GE Hybrid Hot Water HEater

[lawandorder]

So the local big box store has the GE Hybrid Water heater on sale for 999.00 down from 1599.00. I have been having issues with my hot water which runs of the sidearm of my oil boiler. ANy thoughts on upgrading to the hybrid unit to be used and eliminating the sidearm. I run my Tarm during the cold weather. Does the hybrid hot water heater connect easily with my Tarm?? ANy thoughts would be much appreciateed.

 

[heaterman]

So the local big box store has the GE Hybrid Water heater on sale for 999.00 down from 1599.00. I have been having issues with my hot water which runs of the sidearm of my oil boiler. ANy thoughts on upgrading to the hybrid unit to be used and eliminating the sidearm. I run my Tarm during the cold weather. Does the hybrid hot water heater connect easily with my Tarm?? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Suffice to say there is a reason it is on sale. At least that's been the experience of a couple local plumbers who I have talked with about it.

Side arms are generally and commonly problematic for the most part. Simply put, they plug up with dismaying regularity and performance gradually goes to 0.

I would recommend spending that $999 on a small (30gl) indirect and simply placing in series before your water heater. Once done, the water heater will only run to maintain temperature and you will enjoy about 4x the capacity from the indirect.

Did you get soaked by Irene up there?

 

[EricV]

I have the Geyser unit and love it. My friend just got the GE unit about 4 months ago ans so far he's very happy with it. Even with company he has not had to take it out of heat pump mode yet. It's very quiet, dehumidifies and cools his basement.

 

[lawandorder]

So I quess it comes down to which is a better set up. The side arm off the oil boiler or making the switch to the hybrid. ANyone make any similar changes to their system and did it improve your system? Eric how do you like your decision to switch to the Geyser unit. Would you have purchased the GE if it was on sale for 999.00???

 

[EricV]

I really like the geyser unit. Keeps my basement dry and cool. The GE unit at $999 is a great deal. I already had an indirect so buying a 50 gallon tank gives me 86 gallons standby. We use a lot of hot water so this works well. My friend loves his GE.

 

[atomix]

We had a clogged DHW coil in our boiler which never gave great heat (which is basically a sidearm inside the boiler), so...We went with the GE unit for probably about $1500 + a new 240V service drop. Made sense over the cost of installing a more efficient indirect system and running the boiler for the 7 months out of the year we don't need heat. Payback with $0.10/Kwhr helps a lot too.

If I had a wood burning boiler instead of an oil burner, the economics might be different. But how many months are you really firing up the boiler?