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| My new GE Geospring hot water heater in series with a preheat tank (not shown) |
So I finally put in a new hot water heater. As I had discussed in previous posts, I wanted a GE Geospring air source heat pump (ASHP) hot water heater. Well, that's what I got.
Why am I so hyped about this? Well for starters...
1) The Geospring is rated at an energy factor of 2.5 which saves roughly 63% of the energy as compared to normal electric hot water heater (which I had). On an annual average basis, my former HW tank was running 0.8 hrs/day @ 4.6 kW for 3.7 kWh/day. Thus, this is expected to be reduce to 1.37 kWh/d.
2) I had mentioned in some of a previous posts, that the geothermal supplemental hot water generator (desuperheater) really is not optimized when using one tank. I'd read some forums that even claimed it could be costing me energy with calls for geothermal system manufacturers to remove the 1 tank setup from its installation procedures. Well, this new hot water tank was connected in series with my "old" hot water tank (now un-powered). The "old" tank will act like a preheat tank allowing for maximum hot water generation via the desuperheater. This preheated water will feed the GE Geospring. So overall, the energy required for hot water generation is cut substantially.
3) The Geospring is so efficient because its an ASHP hot water heater. Essentially that means its an air conditioner connected to hot water heater. So it will "condition" (remove heat and humidity) the air and instead of discharging the heat outside, it takes the heat and pumps it into the hot water tank. Why does this benefit me? Well, recall I've been using a dehumidifier in my crawl space to reduce moisture...and its been a fairly large energy consumer. Well, the Geospring will now take the place of the dehumidifier by simultaneously conditioning the air (removing moisutre) as it heats the hot water. Thus, I'll hopefully be able to negate using the dehumidifier entirely! That should save me somewhere around 7 kWh/day alone.
Overall, I'm hoping this work will reduce my overall power consumption by about 9.33 kWh/day. It could be higher including optimization of the desuperheater, but I have not way to quantify this yet. Even at 9.33 kWh/day this is about 280 kWh/month! If you consider that in the last year (Sept 2011 - Sept 2012), I've averaged 853 kWh/month, then the 280 kWh/month will result in a roughly 33% reduction in consumption! That equates to roughly $31/month. This project cost me about $1200 to install, so that's a 3.19 ROI (not assuming any rate increases). I'll take that... Only time will tell what I actually achieve...
verbiage pet peeve: it's not a hot water heater. why would you heat hot water? It's a cold water heater to produce hot water.
ReplyDeleteside note: now that your crawl space is "conditioned" how do you plan on using it? Man cave in additions to man bonus room?
You make me laugh, Mitch. You can talk to the MFRs about that one.
ReplyDeleteHi there! So, how was your new water heater? Did it cut your power consumption to your estimated amount? I've been eying a tankless water heater for quite a while and I don't know what brand I should get. I’ve also been asking my friends and colleagues about it, but they seem to have various answers. If this product isn't too good to be true, then I'll purchase a model similar to yours.
ReplyDeleteThe new water heater has been great. It has certainly cut my consumption. I've had record low energy usage (see my blog post about a month later). I eyed a tankless water heater too. It all depends on what you have at your house. If you have gas, then it's a fairly good deal, although its still very expensive. Expect to pay at least $1200-$1500 just for the unit, not including installation. And the downside of having a tankless is the incoming water temperature. The unit is rated for a certain amount of fixutres...at a ~40F rise in temperature. So that would be like going rom 80F to 120F (a normal hot water temp). But if you live in a cooler or temperature climate, then the 'capacity' of the unit drops when you need to go from, say, 60F to 120F.
ReplyDeleteI have an earlier post where I discuss tankless vs ASHP hot water heaters. For me, I don't have any gas appliances, so I'd pay a premium for it. The bonus would be that my geothermal system would preheat the incoming water so I'd minimize my 'capacity' loss.
Good luck!
These boilers also need a cold-water storage tank in the loft to feed the hot water cylinder as well as a tank that maintains the water level of the central heating system.
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