a nice addition. I remember when they first came out the exhaust had to be double walled stainless steel pipe. Very expensive and to save money you had to mount it on an exterior wall.
With a traditional straight flue design, it's absolutely necessary as the exhaust gas is hundreds of degrees. A modern efficient design has an exhaust gas a few degrees above the hot water set point.
These are known as a combi boiler in the UK, now we’re looking at fitting hot water cylinders again now so we can utilise things such as solar and heat pumps.
I've been using tankless(Junkers/Bosch) in Europe for 20 years, having pretty hard water (update: 101-150 Ca mg/l in last month for me. So it is slightly hard according to scale. ) - it has never been descaled. Authorized service says there is no need. They unscrew a few components/valves every year - they just clean them. They vacuum the interior thoroughly and that's it.
Depending on the efficiency it may not be acidic. I recently installed a gas fired Rheem in my house and the condisate is neutral. It re burns the gas if I remember right. It's nice to run it right in the sump with no issues. I also insulated both hot and cold. It's fairly easy to make foam 90's and 45's . They want 2.00 a piece at the box store or you make 20 out of one 6' stick. Make a bunch and tape them together then all you have to do is measure long runs. It's tedious boring work, but it's nice when it's done. It's also nice to run a dishwasher, wash machine and still take a hot shower.
Best explanation of a tank-less system I've seen. Thank you. I understand them much better now. How do these systems do in electric only situations? No NG available.
Electric-only tankless water heaters exist, but for a whole-house situation (as opposed to a single isolated sink) they need a fairly enormous electric supply to get the water hot in the few seconds it's passing through the unit -- often 80 or 100 amps at 240VAC dedicated to the tankless water heater. And, they're not very efficient; expensive to run. The more efficient electric-only water-heater solution is a heat-pump water heater, which does have a conventional storage tank (though very well insulated, at least). They can transfer 3x-4x as much heat compared with the same power as simple resistive electric water heating.
11:30 What he is explaining here is that...because the condensate gets condensed from the combustion products (as the water heater pulls heat out of the flue stream, water vapor condenses), it picks up CO2 and makes carbonic acid. This is not the same as condensate from your air conditioner, which has pretty much no CO2 in it. Condensate from water heaters is acidic, and it's often run through a cartridge with limestone in it to neutralize the acid. I would definitely not drain it into a cast iron line. It will actually corrode right through a copper line.
I lived in a wee village 20 miles outside of TaiBei, Tai Wan back in 1969, in a virtual mansion (4 bedrooms , two baths and maids quarters) which had a coal-burning water heater. quickly tired of staring a coal fire to access hot water. I went downtown and found an 'on demand, propane fired water heater. It was "the cat's meow" however it wasn't near that sophisticated.
Love listening to him explain things and that pointer is one in a million !
That pointer had me in stitches.
I love this guy!
He knows of which he speaks and he has a way of speaking that keeps me listening. He should be a VERY recurring guest on this podcast.
Oh, I responded to this particular comment because, that pointer is on point.
Phil definitely has a way of putting things that adds a wonderful bit of levity to what most of us consider mundane.
Love this guy, he is so knowledgeable, unpretentious and entertaining. Have learned so much from this entire series.
That's the word Robb. Unpretentious. You find these kind of subs and you hang on to them and you pay them well for their expertise and no bull presentation.
"Once they sell you the water it's yours, they don't want it back" Now that made me chuckle.
“It goes outside………somewhere….”
Don’t know why that made me lol so much. Delivery is perfect. Especially appreciated the pointer! You guys should keep doing plumbing videos:)
Lol. That finger pointer
We have had our Rinnai tankless water heater running for 9 years now in Tucson, AZ, where water is off-the-charts hard. The "flushing kit" Phil installed to allow flushing the unit with vinegar is very important. We put together a flush set-up with a small pump and two washing machine hoses with a 5 gallon bucket. Per Rinnai's instructions, we flush the heater once a year (circulating 4 gallons of white vinegar in the bucket) and our unit works flawlessly. Also great advice to look for the packing nut on ball valves and quarter turn angle stops.
A master plumber on another video I watched said he uses a clean sock on the return side to filter out all the minerals, you could also use a a small washable filter. Then when he's done he empties the vinegar and cycles clean water to flush out any vinegar. There is a small screen on the inlet side to clean also. This is the most helpful tip I've found so far.
@@landonlandon5533 Yes, that inlet filter is important to clean - especially when the home is new and all the crud from construction clogs it up after the first week someone lives in the home. Another tip, we pout the 4 gal of vinegar into our sinks and tub to let it sit for a little while to remove the mineral build up you get in hard water areas around the drains. We then flush well to dilute the vinegar when the vinegar goes down the drain.
It's an isolation kit, and Rinnai includes it with all their units. It's honestly kind of absurd that other brands don't.
