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Old 02-16-16, 05:10 PM   #5
AC_Hacker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bdgWesternMass View Post
Yes, I may be out of mind. What I liked about this board is that it seemed like there was an acceptance of foolish pursuits.
I think you have guessed right.

These combined forums are infested with dreamers and fools, and with a few practical folks to keep things occasionally reasonable.

You will need to start thinking in energy units, like kilowatts for starters.

Do some poking around about water heaters, and your water heater in particular. You need to know its power consumption over time, like a month perhaps.

You'd also need to know about your typical heating and cooling requirements over time, in the same units (kilowatts) so you can compare.

If your house is monumentally low-performance (leaks lots of heat & cool), compared to your water heater, then the marginal gains that could be made by combining your water heater, would not be worth the trouble. In this case, you should direct your project energies to improving your house thermal efficiency, starting with infiltration...

But if your house is very tight and very well insulated, and the difference in scale between house energy and DWH energy is comparatively small, then it would be prudent to continue your quest.

Best,

-AC_Hacker
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