HydroHero water heater - 4 way valve
 

Hi All,
Ive just had my hydrohero 260l heat pump hot water cylinder apart to replace a centrifugal fan. While in there I noted there is a 4 way valve installed on the refrigerant lines - presumably for defrost.

Our unit gets its air intake from the attic and only runs during sunlight hours. intake air temperatures are very high, never below 20 degrees Celsius and in summer it can reach 45-50 up there. This unit also moves a lot of air. Ive never seen it go into defrost.

What im thinking is that the 4 way valve in this setting is likely useless.

Is there an efficiency loss having it in the system? Being made of copper / brass I would presume there would be a bit of heat transfer as the hot refrigerant passes through the valve that also has the chilled vapour passing through it.

Would there be any benefit in removing this? I am looking at needing to rebuild this unit as the cylinder appears to have a slow water leak. Work could be done at this point.

Refrigerant is R417A, compressor is a Panasonic, uses about 700-900w when running.

pics for interest
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m14zar4k7m...5811.jpeg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r6hpsi7flx...5812.jpeg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xw4hyuwu7p...5813.jpeg?dl=0


Thanks all.

Mike