On Demand Electric Water Heaters

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GoldDigger said:
I have a propane fed tankless and am very satisfied with it. The cost of propane here means that the cost is about equal to resistance electric heat.
For carbon footprint consideration, the heat pump is the only way to go. But that will never support tankless, IMHO.
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While I agree with the comments of the others there is one use-case I have seen for the on-demand; Air-BnB / VRBO rentals, there are a few around here that are empty for a week then have 16 people all wanting to shower one after the other after they all get out of the pool or whatever.
After much consideration of the options the owner decided propane, with all the hidden fees and efficiency below 100%, is more expensive than electricity by a very wide margin (at least here in the PNW).
So we did a 200A to 320A upgrade for that place and installed a dedicated panel for just the on-demand.
the owner got hit with a steep fee for the utility having to upgrade the transformer, which he gladly paid.
No more bad online reviews that say cold shower.
.
 
tortuga said:
So we did a 200A to 320A upgrade for that place and installed a dedicated panel for just the on-demand.
the owner got hit with a steep fee for the utility having to upgrade the transformer, which he gladly paid.
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When I did the same thing, the POCO didn't change anything.
 
T. See said:
This looks interesting. Does anyone have experience with these units?
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I have a seen couple installed. It's very simply just like a minisplit. The tank can go inside and the compressor goes outside, and their connected by a lineset. The ones I saw were with the small 43gal tank but they make two bigger sizes. The pricing I heard for installation was not cheap. Also the pricing of the unit itself is not competitive with other heat pump options so far as I've seen. But I can't really believe it isn't a good design concept. I think other companies need to give them competition and bring the price down on this option.
 
jaggedben said:
I have a seen couple installed. It's very simply just like a minisplit. The tank can go inside and the compressor goes outside, and their connected by a lineset. The ones I saw were with the small 43gal tank but they make two bigger sizes. The pricing I heard for installation was not cheap. Also the pricing of the unit itself is not competitive with other heat pump options so far as I've seen. But I can't really believe it isn't a good design concept. I think other companies need to give them competition and bring the price down on this option.
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I have connected them. The power part and sensor of the tank to the compressor unit.

The connection between the compressor unit and the tank is not really a typical line set. Its just 3/4" copper pipe with water. The refrigerant never leaves the compressor unit. The compressor unit heats the water then recirculates it through the tank.
 
T. See said:
All-

I've been away for a few days and haven't had access to a computer. Thank you all for your responses. Great stuff here as always.

We've been trying to tell this designer that this wasn't going to work for months. Originally there was no EE involved until we suggested they might want to hire one. And what do you think they said?

Thank You All
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The engineers would say "$$$$ up front plus 10%, please and thank you.
 
tortuga said:
After much consideration of the options the owner decided propane, with all the hidden fees and efficiency below 100%, is more expensive than electricity by a very wide margin (at least here in the PNW).
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Yes regional differences matter. I can't believe I still only pay $0.07 / kwhr for my residential service. Thank you Bonneville Power Administration. 😉
 
electrofelon said:
Wow that is cheaper than dirt. Seattle city light is .11 resi, commercial more like .09 with $5 per kw demand and I thought that was cheap.
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Customer owned co-op that buys power from BPA. Fairly common in this part of the State. There's a base charge for each residential service, but incremental kwhrs are that cheap. My neighbors moved here from Arizona and they can't believe how cheap it is to charge their EV here.
 
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