07_HOMES_WE_KNOW
Pre-War Houses, Courtyard Buildings and Coastal Condos
Much of Ocean Park, Sunset Park and the Pico neighborhood was built before modern mechanical codes. Water heaters often sit in a narrow closet, a service porch or a shared basement. A 50-gallon tank eats that space; a wall-mount tankless unit gives most of it back.
The catch is gas. Older homes and pre-war multi-unit buildings frequently have small, aging gas piping that was never sized for a unit drawing up to about 199,000 BTU. A gas line retrofit from the meter is common here, and we size it with the run length and the other appliances on the line in mind.
Venting needs care too. Indoor closets need a direct-vent or concentric system with a clean path outside. Outdoor units are popular in mild climates, but within a few blocks of the ocean, salt-air corrosion from the marine layer attacks exposed metal. We choose sheltered locations, protective covers and units suited to coastal exposure, or keep the unit indoors when that is the better call.
