# NYLETHERM-1 Heat Pump Water Heaters



## huffdawg (Mar 30, 2014)

I was reading a thread a while ago about these heat pumps for water heaters and someone was selling them on here.   I can't remember who it was .


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## maple1 (Mar 30, 2014)

Message Tom in Maine.


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## huffdawg (Mar 30, 2014)

thanx maple


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## MaineGuy (Mar 30, 2014)

I just bought one of the units. I've almost got it installed.  Tom has been great answering questions and providing Tech support.  I should have it working by mid week I hope.


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## huffdawg (Mar 30, 2014)

Are you using it on a indirect hot water tank?


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## MaineGuy (Mar 30, 2014)

Yes I'm hooking it up to my boiler mate.


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## huffdawg (Mar 30, 2014)

What water does it heat the Domestic water or the heating media water?


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## MaineGuy (Mar 30, 2014)

Dhw the heating media water is still hooked to my oil and wood boiler.


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## huffdawg (Mar 30, 2014)

I guess the water in the tank gets recirculated through the heat pump till it gets up to a preset temp.


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## Boil&Toil (Mar 31, 2014)

Weird. I can find the Nyle site, but they don't mention this model name at all. The Gyser unit (which seems to operate as described here) does seem quite attractively priced .vs. the "whole-new-water-heater-with-a-heat-pump" units and I do like the idea (if it holds up in practice) of it outlasting the tank, as those might not. Mind you, the CCHP unit is far more interesting for my applications, potentially, but I'll need to find a price on that, which is often not a good sign...if I have to ask, can I afford it?


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## MaineGuy (Mar 31, 2014)

Boil&Toil said:


> Weird. I can find the Nyle site, but they don't mention this model name at all. The Gyser unit (which seems to operate as described here) does seem quite attractively priced .vs. the "whole-new-water-heater-with-a-heat-pump" units and I do like the idea (if it holds up in practice) of it outlasting the tank, as those might not. Mind you, the CCHP unit is far more interesting for my applications, potentially, but I'll need to find a price on that, which is often not a good sign...if I have to ask, can I afford it?


 
You can buy the Nyletherm 1 units on Ebay.  There very affordable only difference between NyleTherm 1 and geysor that I know if is the Nyletherm is 220v and the geysor is 110v


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## MaineGuy (Mar 31, 2014)

huffdawg said:


> I guess the water in the tank gets recirculated through the heat pump till it gets up to a preset temp.


 
Mine will be set up with a strap on Aquastat on the line between the boilermate tank and the heatpump water inlet.  Not sure how this will work, I'm thinking there may be some trial and error initially to get everything up and running the way I hope it does.


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## kopeck (Mar 31, 2014)

This is what you are looking for:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281291560972

And yes the water keeps getting circulated until it hits it's set point then shuts off.   I don't know if you have storage or not but I use mine to heat my 820 gallon tank, then that feeds the indirect hot water heater just like it would running on oil/wood.

I like this setup as it gives me a big reserve.

Tom's a good guy, he will help you out.

K


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## Fred61 (Mar 31, 2014)

MaineGuy said:


> You can buy the Nyletherm 1 units on Ebay.  There very affordable only difference between NyleTherm 1 and geysor that I know if is the Nyletherm is 220v and the geysor is 110v


I believe the other difference is that the Nyletherm was the precursor to the Geyser and is no longer being produced or marketed. Someone here, Perhaps Tom in Maine, provided a link on the story about the glut of Nyletherms and they were going to be sold at below cost prices online but I can't locate it.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/posts/?post_id=1687347



MaineGuy said:


> Mine will be set up with a strap on Aquastat on the line between the boilermate tank and the heatpump water inlet.  Not sure how this will work, I'm thinking there may be some trial and error initially to get everything up and running the way I hope it does.


I have the Geyser RO installed on my Superstore. The controller on my unit is a Johnson Control A419 and the sensor is positioned to measure the return water temperature to the HP.


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## maple1 (Mar 31, 2014)

I think I would base my plumbing setup on how much a/c & dehumidification effect you need or can use in the summer.

Around here it hasn't been a whole lot the last few years, the summers haven't been really hot & humid for long - so I'd likely plumb it right to my DHW tank. But if I was normally needing to run a dehumidifier in the spring-fall stretch, or had extended hot & humid times, I would likely plumb it in to keep my storage warm so it would run longer. Or, you could set it up to do both if you can route the flow through a HX if you use one now for your DHW - that might be the way I would go here, plumb it into the DHW side of my HX so some heat would make it into my storage too. Maybe. Thing is once you plumb it to your boiler/storage water, you likely shouldn't switch it to the DHW side later - my boiler water is pretty stinky stuff, although quite clean looking.


