Heat pump H2O water heaters??

[jeff5may]

Here are two more candidates of stark contrast:

Portable Heater, Dehumidifier, 12K BTU Heat pump/AC

Drop-in cheap heating (compared to straight electric), pretty, resellable. Suck fresh air from earth tubes, exhaust air indoors and out. Functions as a HRV. Very little sweat equity.

Window AC

The opposite of above. Dirt cheap, modify as you so desire. Get out the magic wand and make it do whatever. If it don't work, get your money back at the scrap yard.

The main idea is start small and cheap. Once you have something working in your house, the planning and decision process becomes short. Experience will tell whether or not this thing you have is for you or not. Since your house is well-insulated already, you shouldn't need a very large system anyway.

[MN Renovator]

That one looks like it might be open to the elements which would pretty much make it garbage. Hard to tell if you are getting a pumped down unit with refrigerant in it, that would be the cake. If that one was sealed up and with an A-coil I'd probably have it in my garage right now, especially if it were a 13 SEER or better.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by jeff5may

...What put me off in becoming an engineer was the same thing you just said: engineers get paid to plan and revise things. There may or may not be an end product in this process.

Having known quite a few engineers in my day, I'd agree with you that there's something wrong. But I'm not so sure that you have your finger on the pulse.

From my experience, there is no screening process for men and women who are seeking engineering degrees, that would select for an inclination toward practicality. I have seen too many engineers in training and also working engineers who simply lack common sense.

Then you have the problem that the people who do have the common sense, are required to comply with designs and instructions that are clearly mis-conceived. It's a guaranteed recipe for resentment.

Then these infants with degrees are released upon the world.

Also, there's almost no training that would help aspiring engineers acquire that much needed intuition, except full-time blundering on the job.

God save us all!

-AC

[randen]

AC-Hacker Wrote:
Then you have the problem that the people who do have the common sense, are required to comply with designs and instructions that are clearly mis-conceived. It's a guaranteed recipe for resentment.

Then these infants with degrees are released upon the world.

Also, there's almost no training that would help aspiring engineers acquire that much needed intuition, except full-time blundering on the job.

God save us all!

My home here in Canada had been heated with furnace oil for 12 yrs. since new. Five years ago I recieved a letter from TSSA and my oil supplier. The fiberglass inground storage 1000 Gal. tank certified for petrolium containment was now the subject of scrutiny. The letter stated the tank needed to be inspected and if further fills were to be allowed sacrificial anodes and a series of inspection holes were to be installed. Further more a tank of more than 10 yrs had be suggested that may need to be removed.

The oil supplier did go to bat for me and a letter went out stating the tank was suppied and installed to the proceedures of the day (9 yrs prior)and didn't require such drastic measures.

I called an spoke with the engineer of TSSA in charge and asked him what the situation was. He basically read the letter again. Site wells and anode protection. They are very concerned about rust perferation. Well I told him the site wells may work for leak detection, but I was unclear as to how effective the anode protection would be to a fiberglass tank. A long pause Hmm. he said no-one had considered a fiberglass tank. There are no distinctions made for a fiberglass storage tank. I'll have to get back to you.

Don't bother Geo-Thermal will be installed this fall. Oils getting to expensive an who knows what you guys are goning to come up with next.

Yes God save us all

Randen

[randen]

Getting back to the Heat-pump water heater great idea being the owner/builder of Geo-thermal. This is great technology. For roll your own the materials are plentifull and cheap.

Randen

[Drake]

Just scored a NIB AirTap A7, under Heat MIzer name, from Ebay for $250. So I will be going HP route when I install. Though it won't have all the integrated controls for hybrid running as new one unit HP DHWHs I'm sure a wiring connection can be DIYed to allow a seasonal switch to even just winter off-peak elec(when basement can be overcooled) I'm ahead and can have summer savings, cooling and dehumidification as wanted. Also can add A7 to the 80gl min tank size needed for the off-peak elec program here. Still plan to have a recycled pre tank with which to experiment on other water heating source for fun and savings. Also will work on ways to free heat basement air to keep A7 working efficient as much as possible(ground tubes, solar, air supplied wood stove). I'm not trying to reach zero net just get as close as possible for reasonable cost.

[jeff5may]

MN Renovator,
I was just suggesting examples of units to start tinkering with. For $100, I would be overjoyed if the unit didn't blow breakers and belch water. With some work, it would be a viable, temporary test bed. It's probably long gone anyway at that price.

Drake,
Sweet! Much better than the original $700+ price tag!
Power Mizer H20 Water Heater Pump | eBay
I love how this unit has a new look, but they still call it the A7. Go figure.

It looks like AirGenerate has come out with some new, complete hybrid units:
AirGenerate AirTap - Integrated Products
AirGenerate must have taken the criticism of the A7 seriously and reloaded their rifle. I hope they sell a jillion of these at $2500 a pop at Lowe's. It would send the major manufacturers back to the drawing board.

[Drake]

The new one piece unit(w/ hybrid integrated controls) is most surely the reason for the lower pricing on older model. But since I want at least an 80 gl, maybe 100, storage tank I'm happy for the savings. I have found a 100 gl tank w/xchgr coil and elec back up that I could hook my floor loop to. Also have one w/double coil.

[Servicetech]

The problem with heat pump water heaters is they work harder as the incoming water tempatures drop. In summer when a heat pump water heater would be most effective incoming water tempatures are in the 70's. Payback time for heat pump water heater is simply too long. If you have natural gas, forget it. No way a heat pump water heater will ever pay for itself when compared to gas.

[NiHaoMike]

The payback can be quite a bit quicker if you make use of the air conditioning/dehumidification features. That said, it's surprisingly easy to build your own for less than half the cost of buying one. And if you run a R410a compressor on R290 or R433b (the "Davuluri Treatment"), it would very easily attain the 140F or so for dishwashing. I'm also using a dsPIC and OpenWRT platform for system control, currently developing the firmware for it.