Water heater and electric stove

[jcollinsks]

What's everyone doing for electric water heaters and electric stove?

I've seen mixed stuff on heat pump water heaters, and the stove is just a beast of consumption, even with a new energy efficient one air fry ect.

It seems I would need a 6000XP for each individual item here or a 18kPV for 2 of them to run. Is there something I'm missing?

We have a 40 gallon tank water heater now and when it kicks on it's consuming 6KWH, it ran on the single 6000XP with grid pass through, but gave an EPS overload warning while doing it. It ran well over the manual's 12,000W for ≈3.5 seconds | 11,000W for ≈5 seconds, but it seemed to just pull the 6000W directly from the grid in bypass.

I don't see any specifics other than 50AMP bypass, which is cool, but the overload warning was still on so I don't want to always rely on that and or the grid for this stuff.

Just wanted to see who else has a larger load at home and how they are handling the heavy hitters on your consumption?

 

[dougbert]

I have a XW Pro inverter 6.8kw, future I will have 2

when my battery is full and sun still shines, I run division load with a 20 amp 2 pole breaker with 10/3 romex to my PRE-HEATER tank. I swapped out the 4000 watt coils with 3000 watt coils to reduce the draw on the inverter. the pre-heater then feeds my tankless gas water heater

so you can adjust the load demand on your water heater if needed to 3000, 2500, 2000 watt or so coils
simple to swap out the upper and lower coils

takes longer to heat but keeps you within budget of your inverter

Amazon.com

 

[AntronX]

I have 67 gal dual element tank. I run lower 240V element direct from DC at 48V which makes it pull 150 watts. Lower thermostat is bypassed. Upper element runs from the grid as backup on demand heater.

 

[Rocketman]

Three options…

1. Use propane/natural gas for water heater, stove & house heating.

2. Spend the money to get:
Heat pump water heater
Induction stove
Ground based heat pump furnace
Extra panels &batteries

3. Plan on grid for those heavy hitter to support the needed amps.

4. Only use heavy hitters when sun is shining. (Ok that one doesn’t work all the time).

Big items are difficult…

 

[jcollinsks]

I have 67 gal dual element tank. I run lower 240V element direct from DC at 48V which makes it pull 150 watts. Lower thermostat is bypassed. Upper element runs from the grid as backup on demand heater.

Do you have a model or link to the dual element one you have? I'm gonna start looking into that for sure!

 

[jcollinsks]

Three options…

1. Use propane/natural gas for water heater, stove & house heating.

2. Spend the money to get:
Heat pump water heater
Induction stove
Ground based heat pump furnace
Extra panels &batteries

3. Plan on grid for those heavy hitter to support the needed amps.

4. Only use heavy hitters when sun is shining. (Ok that one doesn’t work all the time).

Big items are difficult…

Yea that's what my research has found too, I'm not opposed to the heat pump, induction stove, and mini splits everywhere, but even heat pump and induction stoves will use a ton of power.

What are everyone's thoughts on timer system for the water heater?

 

[AntronX]

Mine is very old GE SE50T12AAH but here is similar 50 gal dual element tank.

 

[dougbert]

Yea that's what my research has found too, I'm not opposed to the heat pump, induction stove, and mini splits everywhere, but even heat pump and induction stoves will use a ton of power.

What are everyone's thoughts on timer system for the water heater?

I have a 240v timer on my wall I used 10 years ago, now I use a dry contactor from my inverter that triggers at a FULL battery voltage

 

[efficientPV]

You can change out the heater elements to lower wattage ones. You don't need that much wattage if you can heat for a longer time. I heat water with diverted PV efficiently. No need for inverter or battery capacity. Amazing that nobody else here can do it.

 

[AntronX]

You can also run it from 120V and turn your 4500w element into 1125w.

 

[Mattb4]

Change out the water heater elements with lower wattage ones. It will mean a longer time to recover which may be a problem depending on your hot water usage. Likely the electric stove would work if you run only one thing at a time. Such as the oven but no burners or a couple of burners and no oven.

 

[Hedges]

I have 67 gal dual element tank. I run lower 240V element direct from DC at 48V which makes it pull 150 watts. Lower thermostat is bypassed. Upper element runs from the grid as backup on demand heater.

Is there a maximum temperature it will reach, dissipating 150W from pipes, etc.?
Or do you rely on periodic draw of water? And temperature/pressure relief valve as last ditch protection?

On a related topic, my "new" place has a water heater without temperature/pressure relief valve.
Instead, a gas cutoff:

The WATTS 210 Automatic Gas Shutoff Valve - Water Heaters Only, Inc

Water Heaters Only, Inc. specializes in water heater repair & replacement including the WATTS 210 automatic gas shutoff valve. Need help with a water heater, call now, phones answered 24/7/365.

waterheatersonly.com

Looks like whoever put that in transplanted the old relief valve (with dip rod removed) elsewhere on the cold water pipe.

 

[AntronX]

Is there a maximum temperature it will reach, dissipating 150W from pipes, etc.?

Yes around 55C / 131F over couple of days. At 44V it adds 3.6kWh each day. Covers the losses and some use. I have since added boost DC-DC converter to run it at 300 - 500W due to excess solar. Have not ran grid powered element for a month. Daily use averages 5kWh/day.

 

[jjww]

I'm in the same boat, tankless gas and some excess pv i need to use up.
Dougbert, do you find the gas tankless shuts down if the feed h20 temp is above 95F?
My tankless claims to shutdown with too high of inlet temp.

 

[dougbert]

I'm in the same boat, tankless gas and some excess pv i need to use up.
Dougbert, do you find the gas tankless shuts down if the feed h20 temp is above 95F?
My tankless claims to shutdown with too high of inlet temp.

my tankless works with pre-heated water. I made sure of that when I bought. It just uses the nat gas to heat up the delta from inlet temp to its temperature target. if the temp is already there, it simply stays off and lets the hot water through without assisting in heating it

theory of mine

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[peakbagger]

Good old fashioned solar hot water system for hot water. I see used panels up for sale on Craigslist all the time. Pick up a used Amtrol boiler mate which is normally used to supply residential hot water. Then all you need is DC pump and a small solar panel to run the pump. You also need an expansion tank. Charge the loop with propylene glycol (used to winterize trailers). You can get fancy with a differential controller but if the pump runs when the solar panel is putting out power it works (a controller will improve on things. They hold 41 gallons of hot water. A typical panel will raise the water temp 80 F over ambient.

For a stove an induction burnet is quite efficient.