Cool down the garage but don't throw that energy away.

[sunshine_eggo]

Yeah you are closer to my water temps and the rough calculations in my not very mathematical head say the results are about on the money.
I used aprox 800w to heat the water from "cold" There is a heat warning in Florida today.

No they're not. the BTU/h required is > 2X the output of the unit.

 

[Quattrohead]

Thats a pretty substantial drop in temps too. Very impressed.

I wish I could see that drop in garage temp but I think I am just generating too much heat from the Solark 12k and the pair of SP6548. All 3 are showing 110 F case temp.
My garage is around 19x19x8 and I did add R13 batts in the roof and to the door.

 

[Quattrohead]

No they're not. the BTU/h required is > 2X the output of the unit.

Splain ???

 

[Delmar]

I also recently installed a 50 gallon HPWH in my garage that faces southwest and gets baked in the afternoon sun. Only took a couple of hours in heat pump mode to warm to 120F. Heating elements were off, otherwise you can normally hear the water around them boil.

In South Texas, like Florida, the “cold” water is warm but I never measured. My son likes cold showers and the mixing valve will not allow the water to get cold enough, so he turns the heater valve off.

Unfortunately this makes the HPWH run minimally so the cooling and dehumidification is minimal. Still waiting for the first electric bill to see if there will be a noticeable difference in the amount.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Splain ???

what the above says is in order to raise the temp of 50 gallons of water from 90°F to 130°F in 2 hours, it takes 2445W applied for two hours OR 8343 BTU/h for 2 hours.

Your unit is about 3600 BTU/h.

8343/3600 = 2.3X, i.e., it takes 2.3X the BTU/h to accomplish this feat than your unit has.

 

[Delmar]

That's a very interesting idea ..... The one thing concerns me is that eventually a water heater will leak and there are electronic components that could be damaged if / when that happens.

The water heater should be mounted in a drip pan that discharges outdoors (like mine) or into a floor drain. Likewise with the heat & temperature valve.

 

[Delmar]

...so I lashed it in....

Please please tell me you have already piped the over heat & temperature outlet into a drain or other safe location. If that valve ever pops it will shoot scalding water horizontal across the garage, and you will not be able to get around the scalding stream to shutoff the inlet valve.

 

[Quattrohead]

I need a 3/4 inch elbow to shoot it down, will be done. And I don't know why all the hate, I don't know what to tell you. I lashed up an install turned it on it drew 340 to 450 Watts over 2 hours and I have a tank full of water at 130 degrees. What else can I tell you?
They should be mandatory in the southern half of the usa.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

I need a 3/4 inch elbow to shoot it down, will be done. And I don't know why all the hate, I don't know what to tell you. I lashed up an install turned it on it drew 340 to 450 Watts over 2 hours and I have a tank full of water at 130 degrees. What else can I tell you?
They should be mandatory in the southern half of the usa.

It's not hate. It's a violation of the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[RCinFLA]

The temp readout is only reading water temp in the top of the tank, so it does not actually bring the total tank water up to temp setting in short time period. It does drop out the electric heater assist when top section reaches close to temp setting. Hybrid heat pump continues running until all the water in tank is heated to set temperature.

The 1000 watt equivalent hybrid heat exchanger is so feeble it is not worth switching hybrid heat between a top condenser coil and a bottom condenser coil. It only uses a lower condenser heat exchanger coil. But hybrid water heaters still have an upper and lower electric heating elements just like a conventional electric hot water heater.

A bit of additional advice is keep the fan input and evaporator coils on top of unit clean. Since the unit costs so much more, there is more reason to change the anode rod at recommended period of time to prevent corrosion build up on condenser coils. I don't think anybody changes their anode rods in conventional water heaters.



This video gives a good explanation on how a water heater effectively generates more hot water than the tank size by a strategy on how it switches between upper and lower heating elements.

On a normal electric hot water heater only one element runs at a time. On a hybrid hot water heater, the heat pump and top heating element can run at same time to achieve quick recovery.

 

[0truck0]

so, your garage is cooler now? To heat water takes the same amount of energy no matter what. If one source is more efficient then it is that, but the water will need the same amount of energy to heat up no matter what. Slow or fast, it will need energy, so what did you do exactly> asking for a friend....

 

[RCinFLA]

 

[Kevcando]

I have the same trouble living in florida with the inverters in the garage, Temps almost up to 100 degrees even with fans on them. Think I will go with the water heater way also.

 

[Quattrohead]

Initial indications are it does not make much difference to the temperature in the garage, my garage is just an oven but that does mean it has plenty of energy to give the water heater.
So I was just poking around in the app and see that it used 1.77 kilowatt hours of energy for the first day including the initial warm-up of a cold tank and then yesterday used 1.44 kilowatt hours, this thing is sipping electricity and I love it.

 

[solarhombre]

Initial indications are it does not make much difference to the temperature in the garage, my garage is just an oven but that does mean it has plenty of energy to give the water heater.
So I was just poking around in the app and see that it used 1.77 kilowatt hours of energy for the first day including the initial warm-up of a cold tank and then yesterday used 1.44 kilowatt hours, this thing is sipping electricity and I love it.

Yeah, the garage temp goes back up quickly after the heat pump stops, but i am seeing that it uses about 25% of the energy that the old one did (comparing to similar days from last June). It will take years to pay for the difference in price, but the IRA tax credit will speed that up too.

2022:



2023:

 

[Delmar]

Unfortunately this makes the HPWH run minimally so the cooling and dehumidification is minimal.

Above I forewarned about the minimal cooling. To take advantage of the cooling, monitor when the space is the hottest and schedule the water usage to ensure the HPWH is running. Will also be when the HPWH is the most efficient. Water the lawn using hot water? No different than using a minisplit to dump the heat outside.

We were initially worried about the HPWH constantly running and not having the capacity to provide sufficient hot water, but the opposite proved true. Maybe will change in the winter.

 

[Quattrohead]

I could use super hot water to burn the ants out of the lawn !!!!
Yeah you were right about the distinct lack of garage cooling, I guess when you think about how much energy a standard hot water tank consumes you think it's going to still take a lot with this technology but it really does not, it is actually amazing.

 

[Delmar]

This heat wave is horrible. Went to wash my hands using cold water and this is what I observed. Could explain why the HPWH requires so little power.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

So in my Florida garage I have my hot water tank and a beer fridge plus three inverters and six batteries. At 9:00 a.m. this morning my garage was at 90 degrees Fahrenheit and my beer fridge and inverters are showing signs of stress.
I had thought about putting in a mini split but decided to go with a hybrid water tank temporarily until we move out of this house, so I lashed it in and will let you guys and girls know how it's doing. What I do know is after sweating my nut sack off installing it it is nice to just stand in front of it I feel the cool air LOL
I have it set on energy saver mode and it is currently sipping 340 watts

How do you have those inverters wired?

Are you AC coupling the sungolds to the Sol-Ark?

 

[Quattrohead]

The Sungolds are running the HWT, dryer and AC unit, the Solark (now EG4 18k) is running everything else and charging the batteries from panels.