The "I just bought..." thread.

Red Squirrel · Mar 10, 2024

There's a home automation port on it, so I definitely want to experiment with being able to heat the water overnight when electricity is cheaper. Although I really can't find much info on how to talk to it. Apparently it's a serial connection but the tricky bit is understanding the protocol that it uses. A project for later I guess. These are still fairly new so I'm sure someone will come up with something. What would be cool is something that uses i2c and can get all the data too like water temp etc, but at minimum I just want to be able to tell it when it can turn on and when it can't. For now I'll leave it alone though, I may as well build a baseline for how much it affects my hydro bill, then go from there. I know my gas bill will go down though, probably by a lot. The old tank was not running very efficiently anymore.

Brainonska511 · Mar 10, 2024

Red Squirrel said:
There's a home automation port on it, so I definitely want to experiment with being able to heat the water overnight when electricity is cheaper. Although I really can't find much info on how to talk to it. Apparently it's a serial connection but the tricky bit is understanding the protocol that it uses. A project for later I guess. These are still fairly new so I'm sure someone will come up with something. What would be cool is something that uses i2c and can get all the data too like water temp etc, but at minimum I just want to be able to tell it when it can turn on and when it can't. For now I'll leave it alone though, I may as well build a baseline for how much it affects my hydro bill, then go from there. I know my gas bill will go down though, probably by a lot. The old tank was not running very efficiently anymore.

Depending on how you have it powered, you could always just use a smart outlet to control the times it will be on or off, and if you have some sort of mixing valve on the outlet to make sure you don't send ultra-scorching water out, you can also have the tank heat a little warmer in the off-peak hours, since they're very good about keeping things warm. The Youtuber, TechnologyConnections showed that his water heater was very good at staying hot, even when it was powered off for the whole day.

Red Squirrel · Mar 10, 2024

Brainonska511 said:
Depending on how you have it powered, you could always just use a smart outlet to control the times it will be on or off, and if you have some sort of mixing valve on the outlet to make sure you don't send ultra-scorching water out, you can also have the tank heat a little warmer in the off-peak hours, since they're very good about keeping things warm. The Youtuber, TechnologyConnections showed that his water heater was very good at staying hot, even when it was powered off for the whole day.

It's hard wired 240v but could add a big contactor. Not sure if it's good to do that to this particular water heater because it has electronics and stuff though, it' snot like a standard electric that's purely passive components. And If the compressor happens to be running I'd also be killing it mid cycle. I'm not sure what type of compressor it has but I know scroll compressors really don't like to be shut down improperly, they can get stuck. Seen it happen to air conditioners when hit with a power outage. A couple power cycles usually gets them unstuck but probably not good if it happens and you're not home.

Brainonska511 · Mar 10, 2024

Red Squirrel said:
It's hard wired 240v but could add a big contactor. Not sure if it's good to do that to this particular water heater because it has electronics and stuff though, it' snot like a standard electric that's purely passive components. And If the compressor happens to be running I'd also be killing it mid cycle. I'm not sure what type of compressor it has but I know scroll compressors really don't like to be shut down improperly, they can get stuck. Seen it happen to air conditioners when hit with a power outage. A couple power cycles usually gets them unstuck but probably not good if it happens and you're not home.

I guess if you added a programmable thingamajig into the circuit, you could add some logic like, "don't shut off if power draw is currently >xx amps."

Given the nature of water tanks and the whole thermal battery concept, it's strange how they wouldn't provide more ability to tie it in with time-of-day power saving. Perhaps its something want to have as an add-on to up-sell people.

skyking · Mar 10, 2024

Charmonium said:
I'm surprised that a str up heat pump works better than gas where you're at.

I want to do something similar here but only with an open loop ground water feed

what do you have for an open loop source, a stream or a lake? Were you going for a wellfield pump and return?

Charmonium · Mar 11, 2024

skyking said:
what do you have for an open loop source, a stream or a lake? Were you going for a wellfield pump and return?

The latter. I know filtration can be an issue. But for years after we moved here we had an artesian well with no sediment issues, not even a water softener. I'll go with a closed loop if I have to.

skyking · Mar 11, 2024

Brainonska511 said:
I guess if you added a programmable thingamajig into the circuit, you could add some logic like, "don't shut off if power draw is currently >xx amps."

Given the nature of water tanks and the whole thermal battery concept, it's strange how they wouldn't provide more ability to tie it in with time-of-day power saving. Perhaps its something want to have as an add-on to up-sell people.

They have gone away from larger storage volume on water heaters, opting for smaller volumes and more efficient insulation.
That peak heating time strategy would work better with a bigger storage volume.

Another interesting aspect about water usage is reducing the volumes and pipes and tanks in general, because water gets stale.
If you've ever been involved with blowing off water mains there's some gross stuff that comes out of there.
Ideally things are sized right so that it keeps freshening the water.
It's a conundrum because you can't just keep adding chlorine until it becomes a biological dead Zone.
It's not a good end user experience.

