# Forum Home Renovation Plumbing  Rinnai Infinity problems

## ^BL|TZ^

Hi folks this problem is aimed to the plumbers/gasfitters on the forum. 
I have a small 3 bed 1 bath house and last week I had a plumber remove the dinosaur storage hws that ran on bottle gas and install a brand spanker rinnai infinity 16 natural gas hws with no temp controllers. All seemed to be working well for the first night however, when having a shower on the second night, I noticed that the temp fluctuates up and down, occasionally it goes cold for a split second and then returns to be nice and hot. from looking at it, I think it has more to do witht he hot water pressure fluctuating and less to do with actual temperature. 
Now, we've had the plumber back out and he seems to think that if I install the temp controller/s ( licensed sparky ) that it will fix the problem. Can anyone confirm this? or he just having a lend of me?. Has he just set it up incorrectly. 
Any help would be appreciated

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## juan

Have you spoken with the Technical Support team at Rinnai (      1300 366 388  ).  I found them to be very honest and helpful.

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## sundancewfs

Does yours plug into a power point? Mine does, the controller though is an add on and attaches to two screws under the cover of the unit. Apparentely it is a signal cable only. Rats chewed through my controller cable, so I just cut off the chewed bit and stripped the end of the wires back and re-screwed them in place ( I had quite a bit of slack wire) Turning power point off and unplugging the unit of course before I removed the cover, as there are 240v wires in there.

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## namtrak

Talk to Rinnai. 
Having said that, we have a Rinnai 26 in the house we just bought in Queanbeyan, and had a Rinnai 24 in Albury.   
Albury had good water pressure and 3 temp controllers and no fluctuation in temp at all. 
Queanbeyan has poor water pressure and no temp controllers and has occasional drops in temperature in the water. 
We are going to build an ensuite, however before we do we will have to install tanks and an auxillary pump, water pressure will just not be enough with two showers at once.  We will also install temp controllers.  Reading back, this goes nowhere to answering your question, as we are in a similar boat.  Ah well.  I'll post it anyway.

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## wonderplumb

Talk to Rinnai, they may find the plumber might have put it in wrong, as it often happens re pipe size, check valves etc. Or it could be the tempering valve that he is legally obliged to install on such a job.

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## davey1

We had a Rinnai on our house in Canberra and it worked beautifully, it was fitted with the temperature controller on the wall inside, would produce hot water forever on even Canberra's coldest mornings  :Cry:  once set up right.  Ours had a fault when it was first installed, we rang Rinnai and they immediately fitted a replacement within 24 hours.  It worked perfectly from then on  
I do remember reading maybe in the instruction manual that insufficient water pressure can cause problems.  Same goes with certain water saving devices that don't allow enough flow to trigger the water heater. 
Talk to Rinnai, we found them to be excellent with back up service. 
Hope this helps

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## LegacyGT

i had the same problem but i was using a water saving shower head. 
I think this did not allow enough flow through the heater and was cutting it in and out.

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## Peeeeda

When you use the shower the water flowing through the Rinnai is usually quite low so the machine will switch between high and low flame to maintain the required temperature.  If the low flame pressure has not been set correctly, the low flame may be too hot for the water flowing through and so the rinnai will have no choice but to shut the burner off momentarily to prevent overheating.  This is where the shower goes cool for a few seconds.  Ask your installer to check the burner setting on low.  This involves using a digital manometer and selecting the appropriate jumper switch on the PCB.  Full instructions should be on the inside of the rinnai front cover...

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## Buggermedumplings

You shouldn't need a sparkie for the controler, it's only a signal wire (Fig 8) as someone mentioned.  We had the same issue initially (infinity 26), but turned worse as the water would go cold and then not recover.  The controler would display an error code indicating flame failure/no gas.  Impossible as piping was sized correctly to unit and is tapped off a 50mm gas line!  Eventually the unit was replaced with latest model (Silver and slightly smaller) and have had no issues.

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## cood

remove the shower head and try it without it.  It may me the shower head is restricting the water flow
And how do I post a new question?

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## xazos79

Hi guys. I"m having the strangest issue. Our Rinnai26 used to be fine. But then it  began to behave strangely. It actually won't give any hot water in the shower and taps if the water is on too fast. Need to turn it on and then reduce to a trickle. 20seconds later the hotwater kicks in and then i'm able to slightly turn the hot water and cold water to get the desired temperature. This behavior stopped once for a few months and now its come back. Its quite frustrating and i'm not sure what the issue might be. We've had this house for a few years and have no warranty info as the previous owner is uncontactable.....

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## barney118

I have the infinity 26, no issues the plumber had to run new gas pipes to the unit from the meter 20mm gas pipe copper for the extra flow needed.

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## China

Make sure to turn the hot water on full then use cold to regulate the temperature

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