[Hv23t]

I've Started on my new project, home made heat pump water heater. This project started as a metal recycling trip. I was loading up scrap steel into my dump truck when the neighbors noticed what I was doing. They came over and asked if I could take various things in as well. I ended up keeping two non working dehumidifiers and 3 hot water heaters. The HWH I'm using first is a GE 30 gallon electric unit. I lucked out in the fact that this unit uses just 1 4000 watt heating element on the bottom port. Apparently they made models with two elements with the 2nd being in a port toward the top of the tank. But instead they just installed a steel plug.
So first thing I've done after flushing and checking for leaks, was take out the plug in the top port and drill two holes thru it and tap them for 1/8"npt. Then I installed two 1/8"npt to 1/4"compression fittings in those holes. Next I bought 30' of 1/4" copper tubing and made a fairly sharp bend at the half way point and snaked 25' worth of it into the tank. Which was no easy feat, but persistence paid off. I then ran the ends of the tubing thru the plug and fittings and pretwisted the tube in the counterclockwise direction. Then threaded the plug back on, and snugged up the compressin fittings to make a watertight seal.
Last night I tapped into one of the dehumidifiers and found out it has nearly no r22 left in it. So I acquired some r22 and gauges, pumped in some refrigerant and the unit came back to life.
But never being happy with something normal, I grabbed a old propane torch, took the top off and brazed on a 1/4" flare fitting.
This morning I removed the r22 from the dehumidifier and hooked up my vacuum pump to the system for a half hour. I then took my new propane "torch" and refilled the unit with propane strait out of the Coleman bottle. The unit came back to life. On the r22 it was using 435-450 watts on R290 it's using 365-410 watts. This is where I'm at now. Next step Is to drain the system and plumb the coil in the HWH tank into the lines on the dehumidifier replacing to hot side HX. I'll try to figure out how to post pics. I don't have a computer hooked to the Internet, only my iPhone, and I'm not sure how to get photos uploaded.

Hv23t