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Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

reservoirhome.com

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Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#31

Post by p1esk »

phil21 wrote: post #23

The best investment in my comfort and upgrading my home was two redundantly configured Navien continuous water heaters. Never worry about running out of hot water ever again. If I’m gone on a trip for 2 weeks my hot water bill is zero. Due to having overcapacity, whenever I have guests staying with me no one ever has to worry about simultaneously using showers or any other hot water at all. I run out of water pressur…

Two reasons I decided not to go with tankless:

1. Can’t have recirculation pump to supply hot water instantly throughout the whole house.

2. Significantly higher energy bill compared to heat pump.

An additional bonus is the heat pump cools my garage in the summer.

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#32

Post by mschuster91 »

stavros wrote: post #22
jfim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a scalding hazard though. At 70°C skin burns occur in about a second or so. The thermostatic valve makes it so that the water that comes out of the water heater is at a more reasonable temperature.

I was surprised at how cold "hot" water actually was. I thought it was 60-70, but apparently what feels "hot" is around 45-50. Especially for me, that finds anything beyond my shower's "middle" heat as uncomfortably hot, I must be showering with around 40 C water, which is basically "hot day" hot.

Going less than 55 °C tap temperature / 60 °C in the tank is bad though, at least in larger installations - otherwise, you risk legionella and other microbial infestations [1].

[1] https://www.verbraucherzentrale.sh/pressemeldungen/lebensmit...

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#33

Post by mschuster91 »

phil21 wrote: post #23

The best investment in my comfort and upgrading my home was two redundantly configured Navien continuous water heaters. Never worry about running out of hot water ever again. If I’m gone on a trip for 2 weeks my hot water bill is zero. Due to having overcapacity, whenever I have guests staying with me no one ever has to worry about simultaneously using showers or any other hot water at all. I run out of water pressur…

How often do your water boilers break? :O

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#34

Post by stavros »

mschuster91 wrote: post #32
stavros wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised at how cold "hot" water actually was. I thought it was 60-70, but apparently what feels "hot" is around 45-50. Especially for me, that finds anything beyond my shower's "middle" heat as uncomfortably hot, I must be showering with around 40 C water, which is basically "hot day" hot.

Going less than 55 °C tap temperature / 60 °C in the tank is bad though, at least in larger installations - otherwise, you risk legionella and other microbial infestations [1]. [1] https://www.verbraucherzentrale.sh/pressemeldungen/lebensmit...

Oh definitely, I'm purely talking about "feel".

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#36

Post by [deleted] »

userbinator wrote: post #19
jfim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a scalding hazard though. At 70°C skin burns occur in about a second or so. The thermostatic valve makes it so that the water that comes out of the water heater is at a more reasonable temperature.

It's supposed to be HOT water, not lukewarm... I have my water heater set to 150F because it makes the hot water last longer, especially in the winter when the incoming supply is barely above freezing, but that doesn't make the tank bigger.

[deleted]

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#37

Post by quickthrowman »

gmac wrote: post #25
phil21 wrote: post #23

The best investment in my comfort and upgrading my home was two redundantly configured Navien continuous water heaters. Never worry about running out of hot water ever again. If I’m gone on a trip for 2 weeks my hot water bill is zero. Due to having overcapacity, whenever I have guests staying with me no one ever has to worry about simultaneously using showers or any other hot water at all. I run out of water pressur…

Is this unusual in the US? I think almost everyone in the UK for years has been installing ‘combi’ boilers, which are ones that heat the water in radiators and also heat water on-demand.

In my geographic area (coldest part of the lower 48 that isn’t an mountain) everyone heats water with natural gas which is cheap as hell anyways so we all have tank style water heaters.

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#38

Post by [deleted] »

Youden wrote: post #16
Maxion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big problem in the US is that in many regions natural gas is cheaper than electricity, causing heat pump water heaters to be more expensive for the consumer. So everyone ends up burning more.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. A modern gas-fired plant is ~50% efficient and heat pumps typically have a COP of ~3 for hot water, so if you take natural gas, burn it to convert it to electricity, then feed that electricity to a heat pump, you'll get ~1.5x the energy you'd get if you just burned the natural gas.

[deleted]

Re: Reservoir: Smart electric water heater

#39

Post by etrautmann »

p1esk wrote: post #31
phil21 wrote: post #23

The best investment in my comfort and upgrading my home was two redundantly configured Navien continuous water heaters. Never worry about running out of hot water ever again. If I’m gone on a trip for 2 weeks my hot water bill is zero. Due to having overcapacity, whenever I have guests staying with me no one ever has to worry about simultaneously using showers or any other hot water at all. I run out of water pressur…

Two reasons I decided not to go with tankless: 1. Can’t have recirculation pump to supply hot water instantly throughout the whole house. 2. Significantly higher energy bill compared to heat pump. An additional bonus is the heat pump cools my garage in the summer.

1 sounds like a huge inefficiency?
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