How does it work?

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Apparently, it's a simple heat pump. It takes heat from the surrounding area and transfers it to the water. The efficiency of taking heat from 70° ambient air and attempting to heat water to 130° is highly questionable. Think about the energy needed to take heat from a 70° room and dispose of it in a 90° room (outdoors). A simple 20° differential reduces the efficiency of the typical a/c unit to about 3:1. He's looking at a 60° differential............the efficiency isn't going to be better than 1:1.

As I mentioned I have had my two for 20 years and have put one $11 diaphragm in each. The construction of the Paloma, I think, is as good as you could ask for.

classic:

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Those articles only compare electricity usage to heat water. Oil is much cheaper than either a conventional electric heater or a heat pump heater

Around here using an electric water heater is only slightly more expensive than gas. Perhaps 10-15%.....downside is that they can't keep up with demand as well. Our electric is only .06 - .10 cents per kwh on a sliding scale (goes up depending on how much you have used....and maxes out at .10 cents) A 50 gallon natural gas water heater set to a high set temp can provide pretty much nonstop hot water to 2 bathrooms/showers without any loss of temperature.

I'd consider a tankless water heater someday when I have a house, but it would have to show worthwhile savings. Where I live right now is a small condo complex with 20 units.....hot water comes from a beastly 100-120ish gallon commercial (gas) water heater. Looks to have about 1.5-2" pipe going in and out of it. There is a separate ancient beast boiler that runs the hydronic heating.

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Electric water heaters have no insulation in the bottom and fairly poor insulation overall. I always construct a well insulated enclosure on all six sides. The standby losses are too substantual to ignore otherwise.

This does not move the efficiency up to the instant type by any stretch. Yet does help quite a bit. I try for about R30 overall above what is on the water heater from the manufacturer.

Electricity is 11-12 cents per killowatt hour here.
It is 5.5 to 6 cents during low demand hours and all weekend.

That is if you install an electric heating storage unit for three thousand dollars and sign up. It of course only stores heat in the ceramic blocks during off hours. Larger electric water heater on a timer to try heating most hot water on low cost time helps as well.

We don't have sliding rate scale here in my area, but we still try to run the laundry and dishwasher after 8PM. Trying to get ready for when we will get a break for off-peak usage.

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Brian,
You missed the boat on this one. Since you already have the boiler, the most efficient, cost effective way to make domestic hot water is with an indirect hot water maker. Plumbed into the boiler as an additional zone. Water to water heat exchange, virtually endless hot water supply, incredibly good insulation (less than one degree heat loss per hour on our 40 gallon), negligible effect on oil consumption.

Jim

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Yes, I considered it.........but the cost and time to get it installed wasn't available. The electric unit was cheap and the tenants pay the electricity.

I'm just shocked at the expense of it.

I could easily retrofit the heater to function as an indirect tank back to the coil. It's already plumbed from the coil so that the coil can operate in series with it.

Plantman
You should have your tech install a heat recovery system from your a/c system.
Hot gas expelled from the a/c unit are piped to the hot water tank.
All the hot water you can handle.I turn off the water heater during the summer months.
Living here in fla. is the ideal place to have one installed .
My unit was installed when i bought the house.
look into this it will help you out
Gunny

Ooooopps! I said all that already!

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