I replaced my 20 year old propane water heater with a GE Geospring this weekend and thought I'd share as it doesn't seem there is much real world feedback out on them yet. I considered an on demand but the heat pump appeared to use a lot less energy if you could always run it in heat pump only mode. I didn't think this would be a problem for us and so far so good. I installed it on the main floor of the house. It is a little louder than the refrigerator but not annoying unless you are trying to listen to Mozart. Anyway, initial impressions are very positive and I'm glad to be off propane for everything but the grill and the stove. Lowe's just did a major price reduction: http://www.lowes.com/pd_386797-83-G...¤tURL=?Ntt=water+heater+tray&facetInfo= Put it in the cart to see how much off list they are currently selling for. Many states also offer rebates through your utility and I believe there are also income tax credits but have not looked into them yet.
I'm about to purchase one of these for the exact same reason. Let me know how you like it long term. Looking forward to what others have to say too.
I had a Stiebel Eltron installed a little over two years ago, no problems, performs as advertised, our average electric usage went up 3-4 kwh per day, family of four, two teenagers. 80G capacity set at 160* with a mixer valve on the supply to deliver 115* to the faucet and the resistive booster never kicks in. It lives in the basement right next to the woodstove, so the COP is very high when burning. http://www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com/accelera.html
What is the reason for having the unit at 160* but mixing to 115*? Why not turn it down to 120* and eliminate the mixer?
I would think it gives a larger volume of useable water at 115 as it probably does not have as quick as recovery time as a conventional WH. Gary
Yep, the efficiency of the heat pump comes at the price of recovery time. Mine is 50 gallons and has no problem with a ridiculously long shower set at 120 in heat pump only mode. But, I'm sure if you strung a few showers together, you would probably need to go to hybrid mode which uses the traditional electric coils to boost when needed.
As the others have said, recovery time is an issue with these type of heaters, that's why they have a resistive element booster that will kick on as needed. The higher set temp with mixing just gives you more capacity to make up for the slow recovery. I'll probably turn it down as the kids leave for college. The tank is very well insulated and I had it plumbed with a 2 foot drop to the mixer valve to minimize thermosiphon loss.
I bought that same unit a bit over a year ago. I've been happy with it. I had one issue a few months after I installed it where the heat pump locked out. I called GE, read them the error code, they overnighted the parts and sent a tech out a few days later. I never lost hot water as it ran off the elements during that time. I run it in hybrid mode in the winter and heat pump only mode from about April through October. There are only 3 of us in the house, so hot water demand isn't high. My dehumidifier doesn't run as much in the summer which is an added plus.
How close is your water heater to the Fahrenheit? Have you tried running heat pump only mode in the winter? I'm in the process of adding the Revolution and am probably going to convert to a GE HPWH too. I was hoping the residual heat from the Revolution would be cheap heat for the heat pump.
It's on the same side if the basement, but at the opposite end. It's about 60 feet away from the furnace. That side of the basement is uninsulated and stays about 65 degrees if the Fahrenheit is running. I installed it late February of 2013, so this is my first real winter using it. I notice the biggest difference in the electric bills in the summer, most because the dehumidifier hardly runs anymore. I'd guess my electric bill dropped about $20 on average. I ran it in heat pump only mode until early January then switched to hybrid. I'll switch back to HP only in April.
