wrote in message
...

I'm still thinking about heating water with 1/3 the usual energy using a
Haier
5K Btu/h window AC ($84 at Wal-Mart.) The pipes connect to the condenser
coil
at the top, so we could build a thin aquarium around it with no replumbing
or
recharging and pump 1.5 gpm of 110 F water out through a $168 Doucette
SB1-20
400 Btu/h-F plate heat exchanger with a 110 F thermostat and pump 60 F
cold
water into the other side of the heat exchanger from a cold kitchen tap
and
back into the hot tap, and dump some hot water from the hot tap into the
sink
with a solenoid valve if the cold tap ever reaches say, 100 F, when/if the
tank water heater completely fills. Heating 50 gallons of 60 F water to
110
takes about 21K Btu, and the AC would make about 5000(1+1/3) = 6700 Btu/h,
so we might fill the tank in 3 hours, with no hot water use.

Nick, can you explain a little more here. Are you saying pump from a hot
water tank the cooler water at the bottom through plate heat exchanger and
into the top of the hot water tank? A loop through the hot water tank?