I bought my hp from Nyle directly, it is the 120v version. There are a lot of threads about the Nyletherm which was withdrawn. I wanted the 120v version anyway for I have 120v generators. I would be surprised if your existing hot water system does not have a mixing valve. You would need to water tank temp a lot lower so you did not get scolded. Maybe post some pictures of your existing plumbing and some more knowledgable folks than me can comment.
Summer DWH options
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Do you know why the Nyletherm was withdrawn? I think I've read some posts on here from people who have that version of the HP and have had a positive experience. The Nyletherm is much cheaper when purchasing from Tom in Maine as opposed to purchasing the Geyser directly from Nyle.
The units are slightly different. The Geyser operates on 120VAC while the Nyletherm uses 240VAC. The Nyletherms were only made to operate with an electric water heater.
We (or you) can modify the unit to operate with an aquastat for other tanks like Superstores.
The mechanical parts are very similar. The big difference internally, other than operating voltage, is the Nyletherm has a potted control module and the Geyser is hand wired with parts from Grainger. I have used my Nyletherm for 8 years with no issues. We do have control modules available. The controls are quite simple and can be replaced with a hand wired version if that was ever an issue.
Recovery time is twice as long as an electric water heater. This does not seem to present any issue for most people who have them.
I have sold a fair bit of both units and no one has lamented recovery time.
I suspect the usual problem comes in with really long showers. A limited capacity storage tank will take care of that and save even more money ;^)
We (or you) can modify the unit to operate with an aquastat for other tanks like Superstores.
The mechanical parts are very similar. The big difference internally, other than operating voltage, is the Nyletherm has a potted control module and the Geyser is hand wired with parts from Grainger. I have used my Nyletherm for 8 years with no issues. We do have control modules available. The controls are quite simple and can be replaced with a hand wired version if that was ever an issue.
Recovery time is twice as long as an electric water heater. This does not seem to present any issue for most people who have them.
I have sold a fair bit of both units and no one has lamented recovery time.
I suspect the usual problem comes in with really long showers. A limited capacity storage tank will take care of that and save even more money ;^)
I was speaking with one of the guys I work with today who has a 40 gallon electric tank and he said that he's been both the fourth person and the fifth person in his show in the morning and that if he's the fourth he's happy and if he's the fifth he's not. He said his family usually takes anywhere from 10-20 minute showers. I'm glad to hear that a 40 gallon tank can keep up with 4 morning showers as that's the most demand my family will most likely ever put on our 40 gal. tank and I was not looking forward to upgrading to an 80 gallon as they're not exactly cheap.
So now I'll have my Biowin for heat and DHW during the heating months and the Nyle doing DHW in the non heating months. All that's left to do is to complete the air sealing in the attic, bring it up to R60 and my home will be as energy efficient as I'm willing to spend to make it. for now anyway. I've bought a couple of the Cree A19 LED bulbs at Home Depot to try them. They come in the 5000K natural light in addition to the 3000K yellow light that most incandescent bulbs are limited to. They're nice but $16 for a 75 watt equivalent or $11 for a 60 watt equivalent equals a fairly long payback time. The BR30's for the kitchen cans are even less cost effective at this point in time. I'm hoping that the prices decline pretty quickly because I really do like that 5000K white light for some areas of the home.
So now I'll have my Biowin for heat and DHW during the heating months and the Nyle doing DHW in the non heating months. All that's left to do is to complete the air sealing in the attic, bring it up to R60 and my home will be as energy efficient as I'm willing to spend to make it. for now anyway. I've bought a couple of the Cree A19 LED bulbs at Home Depot to try them. They come in the 5000K natural light in addition to the 3000K yellow light that most incandescent bulbs are limited to. They're nice but $16 for a 75 watt equivalent or $11 for a 60 watt equivalent equals a fairly long payback time. The BR30's for the kitchen cans are even less cost effective at this point in time. I'm hoping that the prices decline pretty quickly because I really do like that 5000K white light for some areas of the home.
Tom,
Thanks for clarification.
I'm thinking to purchase Nyletherm and have few questions.
1. I understand that I would need an additional aquastat for a non-electric water heater (oil) with Nyletherm. Do you have a spec for it? I'm thinking to setup a temperature controlled relay that I can monitor/control with home automation.
