How to Install a Heat Pump Water Heater | This Old House

right here Kevin, here's the really old

water

heat

er, oh yeah. Well, you did pretty well. John got 17 years of any glass

water

heat

er. Now an electric water

heater

is a popular choice in the United States because of its convenience, it is ventless. It doesn't need any fuel storage, all you have to do is run a wire like

this

,

this

is 220 volts to this glassline steel tank. Now, to heat the water, there are two elements, one at the top and one at the bottom. The elements look like this when you are new, it is a submersion style element that is placed right inside the water and has a relatively high amount of power: 4500 Watts.

That's what it looks like when it's new. What happens over time is that it can become caked with calcium and hardness in the water. that happens, it can be less enough, it leaves less heat, the element gets into the water and if it clumps up too much it can look like this and it can break right away, yes Richard I've replaced them twice in seven years it's ok so definitely You're in the market for a new water

heater

, an efficient one would be nice, well let's show you a new and efficient way to produce hot water using electricity.

Alright guys, here is our new electric water heater, it is a glassline steel tank and it has heating elements on top and bottom, but these elements will only be used as a backup. The actual heating of the water will mainly be done using this heat

pump

. Now we know what a heat

pump

is. We may know her by different names. It's actually just a basic air conditioner and all an air conditioner does is transfer heat from one place to another, in this case we're going to take the heat that's in the air around us, we're going to pump it out using these fans, this coil here Inside this coil there is refrigerant that is very cold, the heat from the air is absorbed by the refrigerant right here, it reaches this point and the compressor turns on and when it compresses that refrigerant, it heats up even more through of the coils that are inside. the tank, the heat that's in those coils is transferred to the water and you heat the water, the refrigerant comes back here and cools down again and the cycle repeats, so we're really just using the hot air to heat the water, you want? tell me? all of this on top is more efficient than those two elements, there is no question, this element here has 4500 watts to run, this compressor is approximately 700 watts and will be on longer than that element, but it is much more efficient, this unit will use less than half. from that conventional voter wow, that's awesome, yeah, so let's get the old one out, okay, come on guys, I think I'd like to change those off values ​​while we're here, so John, why don't you go look? the water man and turn it off for me sure Kevin just pull the breaker so we can turn off the power and I'm going to drain the water heater okay John turn on the top faucet to break the vacuum sure I did good, really?

Kevin is cleaning the cold water line with the Amory cloth, okay, I'm going to cut this one off, sure you turn off the water, yeah, I hope so, we're about to find out, all good, now I just break the electrical cord and you can pull it out from here, okay guys, I'm an executive, you get it out of here, okay, John, you and me, thanks, I'll give it to me, grab the bottom, ready, that's good, John, if you give me a hand shake the new water heater into place, okay, a little bit, slide it in, try to line it up roughly with the pipes above, okay, we have two water connections to make, here are our feet of cold water in the tank, it's going to come .

Down here on this tea accessory, this is actually called a vacuum breaker and it will allow air to break the vacuum so as not to damage the tank. Now the cold water comes down through this pipe and inside it is a dip tube and stuff. The dip tube sends water to the bottom of the tank to put the coldest water at the bottom of the tank. Once the water is heated, it will come out through this faucet here and then this hot water line will be reconnected here. to the

house

now the manufacturer doesn't want us to put extra heat on these connections, so we'll make these types of connections outside, okay.

I need to tighten these joints, there are two on the hot and the cold and these will be very useful if you ever need to repair the water heater in the future break the connections instead of having to cut the pipe, okay, let's turn on the water right now, we have to think about the electrical, well, we are using the same 220, 30 amp line that we used before for the oil water heater, there are two hot legs and ground wire nuts on both connections. Now, the way any heat pump works is that the hot air meets a cooling coil like this and can bring it with it. humidity, so this ends up acting as a dehumidifier and one of the byproducts of that is the condensate or water that we have to deal with, which comes out through this tube and normally you would dump it into a floor drain or down your well. , but you don't have one, what we're going to do with it is run that line here to a condensate pump.

You can see the line coming here. There is a tank with a float and a small pump and it will pump. this discharge port in a tube like this that we'll run over the door and right here to the laundry drain, okay Kevin, let's turn the power back on, okay, and there's also a filter that we need to put in, this one It is an air filter. you have to make sure you keep cleaning well okay so we can see it's on and the default is it's now firing for 120 degree water if you want it to be hotter press the up button and then enter and then This is also a default hybrid mode that you want to keep it in, that means it will use the heat pump as much as possible and only activate those conventional electrical elements in periods of high demand.

You are in business, yes, and you go. to save some money on your new water here