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## kopeck (Mar 31, 2014)

The gist of it is these units were part of a large program that due to some poor management/installation issues died off.

They sat in a warehouse some where for years before some folks rescued and started reselling them.

The Nyletherm is the predecessor to the Geyser.

K


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## kopeck (Mar 31, 2014)

maple1 said:


> I think I would base my plumbing setup on how much a/c & dehumidification effect you need or can use in the summer.
> 
> Around here it hasn't been a whole lot the last few years, the summers haven't been really hot & humid for long - so I'd likely plumb it right to my DHW tank. But if I was normally needing to run a dehumidifier in the spring-fall stretch, or had extended hot & humid times, I would likely plumb it in to keep my storage warm so it would run longer. Or, you could set it up to do both if you can route the flow through a HX if you use one now for your DHW - that might be the way I would go here, plumb it into the DHW side of my HX so some heat would make it into my storage too. Maybe. Thing is once you plumb it to your boiler/storage water, you likely shouldn't switch it to the DHW side later - my boiler water is pretty stinky stuff, although quite clean looking.



I used to run a dehumidifier all summer, my basement never got to bad but I just don't like the dampness down there.  The Nyletherm took it's place and I more or less go hot water out of the deal for free.

I would like to add another coil to my tank to act as a DHW preheater for the indirect.  I think that would really give me the best of both worlds.

K


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## huffdawg (Mar 31, 2014)

I don't have much humidity in the spaces where I am thinking of installing them.   But the one space has two freezers and  one fridge in it, so its quite warm during the no heating months


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## maple1 (Mar 31, 2014)

[quote kopeck, post: 1704932, member: 17682"]This is what you are looking for:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281291560972

And yes the water keeps getting circulated until it hits it's set point then shuts off.   I don't know if you have storage or not but I use mine to heat my 820 gallon tank, then that feeds the indirect hot water heater just like it would running on oil/wood.

I like this setup as it gives me a big reserve.

Tom's a good guy, he will help you out.

K[/quote]

How hot can the HP get the water?

Edit: stupid tablet....


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## flyingcow (Mar 31, 2014)

Got a bit confused on this thread. 


But, if you're dealing with Tom of Maine, you're all set.  You will not not be steered wrong.


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## kopeck (Mar 31, 2014)

It will go as high as you let it but it takes more and more energy the warmer it gets.  Tom said to keep it under 130 for the best bang for your buck.  Remember this isn't 60 degrees in, 130 degrees out, it just keeps adding more heat as the water passes though the unit.

I have mine set so it kicks off at 128.  I was shooting for 125 and figured I was close enough. 

Since I'm using the indirect I needed a hair warmer water.  It works really well for me.

K


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## huffdawg (Apr 6, 2014)

kopeck said:


> It will go as high as you let it but it takes more and more energy the warmer it gets.  Tom said to keep it under 130 for the best bang for your buck.  Remember this isn't 60 degrees in, 130 degrees out, it just keeps adding more heat as the water passes though the unit.
> 
> I have mine set so it kicks off at 128.  I was shooting for 125 and figured I was close enough.
> 
> ...


How fast  it take your tank to heat back up to max after depleting the hot water in it? recovery time I guess it called.


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## kopeck (Apr 7, 2014)

huffdawg said:


> How fast  it take your tank to heat back up to max after depleting the hot water in it? recovery time I guess it called.



I find my HP runs about 6 - 8 hours a day.  Right now I have mine set to kick on at 115 and off at 125.  That's 820 gallons of water that's being used to feed a 30 gallon indirect.  I think if I had an exchanger in the tank it's self I would do better.  I don't know how much I'm loosing in efficiency I'm loosing in the indirect but it has to be something.

Plus my basement is not only bone dry but hang right around 68 degrees all summer. 

K


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## skfire (Apr 8, 2014)

kopeck said:


> I find my HP runs about 6 - 8 hours a day.  Right now I have mine set to kick on at 115 and off at 125.  That's 820 gallons of water that's being used to feed a 30 gallon indirect.  I think if I had an exchanger in the tank it's self I would do better.  I don't know how much I'm loosing in efficiency I'm loosing in the indirect but it has to be something.
> 
> Plus my basement is not only bone dry but hang right around 68 degrees all summer.
> 
> K



confused I am....so the HP returns from and supplies to your storage?
Why not directly to the indirect DHW...? I am sure I am missing something here...

Scott


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## huffdawg (Apr 8, 2014)

I think you can do either Skyfire..