Oh hey another Tucson Arizonan! lol
You're right... these need descaled every year under those circumstances. Same at our house. I just decided to have the plumber do it as a PM service call. That way, when my wife is here after I've left this life she won't have to worry about it.
I never get tired of Phil. He definitely wins “best guest star of the spec build”.
I also really enjoyed him on your podcast.
"I don't want anyone to see this part" - Something really useful is about to happen!
Yeah, I want to know what he said/did afterwards.
@@SephYuyX Made sure to cross-thread it the rest of the way, of course.
@@philincaundo Lol yup!
Useful, yes. Frowned upon by Osha, also yes :)
Phil is the coolest dude and also very entertaining just like Cy. I could listen to these two men all day. Love the channel.
P.S. Phil should market that "finger" pointer..."Phil's Phinger" 😂
I've been a contractor for 42 years and I just learned something. This man speaks from experience, thank you Phil!
Phil never disappoints!
I could listen to Phil talk about plumbing all day! He should have his own channel!
He does
Phil is the man definitely need more videos with him.
Phil has a wonderful way of overcoming ‘tubular technicalities’ and presenting them in his own inimitable fashion.
I love when you have him on i find him absolutely hilarious and would love to have him as a teacher
In this whole series, Phil has been my favourite thing about it. I could listen to him all day, he's so funny too
As always, Phil does a great job explaining plumbing. I especially liked the explanation on smart purchase of a ball valve. I didn't know that. I loved watching Phil use his Knipex pliers. Great tools, I've used them since the '80's.
I really hope there are more gas mechanics that can work on these heaters. I installed a gas tankless heater in my house in the late 80's. Worked fantastic the first year. As soon as the rubber piece that controls the gas flow wore out, I could not get a repairman to replace it properly. After about 3 or 4 tries, I removed it & put in a tank. I did not feel qualified to replace it myself, even though I could see what the guy was doing wrong.
Phil is an incredible specimen of a human being.
I learnt something very important today: water heater condensate is quite acidic. I collect it for my garden, but now I'll be careful to only use it on acidic soil plants. Thanks Phil!
I really like your pointer, Phil.
Lol good ol Phil, very knowledgeable and matching humor to go alongside
Thank you Phil for the explanation,and that pointer stick is great.
One thought immediately springs to mind: Phil seriously needs to consider launching a monetized youtube channel.
He is an entertaining guy, makes learning fun.
Love Phil’s pointer
I've very much enjoyed the Spec House project from start to finish here on TH-cam. My only worry is that with this project wrapping up we won't see Phil as often as we should! He's been a bright star during the house build, and a testament to people in the trades. Good luck to us all in 2022!
Essential craftsman is the best on TH-cam. Bob villa who I say! Love your videos Scott!
Always a pleasure to see one of your vidéos with Mr Rokus. THX!
It was fun listening to Phil explain a neutralizer. I work on high rise and we install them on the boilers every time.
Yeah. That "water" is basically carbonated - water plus CO2 from the combustion process. (you get the same thing in the tailpipe of a car, btw.) I've never actually measure the acidity.
What a great guest star!!!
Awesome, Rinnai in my mind are the best, I've been installing them for 30 years in N.Z. reliable, efficient and affordable. big ups to see one here.
Just installed 4 of these yesterday. Great units and great video. Thank you
man is suitability a genius i love it so much
He needs his own channel!!!!! I would sub!
Plumbing can be a tankless job, sometimes. 🙄 Always nice to see Phil on the channel. Does he have his own channel yet?
th-cam.com/channels/BeU-XiuXSBKxg0YROGbtJQ.htmlvideos
Shame on you. Now go stand in the corner and think about what you did.
@@paulkolodner2445 You talking to me? That is Phil's channel...
@@paulkolodner2445 Actually, I'm pretty proud of it. The only thing making me stand in the corner will do is keep you from seeing me smile. 😁 And, patiently ponder plumbing puns, in all probability*. Your groan is duly noted.
__
*Homework from my Adult Alliteracy class.
@@mikeharris7834 Thanks for the link.
49k views. No dislikes. That is a testament all on its own. You make great content Mr. Wadsworth. Thank you so much for sharing.
Phill is a gold mine. Give me more Phill!
I absolutely love Phil !!! He is such a wealth of knowledge and at the same time very down to earth!!! He is a true tradesman, maybe EC should think about doing a spin-off channel that works with Phil everyday!!
Awesome video! I could listen to this plumber all day long! Have a great weekend!
We, homeowners, have all looked at tankless water heaters in classified ads and thought seriously of upgrading. Thanks for telling us viewers we would have to upgrade the gas line. I have never had given that a thought.
