My Geospring

maple1 said:

You sure moved quick with your decision.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

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Glad i did too seeing the price jump back up to $1899.
I watched my oil tank drop from full to 3/4 in 2 months just for hot water! I just had to try something other then oil.

80 gallon seems like overkill ,unless its to make up for slow recovery time. My 30 gallon conventional does a good job with 6 users. So im thinking i could benefit from this 80 gallon behemoth. Edit: i mean 50 gallon behemoth ,if 30 gals is working fine im sure 50 even with a longer recovery time will be plenty.

@cableman, did you go for a condensate pump too...running where?

Mine is in my attached garage, and the condensate is gravity drained to a sump pit.

woodgeek said:

@cableman, did you go for a condensate pump too...running where?

Mine is in my attached garage, and the condensate is gravity drained to a sump pit.

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I did order a pump for a dehumidifier i never bought, it went on sale on amazon for $19.99! Who would of known it would be hooked to a hot water tank! It pumps right outside.
I was tempted to get the 50gal but with kids/wife baths i figured heat pump mode would recover slower.
So its a nice steady hot water unlike my tankless coil, but well see how it performs in the winter.
The box went to use!

So far hot water is very even and much better then that tankless coil.
It seems to kick on once a day at night after kids showers, they must turn hot all the way up being further from the shower head!
It stays on for quite some time, 4 or more hours im not sure cause im sleeping by then.
Basement drops 2* from 70 to 68 but feels much colder, being summer its not a problem, but not sure how that will work in winter with basement temps prolly 10*-20* less.
Hopfully boiler helps out a little then.

I amp clamped each hot lead at roughly 1.8amps per side, hopefully my 80-100 dollar montly electric bill doesnt go up too much!

Anyone hook the wifi up?

1.8 amps, over 4 hours, is about 1.7kwh.

Don't know what you pay for electricity - but if it's say $0.20/kwh, that's 34 cents a day. $10/month.

cableman said:

So far hot water is very even and much better then that tankless coil.
It seems to kick on once a day at night after kids showers, they must turn hot all the way up being further from the shower head!
It stays on for quite some time, 4 or more hours im not sure cause im sleeping by then.
Basement drops 2* from 70 to 68 but feels much colder, being summer its not a problem, but not sure how that will work in winter with basement temps prolly 10*-20* less.
Hopfully boiler helps out a little then.

I amp clamped each hot lead at roughly 1.8amps per side, hopefully my 80-100 dollar montly electric bill doesnt go up too much!

Anyone hook the wifi up?

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Glad to hear you got it and its working good. You can thank us CT residents for paying into the energize ct fund on our electric bills for getting that great price. lol

You will have zero issues in the winter. You have the latest model that is rated down to like 35 degrees or something. I run mine in heat pump only mode year round. The efficiency drops a a bit as the temps go down and the heat pump will run a little longer.

I had an energy monitor hooked up to mine and these use barely any energy compared to other electric stuff in the house. Mine pulls 500 watts when running it heat pump mode. My wife showers in the morning and I shower after work. It recovers in about an hour so mine runs about 2-3 hours a day using a measly 1-2 kwhs a day. I have done extensive monitoring with mine with my effergy energy monitor. It cost less than $10 a month in electricity to run. (Thats with like the 2nd or 3rd highest electric rates in the country here in CT).

I also extensively monitored my basement temps and it has zero effect on it. It may drop about a degree or 2 but then levels right back within an hour or so.

I saw the wifi thing but its not worth it as it just does the same things you can do with the buttons on your tank.

There is a cool dianostic mode you can go into with these. It will show you all the sensors and stuff. You can see the evaporator temp, compressor outlet temp etc.

maple1 said:

1.8 amps, over 4 hours, is about 1.7kwh.

Don't know what you pay for electricity - but if it's say $0.20/kwh, that's 34 cents a day. $10/month.

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That's pretty good, and almost worth dealing with the slow recovery time and lower water temperature. I'm burning a gallon a day, keeping my water hot with oil, although I do have the luxury of almost instant recovery (we never run out of hot water) and much hotter hot water.

cableman said:

So far hot water is very even and much better then that tankless coil.
It seems to kick on once a day at night after kids showers, they must turn hot all the way up being further from the shower head!
It stays on for quite some time, 4 or more hours im not sure cause im sleeping by then.
Basement drops 2* from 70 to 68 but feels much colder, being summer its not a problem, but not sure how that will work in winter with basement temps prolly 10*-20* less.
Hopfully boiler helps out a little then.