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## tom in maine (Apr 8, 2014)

I have had folks use them both ways. Running it through another heat exchanger is do-able but most folks try to minimize the number of heat exchangers
in the loop.


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## skfire (Apr 8, 2014)

huffdawg said:


> I think you can do either Skyfire..


yes sure, but what is the advantage of DHW through the storage in the off season?...maybe low consumption... in my house there is no such thing as low DHW consumption.


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## huffdawg (Apr 8, 2014)

skfire said:


> yes sure, but what is the advantage of DHW through the storage in the off season?...maybe low consumption... in my house there is no such thing as low DHW consumption.



I guess it would be more storage or  capacity..  I think I was reading in another post  that someone was heating 800 gals with one of them and then using that to heat an indirect DHW tk.


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## tom in maine (Apr 9, 2014)

We have people heating large tanks, which, of course, allows you a lot of capacity. IF, the standby loss is reasonable, it can be done efficiently. You then have a lot of 
DHW.
The heat pump only delivers 6-7k btus/hr, and with a well insulated tank, just replenishes the DHW usage and (hopefully) modest standby loss daily.


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## MaineGuy (Apr 9, 2014)

tom in maine said:


> We have people heating large tanks, which, of course, allows you a lot of capacity. IF, the standby loss is reasonable, it can be done efficiently. You then have a lot of
> DHW.
> The heat pump only delivers 6-7k btus/hr, and with a well insulated tank, just replenishes the DHW usage and (hopefully) modest standby loss daily.


 
Tom Just curious about the cooling output of one of these units.  I'm brainstorming a bit farther.  If I used a couple of these units to heat my Garn Storage in the basement and added a duct to pull the warm air from the upstairs (in the summer only) and ducted the cool air back to the upstairs.  I'm wondering if I can eliminate the 15k btu air conditioner I run in the summer??


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## kopeck (Apr 9, 2014)

skfire said:


> confused I am....so the HP returns from and supplies to your storage?
> Why not directly to the indirect DHW...? I am sure I am missing something here...



Pretty simple.  I keep my 820 gallons of storage up to temp which gives me a very large reserve.  I could pipe it in to my indirect but then I would only be keeping 30 gallons of water ready to go.  Once that 30 gallons is depleted (a couple of back to back showers for example) the heat has to come from somewhere (oil in my case).

The heat pump is only 6500 BTUs, it's not on demand by any means.  It will only add a handful of degrees over the input temp.

K


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## huffdawg (Apr 9, 2014)

Kopeck..What temp do you get your 850 gal tank up to?   130?        Then what temp can you get your indirect tank up to?


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## huffdawg (Apr 9, 2014)

skfire said:


> yes sure, but what is the advantage of DHW through the storage in the off season?...maybe low consumption... in my house there is no such thing as low DHW consumption.


I know what your talking about, my 17 year old daughter will stay in the shower till my 52 gal. buderus DHW runs cold.


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## Fred61 (Apr 9, 2014)

If your storage or your Garn are in the basement you'll need a hell of a lot of insulation on it in order to not keep re-circulating the warmer air coming from the heat loss of your tank. That extra heat is really noticeable in the summer when you're trying to air condition the living space. I have 4 inches of foam on my storage tank and the heat loss filters upstairs enough so I need to run my mini splits more days during the summer.

What I did was just heat my Superstore with the Geyser and blow the basement air up to the living space when the basement air dropped to about 62. This greatly reduced the operating time of my mini splits over the summer.


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## kopeck (Apr 9, 2014)

huffdawg said:


> Kopeck..What temp do you get your 850 gal tank up to? 130? Then what temp can you get your indirect tank up to?



128f.  I didn't choose 128 specifically, the aquastat I used was kind of "set and see" so I was happy when that's where it kicked off.

My indirect is set for 120f and it will get the water up there.  What I've found though is due to the low temps coming form the storage tank that 120 doesn't last really long.  I haven't measured it but my guess is after the initial burst of 120f water, which is more the enough for most applications I get s sustained 110f or so.  Still not shabby, no one in the house complains.  I tend to take showers a bit on the hotter side and I have zero complaints.

That is one reason I think an exchanger in my tank might be a bit more efficient but in reality my setup does what it's suppose to.

K


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## skfire (Apr 9, 2014)

Fred61 said:


> If your storage or your Garn are in the basement you'll need a hell of a lot of insulation on it in order to not keep re-circulating the warmer air coming from the heat loss of your tank. That extra heat is really noticeable in the summer when you're trying to air condition the living space. I have 4 inches of foam on my storage tank and the heat loss filters upstairs enough so I need to run my mini splits more days during the summer.
> 
> What I did was just heat my Superstore with the Geyser and blow the basement air up to the living space when the basement air dropped to about 62. This greatly reduced the operating time of my mini splits over the summer.