Brainonska511 · Mar 11, 2024

skyking said:
They have gone away from larger storage volume on water heaters, opting for smaller volumes and more efficient insulation.
That peak heating time strategy would work better with a bigger storage volume.

Another interesting aspect about water usage is reducing the volumes and pipes and tanks in general, because water gets stale.
If you've ever been involved with blowing off water mains there's some gross stuff that comes out of there.
Ideally things are sized right so that it keeps freshening the water.
It's a conundrum because you can't just keep adding chlorine until it becomes a biological dead Zone.
It's not a good end user experience.

I guess it just depends on what size tank you have. If it's 30-40 gallons for one person, it could potentially be large enough to consider my proposed approach.

But good to know about the stale water potential. I'm sure there is some tradeoffs that come with designing such systems, since heat pump water heaters don't heat as quickly as an on demand or gas-fired water heater.

sdifox · Mar 11, 2024

skyking said:
They have gone away from larger storage volume on water heaters, opting for smaller volumes and more efficient insulation.
That peak heating time strategy would work better with a bigger storage volume.

Another interesting aspect about water usage is reducing the volumes and pipes and tanks in general, because water gets stale.
If you've ever been involved with blowing off water mains there's some gross stuff that comes out of there.
Ideally things are sized right so that it keeps freshening the water.
It's a conundrum because you can't just keep adding chlorine until it becomes a biological dead Zone.
It's not a good end user experience.

He is one guy. Should have gone with tankless lol

waffleironhead · Mar 11, 2024

Im not up on the money conversion, but i can source that water heater locally for about $1700 US. Its still 3-4 times a conventional heater.

Edit: Oof $1700 us is like $2300cad, thats a lot of install costs.

Red Squirrel · Mar 11, 2024

I gave tankless some thought but trying to get away from gas due to rising costs. The high efficiency tankless can be just as efficient as a furnace though, so it was a potential option, I just didn't go that route. I also would have needed an upgrade to my gas service as they use a lot more gas while running as they're basically bringin 0C water up to like 50C. I only went with gas for furnace since I will be using the wood stove more anyway and it was just easier to put in what was already there. I had no plans to replace it until it died so had to make a quick decision. They did not recommend a heat pump for home heating as they do not work well here.

Got a reply from their support and they don't seem to even know themselves how the automation port works. I will leave things as is for now but might just take the approach where a contactor cuts power to it entirely. I asked them if this is likely to cause issues, I'll see what they say. It's not really any different than a power outage happening, it's just that it will be happening every day.

Red Squirrel · Mar 11, 2024

waffleironhead said:
Im not up on the money conversion, but i can source that water heater locally for about $1700 US. Its still 3-4 times a conventional heater.

Edit: Oof $1700 us is like $2300cad, thats a lot of install costs.

Everything costs way more here. It's about 3k here.

https://www.homehardware.ca/en/50-gal-240v-4500w-hybrid-electric-heat-pump-water-heater-100316734/p/3284610

sdifox · Mar 11, 2024

Red Squirrel said:
I gave tankless some thought but trying to get away from gas due to rising costs. The high efficiency tankless can be just as efficient as a furnace though, so it was a potential option, I just didn't go that route. I also would have needed an upgrade to my gas service as they use a lot more gas while running as they're basically bringin 0C water up to like 50C. I only went with gas for furnace since I will be using the wood stove more anyway and it was just easier to put in what was already there. I had no plans to replace it until it died so had to make a quick decision. They did not recommend a heat pump for home heating as they do not work well here.

Got a reply from their support and they don't seem to even know themselves how the automation port works. I will leave things as is for now but might just take the approach where a contactor cuts power to it entirely. I asked them if this is likely to cause issues, I'll see what they say. It's not really any different than a power outage happening, it's just that it will be happening every day.

eh? there are electric tankless as well. and no, your water is not 0C. It is silly to go 50 gallon tank for 1 person.

Red Squirrel · Mar 11, 2024

sdifox said:
eh? there are electric tankless as well. and no, your water is not 0C

Just checked now, it's 5C but we've had a super mild winter. I have clocked it at like -1 before, basically on the verge of freezing but the pressure prevents it from freezing. Not sure how accurate the temp gun is, might be off a few degrees.

The electric tankless units require like 200 amps. Remember it has to instantly bring water from near freezing to near scalding, basically instantly. Need lot of power for that. I kind of like the battery approach of a tank, especially once I can automate it to only use power when it's cheap.

sdifox · Mar 11, 2024

Red Squirrel said:
Just checked now, it's 5C but we've had a super mild winter. I have clocked it at like -1 before, basically on the verge of freezing but the pressure prevents it from freezing. Not sure how accurate the temp gun is, might be off a few degrees.

The electric tankless units require like 200 amps. Remember it has to instantly bring water from near freezing to near scalding, basically instantly. Need lot of power for that. I kind of like the battery approach of a tank, especially once I can automate it to only use power when it's cheap.

