Month: March 2025

we purchased a Rinnai tankless water heater last year on the recommendation of a plumber we were working with. I bought one from Lowe’s and he installed it for us, been working great until this last weekend.

error 32, a fault with the output temperature sensor, so I popped it open to see what I could do (easy enough to swap a sensor). unfortunately the unit was full of water (ironically?), and it was immediately obvious which soaking wet sensor was to blame. so, I unplugged, shut it off and pulled the power and gently toweled out all the water. this cured the sensor fault but the next morning I looked and it was once again dripping.

I traced the leak to the core of the unit, where I dared not disassemble anything but since I could tell it was from the unit, not the installation, I tried to open a case with Rinnai.

I’m not a plumber, so they refused to talk to me. they told me that they could only speak with a licensed Rinnai technician and gave me a list of 8 local companies to choose from. Of those 8, I was only get one of them to respond and when they got here all they could do was confirm what I had already found. they were not able to perform any warranty work since they had not installed it so they were not even sure why Rinnai gave me their contact info. Further diagnostics would have been out of pocket and would have cost more than the unit’s initial purchase price.

I must have called 15 more plumbers but none would come out to look. most heard I had a tankless and just ended the call, the ones who said they could work on them all said it would be 100% out of pocket because they didn’t do the install (and most said they wouldn’t have even done the install because Maple Grove water sucks).

so, without any further recourse I got back ahold of Rinnai and they came up with 3 more options. The first had their number disconnected, one would not return my phone calls; but the last one, they saved the f’in day (at least so far).

not only was the dude promptly on-time, he was super friendly, and was able to very quickly get the issue diagnosed, and replacement service arranged for the part. they are being shipped to him and they will get reimbursed by Rinnai. turns out it’s a known issue with a gasket and Rinnai immediately approved the repair.

I can confidently say, in the last 3 days, they have been the single most helpful company I’ve dealt with. I will be calling them from now on when I need plumbing assistance (and I do have some projects coming up). you should too.