I am almost finished with our new home. I'll be calling the plumber in the next couple of weeks. Its a 2900 sqft all electric home. We are also on well water.
My plumber is planning on putting in an 80 gallon water heater, which I'm fine with. My concern is heating 80 gallons worth of well water at 60 degrees.
My thought was to install a 50 gallon heater first to pre-heat the water to 90 or so, then the 80 gallon unit would lift it from there to usable temp. My thinking is that this would be a bit more efficient as well as having faster regeneration time.
I had considered on demand water heaters, but the electric models really don’t seem all that worth while. I was also planning on using Energy Star rated heaters for both units.
Is my thinking off? should I not do it this way? Are the electric on demand units ok?
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Ergon is right about the heaters. A large, single unit doing the whole job loses less heat than any two tanks would. There is just no justifiable reason to two-stage the process. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]
We installed two 50 gallon water heaters. Our whole house is heated with hot water in the winter time, no furnace at all. During the summer and warm fall and spring months I simply shut one water heater down to the vacation setting, so I am only powering one water heater. We also have a continuous flow hot water line in the house. The hot water flow continuously in a loop, this give hot water to any faucet in the house on demand. It also keeps the water in the hot water heater at a constant flow and temp. The water is pumped through the pipes by a small 1/10 horsepower electric pump.
Both water heaters are housed next to each other in a insulated room in the garage. All the plumbing is run through the conditioned air space under the house. So in our case 2 WH make more since than one large heater. Both HWH are commercial quick heat units.
Thanks for the responses....I think I may have found the solution that I have really been looking for. Its an air-source heat pump water heater. This is the one that has really caught my eye. http://www.nyletherm.com/waterheating.htm#3
Looks like a potential to save a quite a bit in water heating costs as well as a de-humidifier to boot.
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