GE Geospring

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john193

Minister of Fire
Jan 11, 2010
1,053
Southeast PA
I've been researching for a while now and I think I'm ready to add the GE hybrid water heater to further cut down on my use of oil.

I wanted to gather some opinions from current users on the unit. What are your overall thoughts? Was it a worthy investment? What are your estimated savings? Any breakdowns?

Thanks
 
Lots of discussion in the Green Room if you search.

The savings are real, and it appears most folks are happy with the water volume. Lots of discussion of some bad internet reviews here:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/geospring-bad-reviews.126616/#post-1709054
but no members came forward with problems. I think it is a small fraction of folks that got lemons, out of a large number of customers that don't post reviews. It is also clear (IMO) there were a bunch of lemon units when the first geosprings came out a few years ago.

The units do need some air >45-50°F to work, so location in a large conditioned or semi-conditioned space is important. They also make some noise, so you wouldn't want them in a living space with a louver door.

I have an AOSmith 80gal HPWH, in my attached garage, that I like a lot after 2 years.

I, like most users, cannot easily see the usage of the unit on my electric bill. If you are running dehumidifiers in the space now (like a basement) the HPWH might offset much of that and your HW is nearly 'free'. I think I am $15-20/mo with 2 teenage girls in the house. In most cases, they use less kWh on an annual basis that a typical solar DHW system costing 3-5x as much (because solar typically uses resistance backup for ~50% of needs).

These are becoming a new standard technology (soon to be required by law when electric resistance HWH >=80 gallons are banned by the EPA). Expect to use 40% as much energy as a resistance tank. Almost like the difference between an incandescent bulb and a CFL.

With oil, you need to know that you can shut down your boiler over the summer without it leaking. Getting rid of my boiler was the best thing I ever did for my house. The darn thing was more than doubling my AC bill in the summer. With the cheap elec in PA, I would use the HPWH year round.
 
Thanks for the detailed write up. My search results were limited and I wasn't aware of the "green room." I'll catch up on my reading there.
 
Getting rid of my boiler was the best thing I ever did for my house.

Me too.

The oil one, that is - and the oil tank that went with it.
 
Me too.

The oil one, that is - and the oil tank that went with it.
My intent was to turn off the boiler and let it sit. We heat with a pellet stove but the oil has always been our secondary or when we are away on vacation.
 
Got the geospring this weekend. 999 at lowes became 899 with 10% off. $400 rebate from my local utility and 5% cash back from discover should make for a sub 2 year ROI.
 
Nice, I'm thinking about getting one on sale also. Do you happen to know how long the sale lasts?
 
Nice, I'm thinking about getting one on sale also. Do you happen to know how long the sale lasts?
Yes. Lowes is showing an expiration date of 4/23. But don't feel pressured to jump on it now. The unit goes on sale every few weeks. I'm sure it will be back on with the memorial weekend sales.
 
Here is a ppt presentation of heat pump water heater case studies. A good background listen.

 
John, any cliff notes for that video? My internet is limited, and an hour of video would eat that up in a hurry. I have a Geospring sitting in my garage, waiting to be installed, but knowledge is power either way.
 
John, any cliff notes for that video? My internet is limited, and an hour of video would eat that up in a hurry. I have a Geospring sitting in my garage, waiting to be installed, but knowledge is power either way.
The only way I can summarize the presentation would be to manually summarize it and i just dont have the time. However, if you havent read the advance energy study on the geospring i recommend giving it a read as it gets into real world testing. They conducted this test back in 2011, using the first generation geospring.

http://www.advancedenergy.org/_files/pages/GE-Heat-Pump-Water-Heater.pdf
 
The only way I can summarize the presentation would be to manually summarize it and i just dont have the time. However, if you havent read the advance energy study on the geospring i recommend giving it a read as it gets into real world testing. They conducted this test back in 2011, using the first generation geospring.

http://www.advancedenergy.org/_files/pages/GE-Heat-Pump-Water-Heater.pdf

That's great. I had already bought the Geospring because my propane WH is old and inefficient, and I wanted to cut propane as much as possible. Nice to see independent research verifying that the claims are true, and that it might even operate better.
 
That's great. I had already bought the Geospring because my propane WH is old and inefficient, and I wanted to cut propane as much as possible. Nice to see independent research verifying that the claims are true, and that it might even operate better.
It's a good read. The take away is the unit is capable of the claims. However, and this point is more driven in the case studies, the efficiency of the unit varies with the ambient temperature. GE markets the efficiency rating at 2.35 and in the case studies they found anywhere from 1.0 to 3.0 to be the range. Aside from ambient temp, the efficiency rating is also affected by use and frequency of hot water draws. Large frequent draws forces the unit to activate the traditional heating elements in hybrid mode (the mode tested). They concluded that with large and frequent draws running on eheat mode (heat pump only) would result in lower output temperatures due to the longer recovery time of the HP. Obviously, your mileage will vary.
 
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