2. I probably won't save relative to oil ($0.21/kWh in LI NY), so my primary interest in a heat pump is dehumidification. Do you know a dehumidification efficiency of your unit L/kWh?
3. Heat pump will decrease air temperature (opposite to dehumidifier). Should I be concerned about increase of relative humidity and condensation as air temperature drops?
4. I found this test review on Nyletherm (broken link removed). Good review and interestingly, it states that Nyletherm can operate down to 45F. My current dehumidifier spends a lot of time in defrost mode below 58F. What attributes to Nyletherm low temperature performance?
5. I also came across this site (broken link removed) that claims Geyser is is much quieter than the Nyletherm and that Geyser is over 40% more efficient based on their tests (broken link removed). I do question their efficiency foundings. Can you comment on this? As a side note, my pool heat pump is rated EF 4 at 60F / 60% rh. How come all home water heaters are less efficient with only EF 2?
Thanks in advance,
Al
maple1
Minister of Fire
Here in Long Island NY electricity cost about twice as oil per BTU. Water heat pump has EF 2, so it is a wash.
http://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-home/home-energy-savings-program/compare-water-heating-options/
Plug in $0.21 for heat pump water heater and $3.68 for oil direct fired tank and you'll get $70/year difference.
1. I understand that I would need an additional aquastat for a non-electric water heater (oil) with Nyletherm. Do you have a spec for it? I'm thinking to setup a temperature controlled relay that I can monitor/control with home automation.
Honeywell units like L6006 will work. Any make on drop temperature control that has a probe and can handle 240vac at 3.5a or higher should be fine.
2. I probably won't save relative to oil ($0.21/kWh in LI NY), so my primary interest in a heat pump is dehumidification. Do you know a dehumidification efficiency of your unit L/kWh?
I have no idea other than in the process of making my hot water, it does an excellent job of dehumidifying my basement.
3. Heat pump will decrease air temperature (opposite to dehumidifier). Should I be concerned about increase of relative humidity and condensation as air temperature drops?
No.
4. I found this test review on Nyletherm (broken link removed). Good review and interestingly, it states that Nyletherm can operate down to 45F. My current dehumidifier spends a lot of time in defrost mode below 58F. What attributes to Nyletherm low temperature performance?
It was designed to work in cold Maine basements!
5. I also came across this site (broken link removed) that claims Geyser is is much quieter than the Nyletherm and that Geyser is over 40% more efficient based on their tests (broken link removed). I do question their efficiency foundings. Can you comment on this? As a side note, my pool heat pump is rated EF 4 at 60F / 60% rh. How come all home water heaters are less efficient with only EF 2?
I doubt there is more than 10-15% difference in performance. I have had my hands on and in both units. The mechanics are about the same. The electronics are nothing fancy.
The Geyser is quieter, but the Nyletherm is not particularly noisy. It is quieter than a window air conditioner.
Honeywell units like L6006 will work. Any make on drop temperature control that has a probe and can handle 240vac at 3.5a or higher should be fine.
2. I probably won't save relative to oil ($0.21/kWh in LI NY), so my primary interest in a heat pump is dehumidification. Do you know a dehumidification efficiency of your unit L/kWh?
I have no idea other than in the process of making my hot water, it does an excellent job of dehumidifying my basement.
3. Heat pump will decrease air temperature (opposite to dehumidifier). Should I be concerned about increase of relative humidity and condensation as air temperature drops?
No.
4. I found this test review on Nyletherm (broken link removed). Good review and interestingly, it states that Nyletherm can operate down to 45F. My current dehumidifier spends a lot of time in defrost mode below 58F. What attributes to Nyletherm low temperature performance?
It was designed to work in cold Maine basements!
5. I also came across this site (broken link removed) that claims Geyser is is much quieter than the Nyletherm and that Geyser is over 40% more efficient based on their tests (broken link removed). I do question their efficiency foundings. Can you comment on this? As a side note, my pool heat pump is rated EF 4 at 60F / 60% rh. How come all home water heaters are less efficient with only EF 2?
I doubt there is more than 10-15% difference in performance. I have had my hands on and in both units. The mechanics are about the same. The electronics are nothing fancy.
The Geyser is quieter, but the Nyletherm is not particularly noisy. It is quieter than a window air conditioner.