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It will just take longer to recover in the winter....both because of lower air temps and because of lower input water temps. The first one increases energy use, the second one not so much.....pumping heat into cold water is very efficient, the most energy goes into the last 20°F of heating, IIRC.

If the water is not hot enough, bump it a few degrees, you prob won't care about the extra $0.50/month. Or make sure the HW pipe runs are well insulated.

Its actually 1.8 or so on both hots right at the breaker. It kicked on early today cause the wife is doing dishes and laundry, ill have to see how long. It was only 1 amp on each hot this time. Ill have to ck my pseg bill and see what i pay.
Wonder if 50 gal would have come on more but for shorter durations. 80 seems to stay on pretty long like 4 or more hours.

So far its nice! Spent this morning neating up the boiler wiring, looking great!

Heres my newest pseg bill, i dont know what im beong charged here!
When it kicked on early today it was only short lived maybe 2hrs not like the evenings ive experienced.

The power draw from the compressor depends on the temp of the water its heating....as the water gets hotter (in contact with the refrigerant coil, at the bottom of the tank), the compressor works harder and the draw goes up. You are not going to be able to estimate the usage easily without some sort of energy monitor.

The only difference between the 50 and the 80 will be higher parasitic losses on the larger tank....probably less than $1/mo.

cableman said:

Heres my newest pseg bill, i dont know what im beong charged here!
When it kicked on early today it was only short lived maybe 2hrs not like the evenings ive experienced.
View attachment 181906

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Looks like you get a discount on the first 300 kWh, which is 9 (energy) + 6 (delivery) = 15 cents/kWh. After that they bump you up and extra cent and half to 16.5 for the remainder.

And then they add fixed costs and percentages like sales tax.

Your whole bill divided by your usage works out to 20.6 cents/kWh, your marginal rate is likely a bit lower.

woodgeek said:

Looks like you get a discount on the first 300 kWh, which is 9 (energy) + 6 (delivery) = 15 cents/kWh. After that they bump you up and extra cent and half to 16.5 for the remainder.

And then they add fixed costs and percentages like sales tax.

Your whole bill divided by your usage works out to 20.6 cents/kWh, your marginal rate is likely a bit lower.

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Thats high right? Lol

cableman said:

Thats high right? Lol

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If you want it to be high, yeah it high. But I think its all relative. I was paying 18 cents/kWh in 1992 in Chicago. Adjusting for inflation, I was paying 2x more than you are now. And my AC then probably used 2X the electricity per BTU cooling than yours.

Electricity prices vary across the country, and everyone likes to complain....but they haven't been increasing much relative to inflation for the last 30 years.

For comparison I get 100% PA Wind power, for about 14.5 cents/kWh all-in.

Electricity is a good bargain these days ,especially with inflation figured in. Im right on 9.9cKWH all in. everything included. 1469KW this month and bill is $148.00 .Actually $45 cheaper cuz of a generation co switch last month saving me 3c KWH.

cableman said:

Thats high right? Lol

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Ashful said:

That's pretty good, and almost worth dealing with the slow recovery time and lower water temperature. I'm burning a gallon a day, keeping my water hot with oil, although I do have the luxury of almost instant recovery (we never run out of hot water) and much hotter hot water.

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The savings over oil is huge. Lets just say $2 gallon heating oil. You use a gallon a day is so about $60 a month or $720 a year. I am sure some use more than a gallon a day so the figure could probably be doubled. I know oil is cheap now but heating oil was almost $4 a gallon 3 years ago. Even with $2 a gallon oil the geospring blows away oil in energy cost. I had natural gas at my old place and it was $15 a month just to be connected. The geospring is cheaper than the monthly fee just to be hooked up to gas.

I will use your 1 gallon a day oil usage as an example. I think most would use more than a gallon of heating oil a day though.

Geospring $10 a month or $120 a year.
Heating oil at @ $2 a gallon is $60 a month or $720 a year.

Using that example the geospring more than paid for itself in the first year and your saving $600 a year after that. If oil goes up the savings is even bigger. If oils goes to $3 a gallon oil your saving $960 a year.

