Hello From Cincinnati

mburke6 · 12-12-14, 12:07 AM

Hello all. I've been lurking here for a few days, and there seems to be a lot of interesting information here that I'm looking forward to reading and adopting. I have a 1800 square foot split level house that I bought in 2003. The house is all electric, no natural gas or propane, and this is perfect for what I want to do over the next 10 year. My dream is to one day disconnect my home from the power grid.

Every year a do a project or two designed to reduce the energy consumption of my home. Over the past 6 years, I've been able to reduced my energy consumption by over 1/3. I'm struggling to get to 1/2 energy savings while I wait for Solar to get cheaper.

I've replaced my windows, improved the insulation, switched my lighting to LED (5 years ago), installed a variable speed pool pump, installed a heat pump hot water heater, and various other projects to reduce my energy consumption. I perform all the work myself, often with help from my dad and cousin.

My most recent project was to install a drain heat recovery system and I could not be happier with the results. I replaced my old 80 gallon hot water heater in 2010 with a 50 gallon heat pump. The drawback to the heat pump is the long recovery time. Going from 80 gallons of hot water to 50 gallons was also a drawback. The obvious advantage is the huge reduction in energy.

In an attempt to reduce the severity of the drawbacks, I recently installed a drain heat recovery system to preheat my cold water inlet to the water heater and to the cold valve on the two showers. The results were a raise in cold water temperature from 60 degrees to 90 degrees, much shorter recovery time for the hot water in heat pump mode, and an almost doubling of shower time. I am amazed at the results, which are far better than I had anticipated.

I had hoped to attach images, but I don't have enough posts to do so. The images showe the hot water heater and the heat exchanger. I installed water temperature probes on the cold water inlet, and the preheated outlet that show a nearly 30 degree rise in water temperature at a shower temperature of around 105 degrees.

12-12-14, 12:07 AM	#1
mburke6 Lurking Renovator Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 7 Thanks: 2 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Hello From Cincinnati Hello all. I've been lurking here for a few days, and there seems to be a lot of interesting information here that I'm looking forward to reading and adopting. I have a 1800 square foot split level house that I bought in 2003. The house is all electric, no natural gas or propane, and this is perfect for what I want to do over the next 10 year. My dream is to one day disconnect my home from the power grid. Every year a do a project or two designed to reduce the energy consumption of my home. Over the past 6 years, I've been able to reduced my energy consumption by over 1/3. I'm struggling to get to 1/2 energy savings while I wait for Solar to get cheaper. I've replaced my windows, improved the insulation, switched my lighting to LED (5 years ago), installed a variable speed pool pump, installed a heat pump hot water heater, and various other projects to reduce my energy consumption. I perform all the work myself, often with help from my dad and cousin. My most recent project was to install a drain heat recovery system and I could not be happier with the results. I replaced my old 80 gallon hot water heater in 2010 with a 50 gallon heat pump. The drawback to the heat pump is the long recovery time. Going from 80 gallons of hot water to 50 gallons was also a drawback. The obvious advantage is the huge reduction in energy. In an attempt to reduce the severity of the drawbacks, I recently installed a drain heat recovery system to preheat my cold water inlet to the water heater and to the cold valve on the two showers. The results were a raise in cold water temperature from 60 degrees to 90 degrees, much shorter recovery time for the hot water in heat pump mode, and an almost doubling of shower time. I am amazed at the results, which are far better than I had anticipated. I had hoped to attach images, but I don't have enough posts to do so. The images showe the hot water heater and the heat exchanger. I installed water temperature probes on the cold water inlet, and the preheated outlet that show a nearly 30 degree rise in water temperature at a shower temperature of around 105 degrees.