Back on the juice...

[maple1]

Just turned the breaker back on to my electric DHW tank. It's been off for almost 2 years. I was due for a burn, and the forecast is for a week of nice weather, so it would have been the first time all year so far that some standby heat loss wouldn't have been welcome in the house (actually had to burn for heat on the weekend). And I just didn't feel like lighting a fire. So figured it should at least get some exercise and the time was right. I had to do a bit of trouble shooting though after I hit the breaker - nothing happened. I had an idea I had tripped the overheat on the stat when I was heating it up with wood (it got a little warm up top a couple times) - but pushing the reset didn't do anything. Turns out I wasn't pushing it hard enough - d'oh.

I'll likely do the odd burn over the summer when I get some junk wood & scraps accumulated, but won't be fretting over the electric bill. I'll watch the next one or two though to try to get a better handle on what it costs - but the last few have me scratching my head a bit anyway. Last one was the lowest it's ever been, with almost a 2kwh/day drop over same period last year - don't really know why. We've got one old tube TV that was hooked to a PS4 that might be the cause - doesn't get used any more. But it hasn't been used for a few months and the prior couple of bills didn't show any drops.

 

[velvetfoot]

Hopefully you filled the thing with water before throwing the breaker.

 

[maple1]

No worries there - it's been filled & used as a DHW holding tank in the years when it wasn't turned on.

 

[velvetfoot]

Oh, that's right-sidearm.

 

[Highbeam]

You sound a lot like me with our power bill. My wife calls it the report card.

 

[JP11]

In my first summer with the HPHW. Been pretty happy with it. I try to not stack my usage too much. Like doing laundry, dishes and then the wife takes a bath right after. Electric usage is up anyway. I added another central air unit. It's all solar though. I like not having that 'waste' heat making the floor of my wife's studio too hot. Now it's super cool and dry in the utility room.

I cleaned and closed down the wood boiler for the first time this summer. I poured cast some refractory for my secondary chamber. I got sick of the individual bricks getting caught on the tool during cleanup.

I finished off my 2nd year of wood. 35 pallets for this year, and 35 for next year. Next week I'll start working 17/18. I've got another 8 to 10 cords in logs. So that, plus a few yard trees I have to add.. I'll FINALLY be my full 3 years ahead.

Will be VERY cool to only need to do a year's worth of wood each year.

JP

 

[Rory]

I just lit a fire for DHW. Since I dehumidify my basement anyway, I've been toying with the idea of adding a HPHW unit after my storage tank. Seems like it should be insulated well enough to hold DHW on the way to the tap in the winter, and in the summer I could take a break from building fires and get my HW largely as a byproduct of drying out the cellar.

 

[maple1]

If you use a dehumidifier a lot, I might consider heating the storage tank with a HPWH in the summer. One of the add-on units should work pretty good - like a Geyser. Wouldn't have to keep the whole tank hot, just keep the top warm if you want. Not sure how that would translate to water temp at the taps though, there would be some inefficiencies in HXs to get the heat out of storage & into your DHW & the HP might not be able to get storage warm enough to get your tap water warm enough.

 

[velvetfoot]

Even though just thinking about the top of the tank, that's still a lot of water with, say, a 1000 gallon tank.

It looks like Tom in Maine has Etech units on eBay:
(broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etech-Heat-Pump-Water-Heater/271928853379)

 

[maple1]

Just got the latest power bill. We get billed in two month +/- cycles here, and this last period started June 18. And was 64 days long. So the first 2 weeks or so of this billing period (12 days), the water heater was still shut off. But my per day consumption is up 2.5 kwh/day for this bill. Over both the same period last year, and the past bill of 2 months ago. Trying to do the numbers simply & account for the first 12 days of no water heater, I get around 3 kwh/day for the water heater. Around 50 cents a day, $15/month. Pretty hard to beat even vs. using 'free' wood.

 

[kennyp2339]

Thanks - As a utility work I depend on you guys using the juice - future pension payment mooohahahaha

 

[BoilerMan]

My HPWH is honestly one of the best purchases I have ever made bang for the buck. You need a big tank though at least 80gal to use it like any other water heater. I figure mine can produce about 12gal/hour. At an estimated 2gal/min hot water in the shower thats only a 6min shower in an hour, so a big reserve to muscle through the morning showers makes it all work really well. With good long run times on the HPWH.

TS

 

[JP11]

I agree. I've got an 80 indirect that the HPHW is heating up. I closed the supply and return valves to keep it from letting any boiler water thermosiphon. It's just my wife and I. I find myself making sure that we stagger things a bit. Especially when my wife wants to take a bath at night. Better not do the dishes or laundry right before, or right after that. I find myself using the delay feature on both of those appliances more to 'smooth' out the demand curve.

Then I do the drying of the clothes when the PV system is cranking mid day. No, it really doesn't matter with my net metering being equal to retail rate.. but I try to 'use my home brew' first.

JP