It is great to hear you are saving a significant of money. It seems like the payback period will be short.

What are you paying for a gallon of oil and what are the electric rates?

I would not expect the savings for the new hot water heater to be $50 per month. You must use a lot of hot water! How did you calculate the amount of electricity for hot water usage? How much did you think you are saving on cooling with new heat pump versus the old AC?

The a geothermal system would have lower annual operating costs, but a significantly higher installation cost. It would be interesting to see the return on investment calculation to determine if it would have been a better option.

mike,

Last oil delivery was last December - $3.94/Gal (No oil deliveries in 2011!)

Blended electrical cost for 2012 was .137/Kwh (Total dollars/total Kwh)

Just two of us using hot water, and we submariners use VERY LITTLE water. ;-) Operate Hybrid in heat pump mode only.

The savings on the hot water heater calculation is shakey, at best. It required much time and effort, but I also believe it is high.

Basic assumption was that "hotel loads" are same all year round. This ignores many secondary changes, such as more lighting demand during winter, etc

What I did was go back thru 19 years of data and find the 2,3, or 4 months with distinctively lower usage in each year and record the Kwh for those months. I assumed that these months did not include any usage for heating and cooling. If a month looked suspicious, I did not include it.

I used that average to represent my home electrical usage twelve months a year exclusive of heating and cooling.

I performed this calculation for the period prior to 2010 and also for after 2010 and compared the two to determine hot water savings. (Compared two year's worth to average over 16 years. )

A more correct statement is that my annual savings in electricity exclusive of heating and cooling is $611. As I said, I ascribe all of that savings to hot water heating costs.

My power company thinks my neighbors and I use some $35 per month on hot water heating, so saving $50 per month is likely not very accurate.

Also, I use less electricity than virtually all of my neighbors.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1591656}}

This post was edited by saltidawg on Fri, Sep 6, 13 at 10:54

mike_home's question re savings on hot water costs has caused me to revisit that issue.

I originally posted that the $611 savings annually in NON heating and cooling was totally attributed to my new GE Hybrid Hot Water Heater.

While I BELIEVE that much of the savings is due to the new heater, I have gone back and searched thru Quicken expenditures and now realize I had changed some other areas in an attempt to reduce my electric costs.

As an example, I replaced all of the 50 Watt Halogen bulbs in my kitchen and den with 4 Watt LED bulbs. In my kitchen alone, I have nine bulbs that are on for 3 hours every morning and probably 4 hours in the evening.

Changing just those bulbs results in a monthly reduction of electric usage of 9 X (50-4) X .137 X 30 = $17

So of that $50 a month savings that I ascribed to reduced hot water heating, at least $17 is actually likely due to bulb replacement.

I still think that hybrid hot water heater was a great investment absent having NG available, but I thank Mike for getting me to revisit the actual savings!

IâÂÂm not convinced of the savings claimed by the manufacturers of âÂÂHybridâ heat pump water heaters.

LetâÂÂs say about 1/3 of the energy for heat pump hot water heating comes from electrical power to run the compression cycle, assuming no backup electric elements are used. Then the rest of the energy comes from whatever your energy source is for heating the house during heating season as this heat is transferred out of the air into the tank. In your case the rest of the energy would be provided by your new Carrier HP & oil furnace.

A true energy savings might happen when space heating is not required and particularly when air-conditioning is. This thing is working against your heating system during heating season just as your refrigerator is working against your A/C during air-conditioning season.

If this is not so, what am I missing?

SR

This has been discussed at some length here before. The Hybrid heater in my basement is a VERY small heat pump. If no hot water demand exists, any heat removed from the air is returned to the air thru the walls of the heater. The only result is a very slight humidification of the basement. There is no net cooling or heating of the air.

If there is an actual hot water demand, heat is in fact transferred from the basement air to replace the heat carried out of the basement by the hot water flowing out thru the copper pipes.

My basement has approximately 1000 Sq Ft. There has never been noted a temperature change due to the hybrid hot water heater. To put things in perspective, on a humid day the hot hybrid hot water heater might extract one or two quarts of water in a day. This is a VERY small help in curing a high humidity condition...

This post was edited by saltidawg on Mon, Sep 9, 13 at 10:11