Quote:
Originally Posted by randen
Xringer wrote: During the last 11 days, (or 264 hours) the A7 run-time is 16 hours.
It used 9.417 kWh, or $1.53, instead of $22 burning 5.5 gallons of oil.
$1.53 OMG thats outragous!!! How can you justify that.! With the solar hot water 11 days works out to less than $0.75 Just kidding. WE are lucky being eco-renovators that we are able to do these things. Although I complain to my wife that I always have a tool in my hand. Like Xringer now, by applying some common sense and sweat equity we don't worry how long we are in the shower or running hot water for anything.
The only other guilt trip is, for me at least: Why did I wait so long to do this???
Congrats Xringer. Good job.
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Thanks Randen,
I got into this project not knowing if I would be able do everything required.
Also not knowing how well it would work. So far, I know it's good in the summer!
Whenever I do anything that I've never done before, there is a risk of failure.
But, it's only money, so why not try? You can't take it with you..
What I don't want to do, is invest a lot of time and labor in a high risk project.
I try to understand what I'll need to know to complete the project.
Some projects don't work out, but I do learn from them.
"Why did I wait so long to do this??? "
Well, on this one, I was waiting for Ebay prices..
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Since our hot water requirements are so low, I think solar collector hotwater would be a mistake.
This ASHP was just so much easier. And, I had an extra $800 kicking around.
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What if it's no good during the really cold months??
Use the heating elements!
Now that I'm finding out how many BTUhs
of hotwater we are using, I'm starting to
ponder the idea of using 120vac @ abt 1200 watts (4094 BTUh) during those cold months.
Since 120AC makes about 1/2 the BTUh of the A7, the recovery time would be slow.
But, it might still work well enough for us. If we were using 16,000 BTUh
each day, that works out to 4.8 kWh, or 78 cents a day. Not too horrible (like $2 for oil).
I could just set the timer for 5 hours, starting at 8AM..
Dang, does it seem like I'll do anything to keep from burning oil??