Had a Veissmann B1KA installed 18 months ago. No complaints. Heats water for the baseboards and showers. The piping looks like a Rube Goldberg Machine on the wall. Gas use has gone down. The old Laars mini Therm was on its' last legs as was the water heater. The gas company gave me a nice size incentive for the retrofit. My utility room is more roomy, added a small work bench and cabinet for tools.
I love the point about spacing things apart enough so that you can actually work on them!
That's so very important, and it's part of why classic cars are usually (with a few notable exceptions) much easier to wrench on than the newer stuff where you have wires and ducts and coolant pipes and transmission fluid lines going every which way around the engine bay making it so you have to tear half the things out of there just to get at one tiny thing that on a classic car would be right out in the open and replaced in like 15 minutes.
I mean have you seen how long some service manuals give you to change something like an alternator these days?
I'd bet that roughly half that time is just to remove and replace other WORKING things out of the way in a non-destructive manner so that you can actually get your hands in there to work on what's actually wrong with the vehicle in the first place.
Some of the Volkswagens and BMW's out there have taken the right approach to this IMO.
As part of the normal service procedures to replace certain parts connected to the engine, you remove the front bumper! It might seem like a drastic step to take, but that's the thing, they DESIGNED the bumper to be removed easily! But for a company that usually gets a reputation over here in the States as just finding new and interesting ways to make it hard to work on them, it's not deserved.
What people need to do is swallow their pride, and read the dang service manual. In that regard, you might actually have better luck if you've never worked on an automobile before (but are familiar with the use of hand tools like wrenches and such)
Chances are they thought of a way of doing something that you didn't think of, like that whole "remove the bumper" thing I just mentioned, and it's all laid out for you clearly in the service manuals.
Funny how Honda and Toyota do almost the same thing with their maintenance procedures, but they get reputations for being massively reliable machines, whereas Volkswagen vehicles don't. Of course it does help that those machines are sometimes able to take massive amounts of abuse, like not getting an oil change for 20k miles (DON'T DO THAT, PLEASE, THINK OF THE MECHANICS!).
Kudos to the young guy!
Thats Phil's son.
Needs to use a bit less solder on his joints, but he did well.
@@Flyingscottyman, I was always taught to wipe my joints when soldering. Makes them look neater.
@@Hoaxer51 that always helps, but once it dribbles down the pipe, you know you have gone a little too far.
That had to be the most unbiased review of something that I've ever seen
That little hand made my day 👌🏻
1:58 Congratulations to Phil on going back in time and bringing himself back with him😂
He would be a great guy to work for. Filled with knowledge and fun.
I love his plumbing
Phil's pointer absolutely makes this video
I really enjoyed Phil as he used his very professional pointer. I am happy my chemistry teacher in high school used an old fashioned wood stick instead of this pointer. I would have been laughing the whole class. Very good video and explanation.
Phil is the GOAT.
Love the pointer Phil and I appreciate the explanation.
We need more Phil, Scott.
Quick and clear run down 👍
Jungle gym comment was funny but truly a very serious concern . I am a safety freak but it was obvious to me. Thanks for bringing it up….true experience speaking
Phil is a great teacher and explainer! Thanks for this video, I thought I knew as much as a homeowner needs to know about condensing boilers, but the recirculation pump is a neat thing!
Watching Phil is always a pleasure.
Phil is probably the best guest on this channel.
I have the condensate pipe from my Noritz Tankess drain around my Azalea, Hydrangea(pink flower)and Aralia bushes. They love acidity and are super green and healthy. I also installed a Aquasana whole house water filtration system with a descaler tank. It has pre and post filters, never have had any scale or sediment issues with my tankless or appliances. I highly recommend it if you are going to invest in a tankless system.
Really fancy pointer and effective.
Knipex water pump pliers are the best in my opinion. Make other brands of channel locking look like an exercise in futility.
They are very nice, but are also 3-4x the price.
Pipefitter here. IMO There are pros and cons to Knipex and a pair of 10" Channel Locks ; I'll usually reach for the Channel Locks though.
@@Allen-eq5uf Cons: Not Made in USA
Pros: Better in every other way.
@@orijimi one is made in Germany,the other is made in the USA. Not a con in either case to me.
@@Allen-eq5uf It's legitimately wasteful, same as anything else we import. I just wish Channelock would get with the times and stop churning out antiquated garbage.
Phil never disappoints. "Don't let your kids drink it."
That pointer stick is the best, I need one
How great is Phil?!? Love the guy.
Had mine installed 2 years ago and love it. An annual cleaning’ (do it yourself)and a little delay in receiving the hot water is the only “negative” I’ve found . Great product
You have a delay with receiving hot water with a regular tank water heater too.
@@cain769 no, I have a Navien unit and there’s a a good 30 second delay to the faucet before receiving hot water
@@CorneliusFudgePop If you don't have a recirc there will definitely be a delay.
