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Old 01-19-09, 03:08 PM   #11
dremd
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sounds like I may be able to get in on a fraction of a 1 week trencher rental in the future; not perfect; but I may go for it instead of the excavator.

Edit: Looks like a few window units are available with heat pumps; but most are just resistive heat. Smallest Heat pump I saw was 11,800 btu. Which is about double what I want. Looks like I'll just do resistive heat (space heater) for the few nights that I need it. If I needed 10,000 + BTU I'd jump on it though.


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Old 01-30-09, 09:43 PM   #12
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Just wanted to post up That I definitely have not given up on this idea.
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Old 02-02-09, 06:57 PM   #13
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I for one would be interested in your progress. Pics please...
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Old 02-02-09, 07:20 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ftumsh View Post
I for one would be interested in your progress. Pics please...
I'll be sure to take pictures as soon as I have real progress.

I've been thinking about other aplications for these, if you hooked it up backwards you would have heat. If you plumbed up both sides you have a geothermal water heater.
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Old 02-15-09, 07:57 PM   #15
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Default Ductless..

Last year, I came to the realization that just about all AC units were heat pumps.
I had to see the block diagrams of both systems about 50 times, before it sunk in.

I did some heating experiments with a small AC and found it worked pretty well in air-to-air mode.

Here we are pumping heat inside on a cool day.. It worked fine. But it made a lot of racket..
I also did some testing in the basement, warming up a small room, using the cool air in the rest of the basement as my heat source.


I wanted to pump some water-to-air heat, but kinda lost interest when I saw
the Ductless mini-split AC&Heat stuff from Asia.

Here is the system I plan to buy this spring.
24KHS72 - Sanyo 24,200 BTU Heat Pump Air Conditioner Kit
I will use it to cool our house in the summer and heat it on most days in the winter.
It will work pretty well when it's really cold outdoors.
See chart on page 28 of the service manual.
http://sanyohvac.com/assets/document...SeriesRevB.pdf

What really excites me is these numbers:
♦ Power Supply Voltage/Phase/Hz: 230/208V / 1PH / 60Hz
♦ Running AMPS (Cooling) : 10.8/12.1 (1.2⇔12.1) Variable Speed


Meaning it will be using between 276 and 2484 watts to heat our house at up to 24,000 BTUh when it's frosty outdoors.

I plan to save a bundle on heating oil. We will only use oil when it's really cold. down in the single digits.

Compared to space heaters:
One of our old resistive space heater does one room using 1380 watts, putting out about 4,7000 BTU.
Turn the second heater in the den and we are using about 2760 watts and getting only 9,417 BTUh.

I also like the idea of owning a very efficient AC unit that will crank out some major cold air for those hot days of summer (July and August here).
---
As stated above, geothermal costs is super high.
To retrofit our home to geothermal, would cost more than we paid for the house..

If you compare the performance of the mini-split Sanyo (above) to Geothermal, you will see they are close. Very close.

I can't see paying 15 or 20 times as much money for a 2 ton unit..


If the mini-spit unit works well for us and the average power usage (w/o the old space heaters running) isn't real high, I just might try to run our AC & heat on PV panels during the daylight hours..
Well, I can dream can't I?

Cheers,
Rich
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Old 03-06-09, 08:20 PM   #16
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Bad news. The planned test unit died; ran for about 10 minutes, made a terriable noise, then smoke came out. Oh well I'll start watching for sales.
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Old 03-06-09, 08:56 PM   #17
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I was driving home one day and saw a sign '18,000 BTU AC for sale'
They just had central air installed and didn't need the old Kenmore anymore.
I took it home as a spare for my 30 year old 20,000 BTU Chrysler AirTemp.

Sure nuff, about a year later my wife turned on the AirTemp on a warm spring day,
forgetting to remove the winter cover, and almost set the thing on fire. It was smoking!

I had to open up the hole-in-the-wall for the larger Kenmore, but it works great.
Using less power too. Got 3 years out of it so far.
I slide the guts out of the case a bit and oil the motor every spring, when I take off the cover.

Many times people sell them when they move out of their home.
Check your local Craigs list and news papers.
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Old 03-06-09, 08:59 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xringer View Post
Many times people sell them when they move out of their home.
Check your local Craigs list and news papers.
I'll keep an eye out.
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Old 12-21-09, 09:46 AM   #19
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Related to this discussion, I'm wondering about a ground loop for the output radiator on a refrigerator or a freezer?
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Old 12-21-09, 11:30 AM   #20
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Default freezer

I've got an old freezer in the basement and it's about 52 down there these days.
So, any heat it pumps out of the steak-tips etc, is very welcome to stay in the laundry room.

Back on 10/02/08, I plugged it into my KillaWatt for 5.2 hours
and wrote the following in my notebook.
$0.41 day
$2.87 week
$12.31 month
$147 year

On 2-14-09, did a 6 hour run on the kitchen GE fridge and recorded:
$0.26 day
$1.83 week
$7.86 month
$95.64 year

We pay about $0.201 per kWh these days.

I think we might need to get rid of that old freezer..

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