Brian26 said:

The savings over oil is huge. Lets just say $2 gallon heating oil. You use a gallon a day is so about $60 a month or $720 a year. I am sure some use more than a gallon a day so the figure could probably be doubled. I know oil is cheap now but heating oil was almost $4 a gallon 3 years ago. Even with $2 a gallon oil the geospring blows away oil in energy cost. I had natural gas at my old place and it was $15 a month just to be connected. The geospring is cheaper than the monthly fee just to be hooked up to gas.

I will use your 1 gallon a day oil usage as an example. I think most would use more than a gallon of heating oil a day though.

Geospring $10 a month or $120 a year.
Heating oil at @ $2 a gallon is $60 a month or $720 a year.

Using that example the geospring more than paid for itself in the first year and your saving $600 a year after that. If oil goes up the savings is even bigger. If oils goes to $3 a gallon oil your saving $960 a year.

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I agree, the Geospring would save on energy costs, but you're forgetting some other big numbers:

1. My basement is a heated, finished space. If I'm pulling heat out of the basement via the GeoSpring, I must make that up via my oil-fired boiler, and my heating costs will rise. I'm not sure how much this would close that gap on energy savings.
2. These Geosprings seem to eat parts at a rate maybe 100x higher than my oil-fired system. Even under warranty, the frustration and down-time is worth $. Out of warranty, it's real money. A typical oil-fired system can last 50 years, and it's unlikely I'll ever have to replace any parts on the system the previous owners of my house installed, short of maybe a circulator pump motor every 20 years.

The costs over the 20 - 30 years I may live in this house aren't clear, especially if I go thru a new HPWH every 10th year, and need repair them in-between.

For me having the tankless coil garbage, the geospring turned out to be an easier and cheaper way to go. If i did install the indirect it would have cost me $2700 total! Im into the geospring for $1600.

Ashful said:

I agree, the Geospring would save on energy costs, but you're forgetting some other big numbers:

1. My basement is a heated, finished space. If I'm pulling heat out of the basement via the GeoSpring, I must make that up via my oil-fired boiler, and my heating costs will rise. I'm not sure how much this would close that gap on energy savings.
2. These Geosprings seem to eat parts at a rate maybe 100x higher than my oil-fired system. Even under warranty, the frustration and down-time is worth $. Out of warranty, it's real money. A typical oil-fired system can last 50 years, and it's unlikely I'll ever have to replace any parts on the system the previous owners of my house installed, short of maybe a circulator pump motor every 20 years.

The costs over the 20 - 30 years I may live in this house aren't clear, especially if I go thru a new HPWH every 10th year, and need repair them in-between.

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I think cableman has it right on the financials, except that he assumes that the parasitic heat from the boiler's 1 gal/day standby has no value in the winter....if the basement were insulated, it would all provide space heat BTUs. If uninsulated, it might reduce space heating BTUs by some factor, like 50% per loss BTU.

And those financials are hefty. Even at $2 oil a difference of even $40/mo times 20 years is $10,000 w/o interest.

As for your points:
1. The heat stealing in the winter is only about 1 BTU per 2 delivered. If your basement were perfectly insulated, it would reduce your savings in the winter (thus the $40/mo above). If your basement is old, uninsulated and heated by space and parasitic heat passing through on its way to the great heat sink on the ground, then stealing some of those BTUs cooling the basement reduces your losses to the earth. I'd assume 50% worst case in an unisulated basement in our climate...and then it is a minor issue (1 BTU oil per 4 delivered).
2. In 4 years I have spent $0 on repairs to my (AOSmith) HPWH, which has a 10 yr warranty and a non-sacrificial anode. I had a board go bad (after a huge power surge that blew out my whole-house surge suppressor, charring the inside door of my breaker box). AOSmith had be run a couple diagnostics on the phone (1 hour) and fedexed me a replacement board, which I installed in about 1 hour the next day. IN contrast, my simple one-zone boiler needed annual service that was hitting me for $200/yr, and had a series of malfunctions (that left me w/o hot water) that required a half dozen $$ service calls for the 6 years we were together...typically running $100-$300 a whack with parts and labor.

If you have a jacuzzi tub and multi-shower head system.....get two 80 gallon units, and plumb them so if one fails, you can bypass it temporarily.

Brian26 said:

The savings over oil is huge. Lets just say $2 gallon heating oil. You use a gallon a day is so about $60 a month or $720 a year. I am sure some use more than a gallon a day so the figure could probably be doubled. I know oil is cheap now but heating oil was almost $4 a gallon 3 years ago. Even with $2 a gallon oil the geospring blows away oil in energy cost. I had natural gas at my old place and it was $15 a month just to be connected. The geospring is cheaper than the monthly fee just to be hooked up to gas.

