HP water heater

[mejunkhound]

Electric water heater

Bought/installed new hybrid over weekend, old one was leaking.

Local POCO (Puget Sound Energy) gives rebate for up to $800 plus 30% tax credit (think still good this year?) means I get PAID $120 or so for the WH

Local big box has them on sale for $629 (including various special 2 day discounts, etc.)

Old WH was straight electric, I put a box around it with R-13 added insulation, double thermal siphon on the connections, yearly HW bill at 11 cent kw-hr only $150 or so for just the 2 of us seniors. (cold water only for laundry, etc., no long showers, etc) -- so, not that much 'savings' expected, but it was a FREE water heater replacement!

Do have a separate kw-hr meter on the HW heater (and on the heat pumps, well, etc) so will check back in in a month or so with the readings.

BTW, specifics: GEH50DFE hybrid water heater, bought at Lowes in Seattle area.

[Daox]

Wow, thats pretty great. Wish I could find a deal like that.

[jeff5may]

Make sure and program it correctly when you commission the unit. They have to be told to be effective. If you don't tell them not to, they will run that sand hog element after about 5 gallons is drawn out.

[pinballlooking]

I agree what a great deal.

[mejunkhound]

10 full days, total power use with WH set on heat pump only, is 8 kW-hrs (separate meter). < 9 cents/day for hot water!

do not use hot water for laundry, but daily showers and dish washing by hand every day, dishwasher twice in that time. 2 70 yo fogies in the house with 3 grandkids on Sundays.

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by mejunkhound

10 full days, total power use with WH set on heat pump only, is 8 kW-hrs (separate meter). < 9 cents/day for hot water!

do not use hot water for laundry, but daily showers and dish washing by hand every day, dishwasher twice in that time. 2 70 yo fogies in the house with 3 grandkids on Sundays.

Did you do any mods to the unit, in terms of insulation, etc?

Your numbers look really great.

-AC

[mejunkhound]

Built box around the bottom tank part, added R-11 insulation around tank part.

tried to insert photo , only copied the location of the photo in another forum?


http://forums.delphiforums.com/dir-d...A/DSCN7383.JPG

[Daox]

That link isn't working. Any chance you could upload it here?

[mejunkhound]

PSE sent my $629 check last week, but did have to pay the sales tax of $61.







Delphi Forums Login*-*Welcome! Please log in.

Try the inserted link. Inserting pic asks for link also, vs able ot post pic directly. Insert command off 'advanced', will see if that shows pic



Current is up to 20 A when water is 56F (first start).. Like any heat pump, as the temperature differential between the heat source (air) and the sink (in this case water) gets larger, the current draw drops as the total energy moved is less, so heat pump current is almost 2 A when water cold, drops to 1.5A or so when 130F.

You can see the meter here is about 18A, water is hot. Both 4000W nameplate element and HP running.



install pix. I like to put 2 inverted siphons in line to keep HW in the tank vs. convectivly going up

11 full days on new WH.

Daily showers, dishwasher 2x a week, hand dishwashing daily

Only cold water for laundry.

TOTAL power usage, WH set on heat pump operation only (4.5 kW element locked off) -- 9 (nine) kW-hrs !! Less than 10 cents per day for hot water. (yes, the WH has its own kW-hr meter, not part of the WH, but one I added in the supply line)

And the WH was 'free'!!!!



When we have overnight family company, will likely need to set it on 'high demand' where the 4.5 kW heaters come on, but that is only a few times a year.