voltex hybrid electric water heater

DaveM

hi everyone
need to be educated on these water heaters. Flipping a house on Long Island (north east climate) local town ordinance requires these heaters as replacement for existing typical electric water heater to be install in a 7ft x 5ft laundry room closet. need to pic your brains on this thanks so much Dave

pecmsg

What town is requiring that?

DaveM

Southampton 

hot_rod

Going to need more space, or access to more space. The heat needs to come from somewhere in the building

Larry Weingarten

Hi @DaveM , From the installation instructions for a fifty gallon unit...

"INSTALLATION
2 The location has adequate space (clearances) for periodic servicing. For optimal water heater efficiency, the unit must have unrestricted airflow and requires a minimum installation space of 700 cubic feet. As an example, a room that has an 8 foot tall ceiling and is 10 feet long by 8-3/4 feet wide would contain 700 cubic feet."

Yours, Larry

PS. By ducting the heater, you may be able to get around this limitation.

DaveM

Thanks going to find out if I put a louvered door to pull in air 

Larry Weingarten

Hi @DaveM , A louvered door is fine, bur experience has shown that you must direct airflow so cooled air cannot simply get back to the intake of the HP. This means building a box that seals against the closed louvered door, so that the cool exhaust air is pushed out of the closet.

Yours, Larry

DaveM

real interesting technology, comfortably room air is 70* how does it draw in that degree of air and heat water to 120 degrees

ratio

There's lots of usable heat in 70° air, it just needs to be pressed into the water. That's what the compressor does.

ethicalpaul

DaveM said:

real interesting technology, comfortably room air is 70* how does it draw in that degree of air and heat water to 120 degrees

The same way a refrigerator can get down below zero degrees while it's sitting in your kitchen, but in reverse. My Rheem water heater I have set to 130F and I believe it is operational down to like 55 degrees. It costs me 25 cents per day.

pecmsg

DaveM said:

Southampton 

Amazing

Friday afternoon during the summer the power dips way down due to the influx of weekenders starting their A/C's and now they require these!

fentonc

I think the heat pump in these hybrid water heaters is like 4500 BTU/hr, so the power demand is probably much lower than if they were the regular electric kind.

pecmsg

fentonc said:

I think the heat pump in these hybrid water heaters is like 4500 BTU/hr, so the power demand is probably much lower than if they were the regular electric kind.

4500 X what
100,000
250,000

It adds up for a grid that’s already taxed!

JakeCK

The grid is and has been already over taxed by the old fashioned resistance electric water heaters. Replacing those with HPWH's reduces the load. He didn't say gas water heaters needed to be replaced with these, just electrics. 

Hold your horses, not all mandates are bad.

Edit: You mentioned everyone cranking up their ac when they get there. A HPWH works with that if it shares the same same air space. Let me tell you, when I'm working in my server/network cabinet I have to wear a coat when it is running. It blasts it's exhaust air right at the server cabinet and it's 🥶. Lol which is actually a win for servers and network gear!