You are heating 50ga of water to let it cool and reheat... That requires a lot more energy than JIT heating. And you usually heat water to 49C. Hot water tank is a very NA thing since we are wasteful.

takes 5.7kWh to heat 100L of water from 0 to 49C. And that is usually mixed down to at most 40C at the shower. Tankless can achieve 99% efficiency.

MrSquished · Mar 11, 2024

sdifox said:
You are heating 50ga of water to let it cool and reheat... That requires a lot more energy than JIT heating. And you usually heat water to 49C. Hot water tank is a very NA thing since we are wasteful.

At least what I've been told for years, on the consumer level, tankless is more efficient than tank water heaters. This seems to be common knowledge around these parts. It's a feature we often see in newer and renovated homes, and that some people upgrade towhen their traditional water heater reaches end of life.

manly · Mar 11, 2024

Got roped in by another Samsung slick deal, so a new Watch 5 Pro arrives soon.

Charmonium · Mar 11, 2024

manly said:
Got roped in by another Samsung slick deal, so a new Watch 5 Pro arrives soon.

Pls to be reporting back if you like. I'm especially curious about battery life and auto re-pairing

skyking · Mar 11, 2024

Electric tankless often requires a whole panel upsizing, so I never recommend it for an all electric home unless you know for sure you can take the hit.
IMO tankless + gas is the match.
I have to do the hybrid heat pump water heater to get enough energy credits for a new construction house. I'm not really pleased about the ~2k price tag, but that gives me more flexibility elsewhere.

Red Squirrel · Mar 11, 2024

skyking said:
Electric tankless often requires a whole panel upsizing, so I never recommend it for an all electric home unless you know for sure you can take the hit.
IMO tankless + gas is the match.
I have to do the hybrid heat pump water heater to get enough energy credits for a new construction house. I'm not really pleased about the ~2k price tag, but that gives me more flexibility elsewhere.

2k is a steal for that honestly. Would never get it that cheap here. Even the gas tankless I was quoted at like 6 grand when I inquired. I may very well have done a mistake though, time will tell. These hybrid heaters are still very new. I am curious to see how much my gas bill goes down and how much my hydro bill goes up and that will be a good indicator if it was a good idea or not. Some of the gas tankless condensing models can go up to like 98% efficiency.

I was actually surprised at how cheap the furnace was as I heard of people paying way more. My sister had to pay like 16 grand for hers, although she got suckered into a rental, then had to buy it out when she sold the house, so that stings. I did go for a Payne which is probably one of the lower end brands but they're basically all built in the same factory anyway. Payne, Bryant, Carrier etc. It's actually kind of funny looking at the websites it looks like they even use the same webmaster. Slap a different CSS stylesheet on there and boom it's a different company!

Brainonska511 · Mar 11, 2024

skyking said:
Electric tankless often requires a whole panel upsizing, so I never recommend it for an all electric home unless you know for sure you can take the hit.
IMO tankless + gas is the match.
I have to do the hybrid heat pump water heater to get enough energy credits for a new construction house. I'm not really pleased about the ~2k price tag, but that gives me more flexibility elsewhere.

In the long run, it's probably better if people just switch away from natural gas entirely. The environmental and other costs of extraction and residential delivery (plenty of places with leaky natural gas infrastructure, and/or inept maintenance - see: Merrimack Valley gas explosions) make it seem prudent to just switch away as gas-fired equipment gets replaced.

Red Squirrel · Mar 11, 2024

If they lowered the cost of hydro, even by like 1/2 I think full electric heat would be viable. Our winters don't get that cold anymore, so a heat pump, with heat strips as aux heat could probably work. Might only need the aux heat like 2 months of the year at most.

Natural gas is a by product of other oil related refinement processes so it gets produced either way, but they could build a couple natural gas power plants to use it to make up for extra load. 100% green won't be viable until we can figure out a way to store it long term. Either way probably more efficient than having natural gas going to every house. Build them in locations where the Trans Canada Pipeline and high voltage lines intersect.

Actually I was bored, found a good spot where this in fact happens:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.ca

500kv line too that spans a decent part of Ontario. Could put a pretty big plant there. Build a small town/camp for the workers. Create jobs and housing in the process. Although that particular line is probably already at capacity due to the big hydro plants up north. We had a brief black out a few years back because it tripped out due to over production. So yeah maybe not the best spot, but you get the idea.

skyking · Mar 11, 2024

Gas is not an option for me, and propane is crazy high. People talk about cooking with gas and I´m not feeling it.
@Brainonska511 you don have to sell that idea to me

sdifox · Mar 12, 2024

Cooking is the one thing you should not get gas. That's serious indoor air quality pollution. Less of an issue if you are in warmer climate where you can live with windows open and not tightly enveloped homes.

Brainonska511 · Mar 12, 2024

skyking said:
Gas is not an option for me, and propane is crazy high. People talk about cooking with gas and I´m not feeling it.
@Brainonska511 you don have to sell that idea to me

I used to cook with gas in my old apartment, but current one has glass top electric. The electric is fine for cooking, and the top is way easier to keep clean. I would like a little more control over the burners though. One day, when we have our own place, we'll go with induction...

The "I just bought..." thread.

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