I will use your 1 gallon a day oil usage as an example. I think most would use more than a gallon of heating oil a day though.

Geospring $10 a month or $120 a year.
Heating oil at @ $2 a gallon is $60 a month or $720 a year.

Using that example the geospring more than paid for itself in the first year and your saving $600 a year after that. If oil goes up the savings is even bigger. If oils goes to $3 a gallon oil your saving $960 a year.

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I don't think many would use more than 1 gallon per day.

Our old tankless coil boiler was in the area of 3/4 gallon per day, for us, during the summer. I did set the boiler temp back in the spring though, to about the 'adequate' point. My memory is kinda foggy on it now, but I think that was in the 140° range.

But the savings are still there & real. Even if you don't go for a HPWH & just use a conventional electric. We replaced 3/4 gallon of oil per day, with $25/month of $0.18/kwh electricity in a conventional resistance heater. Not sure what oil is here now, since I haven't bought any in 4+ years. But it's more than $2/gallon. Pretty sure it's still close to $1/litre CDN, after taxes.

Ashful said:

I agree, the Geospring would save on energy costs, but you're forgetting some other big numbers:

1. My basement is a heated, finished space. If I'm pulling heat out of the basement via the GeoSpring, I must make that up via my oil-fired boiler, and my heating costs will rise. I'm not sure how much this would close that gap on energy savings.
2. These Geosprings seem to eat parts at a rate maybe 100x higher than my oil-fired system. Even under warranty, the frustration and down-time is worth $. Out of warranty, it's real money. A typical oil-fired system can last 50 years, and it's unlikely I'll ever have to replace any parts on the system the previous owners of my house installed, short of maybe a circulator pump motor every 20 years.

The costs over the 20 - 30 years I may live in this house aren't clear, especially if I go thru a new HPWH every 10th year, and need repair them in-between.

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1. An extensive study was done by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on space conditioning. They found very little effect on space temperatures and energy use. GE also has a duct kit available for these. Some people use the duct kit to draw the warm exhaust from their fridge to boost efficiency. You could also exhaust the cold air outside or into your living space in the summer. So this a non issue. I would purchase the duct kit but I used to run a dehumidifier in my basement and the geospring is now my basement dehumidifier. A huge bonus and energy savings for me.

2. There is practically zero downtime with these. They will function as a simple electric hot water heater if there is an issue with the heatpump. Elements and thermostats are available cheap at Lowes, Home Depot, or any hardware store but those rarely every go bad.

It costs $150 around here to have an oil burner tuned up every year. My geospring cost $120 a year to run.

I have had mine for over 3 years with 3 minor issues and I always had hot water. My heatpump has run for thousand of hours with no issues.

I have the 2nd generation geospring.The first one was a disaster and made in china. The 2nd one was made in the usa and was much better. The 3rd and most recent one is extremely reliable according to the GE tech that came out and looked at mine.There are 1054 reviews on lowes with almost 5 stars.

If you buy it from Lowes you can get a 10 year extended warranty for $60 that covers everything an they use GE factory service.

They are still $599 at lowes in CT with the instant $400 utility rebate and if you haven't used the $300 federal rebate that is still available. For those in New England and the tri-state area its worth a drive.

Its time to pull the trigger on this. I can get $700 in rebates and i need my old 30 gallon electric water heater for a rental so at $999 for the GEO it about zeros out.
Got 6 people here so thinking the savings could be significant. Add in the dehumidifier running in the same room for more savings. Some of the reviewers are claiming $50 a month in saving on their electric bill for a family of 4 so i may reach that. My water use is around 7000 gallons a month with a good chunk of that being hot water. My lowes only offers a 5 year extended but the Mfg offers a 10 yr parts anyway and i can do a parts swapout myself. Also the free AC in summer would be nice too ,in winter my wood stove is only about 10 feet away.

Seasoned oak, you gonna go for tge 50 or 80 gal?
My basement so far has only dropped 2* but it rises right back up.
Kids are the energy hogs! My wife and i can both shower and it doesnt come on, just one kid can shower and it comes on. Its gotta be that their smaller, further from the water so they turn the hot up more and they just spin in circles for the first 8min!