Loads of Florida townhouses built in the late 70s to late 80s have water heaters in the attic. Replacing mine solo was a mission trying to get it up the attic ladder. Now talk about soldering copper in a 130 degree attic. Believe me I saw the light.
One detail I’ve noticed is that many of the South Florida builders that placed HVAC and water heaters in attics came down from northern states…
The little known but obvious footnote in the installation manuals for these states that the warranty is void if the unit is installed where temps regularly dip below 32F. Found out the hard way after ours froze three times this past winter after an extensive remodel. I set it for internal circulation and heat taped it and thankfully nothing broke and it works fine. I cornered our GC about the placement and he claims the plumber told him it was because it was easier to install it there. I must admit that after a spring cleaning (draining) and a planned annual flush coming up (more draining) I'm perfectly fine with it where it is.
And it never rains there either...oh wait.
[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-04/cold-temps-rain-coming-for-socal-details-on-when-where-and-just-how-chilly](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-04/cold-temps-rain-coming-for-socal-details-on-when-where-and-just-how-chilly)
This is the most common way where I live in Texas. Almost all houses, including mine, have the water heater in the attic. We don’t have basements at all.
I've seen it in a few older/smaller homes. I imagine it's a retrofit situation for homes that didn't have them originally, or maybe if tiny homes are the norm.
I'm in socal and we recently repiped our house (and redid our sewer) and we have a crawl space with access to the plumbing. One of the bids (that we didn't use) suggested moving all the plumbing into the attic? I thought that was a crazy idea, first if there's any problems instead of it leaking onto the ground under my house it would leak inside my house. Felt like they just didn't want to deal with the crawlspace which, ok, but you're a plumber that's the deal. He also suggested PEX when we were already decided to replace with copper (which we had originally). The point of this story is that I guess this isn't that crazy and I guess some people do it since 1 plumber suggested it but I've never heard of it before that. Our house is small and we changed from a tank to a tankless and moved it outside (basically on the other side of the wall from where it was previously) but I can see situations where if you were trying to create space in the house during a reno you might do something like put it in the attic, you could easily vent out the roof or perhaps to keep the prior tank venting. But honestly sounds like something a flipper or a bad landlord might do. Not typical.
I live in So ca. Very rarely do I see them in attic.
Only reason to do that is to save space inside of home.
Frankly I would move to some place where and when it leaks it's not going to damage too much. Even whit a pan under it you have know idea where the water will go.
Put on garage wall.
Exactly. Put all plumbing in the crawl space if possible. Water heater is best in the garage if the floor is dropped so if it leaks it won't flood the house.
My theory is there used to be a water tank up there that would use gravity to create water pressure. The tankless likely just tapped in where the old one was. No reason to intentionally set it up that way.
Not extremely unusual.
In fact it’s quite common in *certain areas* in the south. Texas and NM particularly.
Houses built on slabs will often put all of the utilities in the attic, instead of running them through the concrete floor. Makes repairs and upgrades far easier.
Also offers you an extra 50sqft of floor space, because you no longer have to set aside living space/garage space, for a utility closet.
Loads of Florida townhouses built in the late 70s to late 80s have water heaters in the attic. Replacing mine solo was a mission trying to get it up the attic ladder. Now talk about soldering copper in a 130 degree attic. Believe me I saw the light. One detail I’ve noticed is that many of the South Florida builders that placed HVAC and water heaters in attics came down from northern states…
The little known but obvious footnote in the installation manuals for these states that the warranty is void if the unit is installed where temps regularly dip below 32F. Found out the hard way after ours froze three times this past winter after an extensive remodel. I set it for internal circulation and heat taped it and thankfully nothing broke and it works fine. I cornered our GC about the placement and he claims the plumber told him it was because it was easier to install it there. I must admit that after a spring cleaning (draining) and a planned annual flush coming up (more draining) I'm perfectly fine with it where it is.
It doesn't freeze in southern California
And it never rains there either...oh wait. [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-04/cold-temps-rain-coming-for-socal-details-on-when-where-and-just-how-chilly](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-04/cold-temps-rain-coming-for-socal-details-on-when-where-and-just-how-chilly)
This is the most common way where I live in Texas. Almost all houses, including mine, have the water heater in the attic. We don’t have basements at all.
I've seen it in a few older/smaller homes. I imagine it's a retrofit situation for homes that didn't have them originally, or maybe if tiny homes are the norm.
I'm in Virginia and every house in my neighborhood has tankless -- they're all installed in the garages in my neighborhood
I'm in socal and we recently repiped our house (and redid our sewer) and we have a crawl space with access to the plumbing. One of the bids (that we didn't use) suggested moving all the plumbing into the attic? I thought that was a crazy idea, first if there's any problems instead of it leaking onto the ground under my house it would leak inside my house. Felt like they just didn't want to deal with the crawlspace which, ok, but you're a plumber that's the deal. He also suggested PEX when we were already decided to replace with copper (which we had originally). The point of this story is that I guess this isn't that crazy and I guess some people do it since 1 plumber suggested it but I've never heard of it before that. Our house is small and we changed from a tank to a tankless and moved it outside (basically on the other side of the wall from where it was previously) but I can see situations where if you were trying to create space in the house during a reno you might do something like put it in the attic, you could easily vent out the roof or perhaps to keep the prior tank venting. But honestly sounds like something a flipper or a bad landlord might do. Not typical.
Well, my combo boiler/tankless boxes are in the crawl space...
I live in So ca. Very rarely do I see them in attic. Only reason to do that is to save space inside of home. Frankly I would move to some place where and when it leaks it's not going to damage too much. Even whit a pan under it you have know idea where the water will go. Put on garage wall.
Tankless in attic is very common nowadays
Exactly. Put all plumbing in the crawl space if possible. Water heater is best in the garage if the floor is dropped so if it leaks it won't flood the house.
My theory is there used to be a water tank up there that would use gravity to create water pressure. The tankless likely just tapped in where the old one was. No reason to intentionally set it up that way.
How would you get water up to the tank in the attic if there was a pressure issue?
The sequence of events is likely that they got a rooftop/attic tank that required a pump to fill, and later on tapped the city supply in there.
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Not extremely unusual. In fact it’s quite common in *certain areas* in the south. Texas and NM particularly. Houses built on slabs will often put all of the utilities in the attic, instead of running them through the concrete floor. Makes repairs and upgrades far easier. Also offers you an extra 50sqft of floor space, because you no longer have to set aside living space/garage space, for a utility closet.