The other negative is the fact that you have no hot water in a power outage. Tank heaters have a significant reserve of hot water. On the other hand, once that is used up, you're done, whereas you can put a UPS on a tankless to run it during an outage, since they require so much less power.
@@bmay8818 yes that sure is! Can’t believe I forgot that one. I have it hooked up to my generator for emergencies, luckily i am able to
I love the quality of work. Waisting btus in the summer. Would be totally awesome in winter operation!
We run fresh air from outside, around the exhaust. It gives some extra efficiency. So called concentric pipe 125/80
Love Phil the plumber.
Love when you have this “guest” on.
Thanks.... I learned a few things from this video
Nice to see phil again
I have a gas tankless water heater and I love it!
Brilliant. Must get him back again
This guy is terrific! The pointer with the white finger is hilarious!
The 'packing nut tip was worth this video!
I wish they would have made this video about five minutes longer and had him take apart both styles of valve and showed how to replace packing and how both styles of valve work.
I enjoyed learning about that
dew hickey. nice job
aluays a pleasure to see phil
My favorite videos on the channel are the ones featuring your plumber, he's great.
The pvc exhaust is a nice addition. I remember when they first came out the exhaust had to be double walled stainless steel pipe. Very expensive and to save money you had to mount it on an exterior wall.
With a traditional straight flue design, it's absolutely necessary as the exhaust gas is hundreds of degrees. A modern efficient design has an exhaust gas a few degrees above the hot water set point.
These are known as a combi boiler in the UK, now we’re looking at fitting hot water cylinders again now so we can utilise things such as solar and heat pumps.
Thanks Phil
This guy is a legend!
100%%%
These things are really cool. Could you do a video on a waterless tank heater next?
and then after that, a heaterless water tank.
We have these hr heaters for decades in the netherlands. They are combined heating and hot water
Love Phil!
Really great episode Scott. Phil's a great dude and is good for the show!
Water scale is the killer of tankless units. You need to make sure you have a water softener.
I've been using tankless(Junkers/Bosch) in Europe for 20 years, having pretty hard water (update: 101-150 Ca mg/l in last month for me. So it is slightly hard according to scale. ) - it has never been descaled. Authorized service says there is no need.
They unscrew a few components/valves every year - they just clean them. They vacuum the interior thoroughly and that's it.
Not always. Not everywhere has hard water.
An electric unit for one or two people are 200-350$ on Amazon. If it last 4-5 years it has paid for itself.
I could listen to him anytime!
that was incredibly helpful
"According to some blinking lights, this doohickey's shot."
Very Solid Video
"Don't let your kids drink it." Noted!
By far the best video, luv this old timer!!! That’s my tread plumber, and I put in a good hand full of tankless a month. #plumbNo #PlumbinForaLivin
Classic Dunning Kruger. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Depending on the efficiency it may not be acidic. I recently installed a gas fired Rheem in my house and the condisate is neutral. It re burns the gas if I remember right. It's nice to run it right in the sump with no issues. I also insulated both hot and cold. It's fairly easy to make foam 90's and 45's . They want 2.00 a piece at the box store or you make 20 out of one 6' stick. Make a bunch and tape them together then all you have to do is measure long runs. It's tedious boring work, but it's nice when it's done. It's also nice to run a dishwasher, wash machine and still take a hot shower.
Best explanation of a tank-less system I've seen. Thank you. I understand them much better now. How do these systems do in electric only situations? No NG available.
Electric-only tankless water heaters exist, but for a whole-house situation (as opposed to a single isolated sink) they need a fairly enormous electric supply to get the water hot in the few seconds it's passing through the unit -- often 80 or 100 amps at 240VAC dedicated to the tankless water heater. And, they're not very efficient; expensive to run.
The more efficient electric-only water-heater solution is a heat-pump water heater, which does have a conventional storage tank (though very well insulated, at least). They can transfer 3x-4x as much heat compared with the same power as simple resistive electric water heating.
Love this guy.
That was fascinating
11:30 What he is explaining here is that...because the condensate gets condensed from the combustion products (as the water heater pulls heat out of the flue stream, water vapor condenses), it picks up CO2 and makes carbonic acid. This is not the same as condensate from your air conditioner, which has pretty much no CO2 in it. Condensate from water heaters is acidic, and it's often run through a cartridge with limestone in it to neutralize the acid. I would definitely not drain it into a cast iron line. It will actually corrode right through a copper line.
Use sugar instead of limestone, and you get free Coca Cola!
I replaced a copper condensate line on a tankless water heater a couple weeks ago!
I lived in a wee village 20 miles outside of TaiBei, Tai Wan back in 1969, in a virtual mansion (4 bedrooms , two baths and maids quarters) which had a coal-burning water heater. quickly tired of staring a coal fire to access hot water. I went downtown and found an 'on demand, propane fired water heater. It was "the cat's meow" however it wasn't near that sophisticated.
Thanks