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What does your water heater emit as a waste product? Gross NOx air pollution that goes up your flue vent? My water heater creates cool, filtered air, primarily free air-con that cools my home on the scorching, 100 diploma, local weather change scorching days. It’s an incredible byproduct that most individuals most likely don’t find out about, however one which I’ve realized to harness lately to assist cool my residence without spending a dime in the summertime.
This free AC comes from our warmth pump water heater (HPWH). We’ve really put in 4 of them, one in our residence, one in an adjunct dwelling unit, and two in a duplex rental property. Warmth pump water heaters work by pulling warmth from the encompassing air and transferring it right into a water tank. This course of implies that they exhaust solely cool air, no gasoline, no air pollution, simply cool air (like an air conditioner).
In truth you can consider a warmth pump water heater as an AC system, however as a substitute of exhausting that waste warmth exterior like ACs do, a HPWH makes use of the waste warmth to warmth water. This makes HPWHs extraordinarily environment friendly — for each unit of power you utilize, you get 4 items of warmth out of it. It’s additionally why HPWHs value so little to run — sometimes between $100-$150 a 12 months in electrical energy prices to warmth all of the water your loved ones wants.
However regardless that we’ve been having fun with the extraordinarily low utility payments and plenty of scorching water from our warmth pump water heater for 8 years now, we’ve by no means fairly mastered the artwork of harnessing a HPWH’s cool air in the summertime till this 12 months. That’s as a result of for the primary six plus years we owned our HPWH, we ducted its air out of our home.
However after a house renovation final 12 months, we determined to take away the ducts and have the water heater pull warmth from and exhaust cool air into the home.
Now, within the winter we do pay a penalty for this as a result of the water heater is pulling heat air from your house to warmth the water that must be made up for by your heating system (in my case, ductless warmth pumps). Through the years some CleanTechnica readers have talked about within the feedback to a few of my articles that this can be a giant penalty. It’s not. Our residence nonetheless makes use of an insanely low quantity of power (1/5 the nationwide common) and my house heating is offered by extremely environment friendly warmth pumps. So cool air within the winter just isn’t an enormous deal.
And in the summertime we now get this free, scrumptious, air-con. What’s extra, I’m capable of do a pair tips to run the water heater throughout the hottest a part of the day and provides me the AC precisely once I need it.
Right here’s what I’ve been doing. On scorching days at round midday or one PM, I’ve been turning our HPWH from 120 to 140°. You are able to do this with the buttons on the water heater or with the app. Heating water to this greater temperature activates the warmth pumps which can run for 3 to 4 hours throughout the time when my photo voltaic panels are cranking out electrical energy. Now as a disclaimer, all of our taps have built-in anti-scald units which defend us from the new 140° water. You need to be sure to have the identical if you happen to do that.
In the course of the time it’s operating, the warmth pump water heater places out as a lot cooling as a small window air conditioner (.35 tons for the HPWH vs .4 tons for a small window AC). Working my HPWH throughout the scorching hours is thus like operating a small window AC unit and never paying for the electrical energy. Fairly nifty!
As soon as my water heater has reached 140°, my lounge and kitchen are often a number of levels cooler and I then flip my HPWH again all the way down to 120°. The additional scorching water might be used to run the dishwasher and any night showers and the HPWH most likely received’t activate once more till the subsequent day once we use it for extra free cooling.
Now, our residence is without doubt one of the 26% of houses nationally the place the water heater is positioned throughout the constructing envelope — in a utility closet. Most water heaters are positioned in basements or garages the place you would wish to duct it to make the most of that free AC otherwise you may not hassle. However, in case your water heater is positioned indoors you may simply harness the free summertime cooling, all of the whereas heating your water tremendous effectively on solar energy (if in case you have panels like we do). But one more reason to like HPWHs.
Oh, and ensure to get yours earlier than the 30% tax credit score expires on the finish of the 12 months!
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