What brand heater is this? I don't see anything like that in my StaRite heater instructions.
That is one reason why I am not 100% in favor of making 110.3(B) gospel. Just because something gets translated from Chinese to say something stupid, I will still trump it with the NEC requirements.
The intent is that you can't get power to the heater unless the pump is running, hence down stream of the timer. That timer is also supposed to be 2 stage so it runs the pump 15 minutes after the heater stops. Without a timer you lose that safety feature. If the heater is wired directly to power it is even worse than that and you are depending on the flow/pressure switch to prevent a "dry fire".
As for bonding, we all know what the right answer is.
