One year of a HPWH

JakeCK

I've now had a heat pump water heater for a year. Decided to give a one year update on performance and if I've had any issues. Also did a bit of an inspection of the coils to see how much dirt accumulated on it. This involved a ladder, a flash light and me basically climbing on top of it.

Happy to report the 50 gallon Richmond/Rheem hpwh has performed well even with a family of four and very cold water between January and March, were talking upper 30's coming into the house.

The coils appear almost spotless, requiring Zero maintenance other than washing off the filter every couple of months. And it was never really that dirty. The tray for the condensate was also clean.

Energy use is right around 100Kwh a month. Because of other synergies between the ac and dehumidifier over all electric usage did not go up over the course of the year however gas usage dropped, at least during the summer months by about 10ccf. 

Not impressed with their cloud service or app however. If you have a schedule set, because it is not stored locally, any outage between it and rheems servers causes it to not follow the schedule. That can be annoying. 

Over all very happy with it so far.

The coil after one year:

EdTheHeaterMan

fentonc

Is it in heated or unheated space in the winter? Do you know if the electrical usage is noticeably higher in summer vs winter based on incoming water temp and ambient temp around the hpwh?

JakeCK

It is in my basement. I don't intentionally heat it but with all of the uninsulated iron pipes for the boiler it might as well be. And I do not notice a change in ambient temperature outside of the utility/laundry room. When it is running there is a small maybe 2 or 3 degree drop only while running. I consider that a benefit for the deep freezer and server rack in there.

Electric usage is noticeably higher in the winter with the cold supply temps.


Here are some stats from the econet app: it is interesting that I used more energy for hot water in March than for February. Also notice the really high spikes on a few days. That was when the electric elements kicked in to heat it up faster during high demands. 

WMno57

I would have never imagined the schedule feature would require sharing details of your private life. That information could be misused.
I better not get a smart refrigerator. Don't want my health insurance company to peer inside.

JakeCK

Who said anything about private information?

pedmec

I wonder how it would work if you added a mixing valve on the hot water supply and increased the tank temperature whether that would help prevent the heating elements from coming on. limits the use of the elements.

I have some condo's using the hpwh and froze my **** off servicing them. there were 3 of them and they were pulling so much heat out of the basement i was freezing. then they would kick on and i felt like i was in Alaska. But amazingly the head pressure was up to the equivalent of 140 degrees.

JakeCK

I already have a mixing valve and set to the max of 140f.

Hot_water_fan

Some of the new 120V rheems come with an integrated mixing valve to add first hour capacity.