Experiments are carried out to investigate the Onset of Nucleate Boiling (ONB) of refrigerant R-113 through vertical and inclined tube-bundle channels. Several methods are adopted to ascertain ONB in the experiments, and their differences are analyzed. The experiments show that the results of ONB estimation from the visualization experiment, ONB estimation from the wall temperature and that from the heat transfer coefficient are uniform. The influences of heat flux, mass flow rate, the geometric dimensions and inclination angle of the tube-bundle channels on the ONB height are explored in detail. On the foundation of the comparisons and analyses, an equation is put forward for calculating the ONB height in tube-bundle channels, which has a good accordance with the experimental results.