That is why I am debating running the HP directly to my Buderus ST-200 indirect unit and not through my tanks...also I really prefer making up my DHW(up to 115-120f) with  145f-150f in the indirect. So the HP will get me partly there and then the LP burner will top off.

Scott


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## maple1 (Apr 9, 2014)

You could also plumb it so it doesn't use either the indirect coil, or storage - you could T off your fresh water inlet & hot outlets to facilitate circulation. Same as you would hook it up to an electric DWH tank. If one way was easier than the other. Or maybe you're not talking using the indirect coil...


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## Fred61 (Apr 9, 2014)

skfire said:


> So the HP will get me partly there and then the LP burner will top off.


How would you control that? Would you install a "make on rise" aquastat when the water reaches 120 or so and let the LP take it from there?


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## Fred61 (Apr 9, 2014)

Tom, if you're listening, you can set me straight. I installed my Geyser as per instructions and it served me well last summer regardless of the fact that I have become accustomed to hotter DHW from my boiler over the winter but I'm wondering if there is a flaw in the instructions.

The Geyser must pump several passes across it's coils in order to bring the temperature up to desired levels mostly 125 or so. With the current set-up I pump water from the bottom of the tank, through the Geyser and back to the bottom of the tank through the dip tube. I believe that with that set-up only the lower part of the tank gets mixed and therefore satisfies the temperature control before the heat has stratified to the top where I am drawing from. I know stratification always works but we are starting out with such a low temperature on the bottom(125) the top may be colder. This problem could be diminished if the sensor was in the center like the aquastat for the oil.

The question I have is: Why not plumb the hot return from the Geyser to the hot output of the Superstore and keep the cold coming from the bottom like a side arm? You would then be less dependent on stratification.


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## skfire (Apr 9, 2014)

Fred61 said:


> How would you control that? Would you install a "make on rise" aquastat when the water reaches 120 or so and let the LP take it from there?



Yes, same way I switch from storage to LP for make up of DHW.

SK


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## skfire (Apr 9, 2014)

maple1 said:


> You could also plumb it so it doesn't use either the indirect coil, or storage - you could T off your fresh water inlet & hot outlets to facilitate circulation. Same as you would hook it up to an electric DWH tank. If one way was easier than the other. Or maybe you're not talking using the indirect coil...



yes, but will not get hot enough...I like to get 115 from at least 145...I mix down.....kill everything....


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## ian105 (Apr 9, 2014)

I had thought about a HPWH replacement for my propane fired unit, but the cost/ROI had turned me off till the propane unit gave up the ghost. 
I like the idea of being able to seperate the tank from the guts.  That way each part is only replaced when necessary.  In addition to being able to fire up the unit on propane when we have a ton of additional people in the house to get faster recovery (holidays).

Ran the numbers and it looks like assuming propane is 2/gal and electric @ 10/KWH , payback is about a year.
Given this ROI why are more people not jumping on this?  Hook up looks very easy with less than $50 (guess?) in additional plumbing parts.

Has anyone installed one of the ebay Nyletherm1's on a propane fired HWH?  Were you pleased with the results?

Also...who is Tom in Maine?  I've seen him mentioned a number of times.  Is he the one selling them on ebay?  What is his hearth name so I shoot him a note if this looks like a go.


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## maple1 (Apr 9, 2014)

ian105 said:


> I had thought about a HPWH replacement for my propane fired unit, but the cost/ROI had turned me off till the propane unit gave up the ghost.
> I like the idea of being able to seperate the tank from the guts.  That way each part is only replaced when necessary.  In addition to being able to fire up the unit on propane when we have a ton of additional people in the house to get faster recovery (holidays).
> 
> Ran the numbers and it looks like assuming propane is 2/gal and electric @ 10/KWH , payback is about a year.
> ...


 

That is his Hearth name.

And why not? Honest ignorance, I'd guess.


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## flyingcow (Apr 9, 2014)

*Wow. Propane up here is ad high as 4.10 a gal. Low maybe 3.75.  Electric is about .15 kWh. Due for an increase soon. 
*
*Tom in Maine is his user name here. He should check in soon.*


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## huffdawg (Apr 9, 2014)

here's his email address

tom@americansolartechnics.com


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## tom in maine (Apr 9, 2014)

Hey, here I am!
You can call me at 888-866-8970 or use the above email. Email is better. 
Thanks,
Tom


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