What is the typical BTU output of your water heater?
 

Patric,

Do you have any information on what the typical BTU output of your water heater is?

Regards,

-AC_Hacker

No, just that it uses 6.46 amps @ 220V and has a COP of 2.0. That would be 1412W. If it ran for an hour that would be 1.412 kWh X 2 COP = 2.814 kWh of heat produced. If there are 3412 BTU in one kWh, that would be 9698 BTU/hr.

At 4.2kJ/kg*°C, and given a 40°C deltaT, 2.8KWh/hr (:rolleyes:) would be 60kg/hr of hot water, or about 15gal. But that's probably not right. I'm guessing the vast majority of the 6.46A is at a COP of 1, i.e. the resistive heating element.

Does it have a "first hour" rating?

Edit: I just thought of something. Does "normal" mode mean it uses the resistive heater every time you take a shower? Unless it has a frugal, intelligent controller, that mode would reduce your COP to maybe 1.2 all the time.

67 gallons.

thanks...
 

Patrick,

Thanks, just what I was looking for.

Under certain low-demand circumstances, a unit like yours could possibly be used for home heating.

As I was thinking through this, the tank would best left inside the heated space, so that heat leakage could be utilized. But the heat pump part, at least the evaporator coil, the part that gets cold, would be best left outside the heated space.

It's not so easy to find a smallish ASHP that heats water instead of air. Xringer found a small pool heater that could possibly be used.

Regards,

-AC_Hacker

Well I guess you could build some kind of a box around the coil at the top of the heater to direct the cold air somewhere else.

If you're serious about doing something like this, take a look at the GE model available through Lowes. It has a COP of 2.35. I didn't use it because it requires 7 inches of space behind it and the Rheem needs only 2 inches so the Rheem fit better where I needed to put it.

Patrick,

Thanks for the information, I'm still thinking about this... every day.

BUT... There's a thread where various water-heater options were being discussed, and since I've been using one for maybe 15 years, I put in my 2 cents worth about tankless water heaters, and I also voiced my one hesitation regarding the ASHP water heaters:

...and today I came across this illustration over at Build It Solar which more than completely addressed my hesitation...


... the picture tells the water heater story, but the whole story is well worth checking out.

Regards,

-AC_HAcker

Lowes has it on sale, today only, for $1399: Shop GE 50-Gallon GeoSpring^TM Hybrid Water Heater at Lowes.com

Maybe you could shoot the exhaust into a cold food storage closet :)

Hey everyone,
I'm new to this forum, however I bought the ge hybrid water heater back in Jan. When I moved to my new place which is out in the country I knew nothing of propane or it's costs. After 3 months and a 1200$ propane refill I knew something had to change. So I went looking in the garage to see where my propane was going. And what I found was 2 water heaters. One said it uses 276 gallons a year and the other 270. So at the price I was paying for propane at the time (3.14$/gal) that's around $1100. So I started researching energy efficient heaters. Anyways I found the ge and knew it was what I needed. So went online to lowes but no luck there. Went down to the local store and no body there knew anything about it or even what a heat pump was. So I called lowes national and talk with there rep, who then contacted the local manager who then was very helpful. They did finally get me one but had to ship it from the east coast out here to California. I will say the thing looked cool. We were getting our pictures taken next to it when I opened the carton. Luckly while I was waiting for it to arrived I ran a new 30amp line to it's future home. So when it arrived I took the day off to install it. I had to cut and piece together the copper overpressure discharge line. Also had to tee into that line to run the condensation tube too. So all that was left was to lift it into place. Damn that is heavy 2 or 3 person job. The original was light comparatively. Right after I installed it I replaced all 136 light bulbs in the house with cfl's so at the next bill it had still gone down from previous months. When running on just HP mode it draws 450watts. But when put on high demand mode when we had a bunch of guests it pulls around 6500. It is kind of noisy, like a window ac. But I can't hear it in the house. And if I'm working in the garage I can just hit the fan off button and it's nearly silent. Anyways that's been my experience. Wonderful unit no complaints..

Hv23t