On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:45:28 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:
Some folks also like to have hot water as well, and if they heat the
house with oil they usually also heat the hot water with oil.
Exactly. Most homes in our neighbourhood are heated with oil-fired
boilers equipped with internal DHW coils, or in some cases indirect
hot water tanks. In homes with forced air heating systems, a stand
alone oil-fired water heater is commonly used -- older homes with
smaller electrical services in particular.
We use between 450 and 500 litres of heating oil each year for DHW
purposes; a little over a litre a day during the summer months when
inlet temperatures are higher and one and a half litres in winter when
supply temperatures are lower, additional loads of laundry are run
(larger, bulkier and heavier clothing) and longer (and hotter) showers
are preferred. This is a trivial amount of oil compared to most
households, but it represents over half of our total consumption, so
it's the logical place to target if we want to further reduce our
demand [at this point, we're down to roughly 830 litres or 220
gallons/year... the previous homeowners used over 5,700!].
I haven't pulled the trigger as yet, but I'm thinking of adding a Nyle
heat pump to take over much of the work of the boiler, assuming it's
compatible with our SuperStor Ultra tank.
For information on the Nyle heat pump, see:
http://www.nyletherm.com/waterheating.htm
Right now, I can shoot down to Bangor and throw one in the back of the
Chrysler for a little over $800.00 CDN. With an average COP of 2.0,
it would cut our water heating costs in half, plus minimize, or even
eliminate, the need to run the dehumidifier during the summer months.
Between May and September, our dehumidifier averages between 5 and 10
kWh/day, so the Nyle could assume full responsibility for this service
and, in the process, provide us with free hot water. Even with our
modest requirements, factoring in our dehumidifier savings should
reduce our simple payback to just under three years.
Cheers,
Paul