I recently installed an Emporia Vue with monitoring for the individual circuit my water heater is on. It captured the very significant difference in energy usage from replacing resistive heat with heat pump.
Fuck yeah, heat pumps are cool!
Since they make the space around them cold I kinda wish you could get like a combination water heater and fridge, that way both sides of the energy gradient could be used. I just think that’d be neat.
The primary problem with heat pumps is the steeper the gradient is, the less effective the thermodynamic cycle is at pumping the heat. What you’re envisioning is locking both sides in a very steep gradient and throwing any semblance of thermodynamic efficiency out the window. The more heat you pump out of the refrigerator and into the water heater, the less there is to pump. Similarly the more you pump into to heater, the less you transfer. You could do a multi stage thing that switches to a third environment to make up for this, but since you’re not taking a shower at the same time you’re opening your fridge you’re unlikely to see much gains by linking them. And if they had no third environment at all, well you’d be having that compressor trying for impressively low temps in your freezer after a shower. And avoid going full hot water after a grocery trip if you don’t want to get burned.
This stuff can be done on a commercial scale, but it’s more nuanced than just linking the condenser and evaporator coils.
Thanks for the breakdown. It does seem like I should be able to have one coolant loop for HVAC, dehumidifier, fridge, dryer, WH.
My town was talking about a shared ground source loop for a neighborhood, seems like kinda the same idea.
This is fantastic data… I installed solar this summer and watching my resistance heater run after a bath or shower is almost sickening… batteries just take a nose dive. Thanks for the information, I’d love to see a longer synopsis as your data rolls in.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
I managed to convince my mom to invest in a heat pump after showing her the costs for keeping my apartment at a steady 22c through all of February this year.
My heat pump had cost me ~8eur to run all through February, for about a 40 square meter living room, kitchen, and hallway.
In the same time period, the electric resistive heater in my bedroom, set to 15c had cost me 22eur to run. My bedroom is about 11 square meters. 1/4th the area, a significantly lower set temperature, and 3 times the cost.
And no, there isn’t a significant bigger heat droop or something for my bedroom, same type of walls, insulation, window, etc.
Sweet! Interior or exterior heat source?
Do you already have a heat pump for HVAC?
It’s in a fairly large unfinished but insulated basement.
Yes to HVAC.
