Hass Intellifaucet D250

I wanted to post a shout out to hass for this piece of gear. I know they've been praised here before, but I finally bought one w/ the hope of saving water by not having to run it constantly to hold temp. Well, I installed it today, and what a wonder. I mean, wow. Set it to 72 degrees, and it pegs the thermometer there in 2 seconds and doesn't ever shift.

Furthermore, as a note to great service, I'd written and asked if I really needed a filter system for it (budget and space restrictions in mind), and I was given an honest answer that in NYC with the quality of our water, I would probably be fine w/o it. Super answer when they could have given me a default "yes, you do" and squeezed the extra $ out of me.

Anyway, stuff this good deserves to be heard about.

GraemeMitchell said:

Anyway, stuff this good deserves to be heard about.

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You'll see supporting replies from all Intellifaucet users pretty quickly here, I think. Myself included.

I have the K250. It's unbelievable. As you say, 2 seconds. And if you carefully watch the digital temp readout on the K250, you'll see that there seems to be a secondary corrective software feedback algorithm apparently at work controlling the valves as well.

If the initial spurt of water is over (or under) the set temp by a certain amount, then the adjustment immediately seems to counteract that with an equal volume of under (or over) temp water. Over the first few seconds these back-and-forth corrective oscillations will attenuate down to a near-perfect static temp, requiring only minor corrections from that point on. The end result is that the final temperature of even the initial volume of water received at startup is a near perfect temperature.

Even with excellent quality water, I chose to filter both hot and cold incoming lines down to 1-micron. My filter cartridges can easily last for a year or two. And just to baby the thing (not that it needs it, if you've seen their incredible build quality), I also bleed all pressure from the system (both sides of the faucet) after I'm done using it, just to be nice to the valve seals.

Amazing piece of equipment.

Ken

While it's true the NYC tap water is among the best in the country, the same can't be said for the pipes through which it travels. We're an old city, with old infrastructure. Cold water is usually fine, but you need to be careful about the hot water supply which can pick up all sorts of crap from the hot water heating system. I'd probably want to use a filter if I were to be using the water from the Intellifaucet to mix up chemistry. If I planned to use it simply to provide water for a tempering bath or for washing prints, then I wouldn't worry about it.

I'd love one of these but I need darkroom to hook it up in

I've got one as well, and would not want to go back to manually messing with faucets to get the temp right. Well worth the money.

Ken Nadvornick said:

Even with excellent quality water, I chose to filter both hot and cold incoming lines down to 1-micron.

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I ran my mixed water through a single filter because most filters I found (on the consumer market) warned against using them on the hot line. What type of filter do you have on your hot line?

I have cold water filtering that serves the whole house, and a hot water filter for the darkroom. The housing is a plastic one meant for hot water, from Arkay (I think) that I bought from a local camera shop's clearance shelf.
In general, for hot water filtration it's mostly the housings that are special, I haven't found cartridges that are made specifically for hot water. I use an Aqua-Pure AP110 cartridge, which is labeled to be good for hot water up to 170 degrees (F). It's a 5 micron filter. A lot of the filters can be used up to 120 F, which is all our water heater is set for anyway.

These guys, www.plumbingsupply.com are my favorite on-line resource for plumbing stuff and info. They stock various housings good for hot water, plus lots of choices for cartridges, including the Aqua-Pure's.

Ok thanks for that info. I see the hot filter housings there ($95 to $350). I put my setup in myself and could change it if needed, but do you (or anyone) see any advantage to the systems where there are two filters in front of the water mixer, vs a single filter after it?

ic-racer said:

Ok thanks for that info. I see the hot filter housings there ($95 to $350). I put my setup in myself and could change it if needed, but do you (or anyone) see any advantage to the systems where there are two filters in front of the water mixer, vs a single filter after it?

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I've heard of several instances where D250's have had to be serviced--possibly because of unfiltered particulates entering the unit. I have a D250 that I'm only going to hook up once I install filters on both the incoming hot and cold lines. Considering the expense of the unit, I wouldn't take a chance.

ic-racer said:

What type of filter do you have on your hot line?

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'bdial' and 'BarryS' beat me to it.

It is the hot water filter housing that differs. All of the particulate filter cartridges I've seen at my local hardware supply store will work fine up to 120F, which is the highest safe setting recommended for home water heaters.

Separate line filtering is recommended upstream of the unit because the hot line can often accelerate the deterioration of pipes, especially metal ones, and the resulting debris ends up in the water. And in the Intellifaucet.

I was told directly by Dave Hass that, although not absolutely necessary, it's considered best practice to filter both lines into the unit. And although the units are rated for gazillions of cycles before failure, the most frequent breakdown when one does occur is usually a valve servicing made necessary by excess particulate matter in the incoming supply lines.

Accordingly, I designed my waterboard to accomodate the valve removal procedure, should it ever be required, without the need to unhook and dismount the unit to return it. Mr. Hass said that these valve servicings are something that their support staff can walk you through at home, if you are handy with the required tools.

I chose to filter down to 1-micron because, well, the cartridges are no more expensive than 5-, 10-, or 20-micron sizes, and there is no discernable performance change at 1-micron. I figured it can't hurt. So why not?

Ken

The building my studio is in was built in 2001, so new pipes and natural gas water heaters, which, yes, is a pretty unique thing for NYC. If I went back to a large boiler building or if I ran the intellifaucet all the time, then I'd filter the water. As it is though, not too concerned about it.

I just installed one. It's great!