For non oil burners - how to get hot water

I have no basement or garage so the water heater would be in a hallway or other heated living space. The sound levels appear unacceptable. Too bad they couldn't do a mini-split style outside unit.

interesting.....

My location is a large attached garage which already has a dehumidifer, so I wasn't worried about noise and figured I could save. I figure it will run conv in the winter, and think my ROI will still be decent.
I had also decided that the GE unit FHR was too small for a family--that's why I want the 80 gal Voltex.

I guess I'll get the extended warranty!

As for the questions....the recovery on HP is supposed to be ~5 hours, not much longer than for a conv elec tank. It seems that when the compressor fails, it reverts to the elec coil---you are not w/o DHW until the repair. I wish my oil boiler could do that.

When I quote out/pull the trigger....I will post.

I'm thinking of adding a pellet boiler and maybe also use that for hot water.

Well im a little confused with all the acronyms, but the efficiency goes down on the heat pump when the ambient temp is below 50°F, and not even recommended below 45. This would rule out garages and some basements.

My unconditioned garage runs >50°F about 9 mos of the year. As I understand it, the controller will automatically switch from the compressor to the coil and back again as needed when the ambient temp drops too low. My estimates suggest that running 'conventional' for 3 mos of the year will cut my payback, but not much. The operating cost should still be half that of a conventional elec tank, and about a quarter of my current tankless coil/oil boiler combo.

Assuming I can find someone to install a 400 lb unit!

Hi,
OK -- after 6 pages with no mention of solar, I thought someone should bring it up

Solar might work particularly well in your case, since a solar water heater could provide essentially 100% of your hot water during the part of the year you would not be running your oil burner except to make hot water. I've heard from several people who have wood winter space and water heating and use solar water heating in the summer and it works well for them.

This is my current system: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DHWplusSpace/Main.htm
It provides both domestic water heating and limited space heating.
It can be scaled back to do only solar water heating.

Very simple -- the only moving part is the collector circulation pump, which is a regular, lasts forever, HVAC circulator (Grundfos 15-58).

Very cheap -- the water heating only DIY version can be built for $1000 with just about everything coming from Home Depot. We got a $500 MT rebate, so total out of pocket was $500 -- a less than 2 season payback.

Gary

+1 Gary
My solar HW system (based on your design)is still working great after 3 years.
I also put in my own PV system last year.
I have to stop looking at your website! Next thing ya know I'll be buying an Elec-trak!
Thanks for all your free information that you provide us.

Ok, a rebranded 80 gallon AO Smith unit has three positive reviews on Lowe's site:

http://www.lowes.com/webapp/wcs/sto...cId=SEARCH&productId=3370964&cm_mmc=SCE_gps-_

Also a big kudos to Gary for all he does....but sadly I have neither the site for solar (north side of a wooded ridge) nor the time to build a DIY collector.

During the winter I have a stripped out water heater next to my woodstove that heats the water to 110 / 120 degees. It preheats the water before going into the gas water heater. For the summer I plan on building either a system like Garys or a simple Batch heater.

Check out do it yourself solar. If your handy you may be able build a couple solar panels and install them yourself for a lot less.

Oh my god my post was lost. I guess I been away too long.

I'll just make the response quick then. I started with a tankless oil system, it kept 3 gallons hot in the coils so there was always instant hot water but supposedly also on-demand so there wasn't much loss. It had a lot of loss, as it didn't shut the intakes ever so when it wasn't running my basement air would be sucked into the unit, pass the coils cooling them right down, and go out the flue. It always cycled on/off. I was using 230 gallons/oil per year even though I was shutting it off during the day and night.

I purchased a 3 panel solar system from http://www.radiantsolar.com/solar_domestic_option.php including the tank. I hooked the tank to electric while I poked at the solar tubing in my free time. To my surprise, my electric bill only went up about $25/month (I pay $0.23kWh) so it was a huge savings. But, as others have pointed out there's no standby losses. The install was pretty easy, I am a DIY.

I got the solar hooked up (I live in VT) and I shut the electric off so I was just 100% solar for my hot water and from the 2nd week of January to the 2nd week of December I only had to turn on the electric to the tank 11 times. Compared to oil, it was a huge savings today. 230 gallons of oil saved at $3.70 per, that's $800/year! Compared to electric, I was only paying $300/year switching to the electric tank and saving $250 from solar so the payback is 5-10 years. In the end, with rebates, I ended up paying $2,500 after rebates/credits and I did it myself but I did some stupid stuff like, used special $6/foot insulation and 1" type "L" pipe which is not standard so it was so expensive. I should've just gotten regular black foam insulation (for inside) and 3/4" type "M" pipe (which is standard and cheap). Plus mistakes like, when I dry fitted my 1" connections there's so much friction I couldn't remove them not even with a hammer or pliers and torch! I had all my panels dry fit together in 2 arrays ready to solder then couldn't get it seperated to solder I had to cut out all my fittings and redo it all. Just using 3/4" type "M" pipe and regular foam probably would've reduced my cost by $1000 at least. I do love solar and glad I did it.

I'm not a fan of evacuated tube solar nor photovoltaic, let me know if you have questions. Thanks

I posted previously in this thread about the GE HP hot water heater, but I will provide a bit more information based on another month's usage.

- Electric usage is still within a few kwh of last year's bill. I attribute this to the fact that I was using my oil-fired boiler last year and between the burner and the pumps it used a fair amount of electricity.
- Operationally the HP water heater works very well. The 50 gallon capacity has been more than enough for my family of four (two adults, two teenagers) with no shortage of hot water noted even after the morning shower routine.
- Having both the HP hot water heater and the wood stove in the basement is working well with only a moderate increase in wood consumption being noticed. However, this past couple of weeks I've been away and unable to tend the fire as I usually do and I've run into a part of our wood supply that is not as well seasoned as the rest. The result is that I've noticed that the cool air coming off of the HP water heater has made the cellar cold and it is harder to heat up with the wood stove. The lesson learned is to keep the wood stove burning hot and strong and double check the wood supply before bringing it in.

I hope this is useful information.

Now you'll be cursing cloudy weather.

great. system details??