The high electric cost is certainly an issue. The good news is that dehumidification is a free byproduct.
maple1
Minister of Fire
That's a interesting app. Some of their numbers look wonky to me though. I'm using about half the kWh for our family of 5 that its saying a family of 3 would use (standard electric heater), and 'usage losses' = 67% for a HPWH? I don't think I've read of anyone on here spending more than $15/mo in electricity running a HPWH. I stand to be corrected though.
maple1
Minister of Fire
I went back to that site again, and the more I looked at it the more I see that just doesn't match up to my real world experience.
Our old tankless coil boiler used about 1 gallon (Imperial) of oil a day, for our DHW in the non-heating seasons. Our 2 year old 80 gallon electric heater uses around $20/mo of electricity at $0.17. The oil figure I think is pretty accurate after watching it for 17 years, the electric I'm still not sure about as the first estimation I came up with after the first couple power bills was $30/mo, then looking at more power bills a year and a half later I came up with $15/mo. So I'll say $20 for now.
So using $3.68/US Gallon and $0.21 electric, I'm saving over $100/month at your rates - around $115 to be a bit more exact.
Now - I've never had an oil direct fired tank, or a HPWH, so trying to guage those by using comparative numbers from the efficiencymaine thing, I come up with estimations that an oil direct would use 80% of the oil a tankless coil would, and a HPWH would use 70% of the electricity a standard electric tank would. So throwing all that together with what I've seen at my place, I get an estimation that going from a direct fired oil tank to HPWH should save around $95/mo. That's a loooong way from that site estimation of only $6/mo. Am I that far wrong?
How much oil does your oil direct fired tank actually use?
Just to throw out some more numbers. Dick Hill had a household with, at times, 4 tenants. He is using an Amtrol Boilermate with a low mass cold start Axeman Anderson Olympia oil fired boiler. In the summertime, he found that the net energy that landed in the Boilermate from the boiler was 33%.
He changed over to a Nyletherm and operates it during the non heating season.
He is heating an electric tank instead of the Boilermate. I am not sure about any difference in insulation values, but the savings he is seeing with the HP are similar to everyone else.
He clocks what everyone uses! Since his tenants are Chinese, maybe this Big Brother approach is not an issue.
He changed over to a Nyletherm and operates it during the non heating season.
He is heating an electric tank instead of the Boilermate. I am not sure about any difference in insulation values, but the savings he is seeing with the HP are similar to everyone else.
He clocks what everyone uses! Since his tenants are Chinese, maybe this Big Brother approach is not an issue.
infinitymike
Minister of Fire
[quote="tom in maine, post: 1719934, member: 4841".
He clocks what everyone uses.[/quote]
How does he or any else for that matter, clock their electric use? I assume an hour meter on the appliance? Oil is obviously easy since it is stand alone but electric is mixed in with so many other variables.
He clocks what everyone uses.[/quote]
How does he or any else for that matter, clock their electric use? I assume an hour meter on the appliance? Oil is obviously easy since it is stand alone but electric is mixed in with so many other variables.
I also pay .20 kwh and in the summer its $24 a month ( read with an individual watt meter for tank only) with 3 teenagers and a bathing queen wife. Oil was a gallon a day. Over $1,000 savings a year. And it is noticeable in the wallet.
Are there any other New Hampshire residents here that are as sick of PSNH and the PUC as I am?
(broken link removed to http://www.newhampshire.com/article/20140403/NEWS05/140409753)
(broken link removed to http://www.newhampshire.com/article/20140403/NEWS05/140409753)
Hello Boiler buddies. I was looking for options on hot water before I install a solar setup in the future. Right now I am using an indirect tank off my boiler with an electric water heater back up operating independently from the system. Either on or off. at the moment the used indirect developed a leak in the coil which forced me back to electric. I would rather not burn wood in the summer. Can any body lead me to some diagrams for piping systems which share, indirect hot water heaters, and wood boilers remote buildings and heatpump water heaters?
Thanks to all this knowledge bank.
TLM
Are the heat pump units you guys talking about stand alone? or Are they piped into indirects or what.
The Nyletherms and Geysers tie into your tank.
There are many others that are all in one.
Here is a link that I forgot about:
http://www.homepower.com/articles/solar-water-heating/domestic-hot-water/heat-pump-water-heaters
There are many others that are all in one.
Here is a link that I forgot about:
http://www.homepower.com/articles/solar-water-heating/domestic-hot-water/heat-pump-water-heaters
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