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When cooling a dwelling, the trick is figuring out where to move the heat. Typically we dump it outside (waste) but we should be heating our hot water tanks, sw

When cooling a dwelling, the trick is figuring out where to move the heat. Typically we dump it outside (waste) but we should be heating our hot water tanks, swimming pools, or anything else that needs concentrated heat at the same time that we're removing it from the indoor air. Alec from Technology Connections recently made some videos about heat pumps on YouTube that touch on this sort of thing.

mikepurvis 5y ago
This has always made me super grouchy— I even have my house plumbed for hydronics! I wish I could tie the AC units into that, put all the rads in bypass during the summer, and use the hydronic water to preheat shower water before it hits the gas-powered on demand system.
amluto 5y ago
In very hot climates, swimming pools get too hot, and you might prefer to chill the pool water.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  I'm sure this might happen somewhere, but I grew up in Florida and it never happened in Orlando. I would always have been happy for the pool to be warmer.
nfriedly 5y ago
> Typically we dump it outside (waste) but we should be heating our hot water tanks, swimming pools, or anything else that needs concentrated heat at the same time that we're removing it from the indoor air. My house actually does that! I had never heard of the idea before moving here, but we have a geothermal system and in addition to the ground loop, it also dumps heat into the hot water heater when cooling the house. (Until the water reaches some maximum temperature.)
- rstupek 5y ago
  In order to get the energy credit on install of the geo system the install had to include a hot water heater as part of the install
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    And the cool thing is that the spare "coolness" of the water is released into the air, providing free Air Conditioning while also cheaply heating your water.
extraduder_ire 5y ago
> we should be heating our hot water tanks, swimming pools, or anything else that needs concentrated heat That comment about swimming pools nearly made me leap out of my chair. I was already convinced to get a heat-pump, but I was just planning on putting excess heat under the frost-line to save it for winter. To think, if it was insulated and disinfected properly, you'd have both a cheaply heated pool, and a huge thermal-battery.

mikepurvis 5y ago

This has always made me super grouchy— I even have my house plumbed for hydronics! I wish I could tie the AC units into that, put all the rads in bypass during the summer, and use the hydronic water to preheat shower water before it hits the gas-powered on demand system.

amluto 5y ago

In very hot climates, swimming pools get too hot, and you might prefer to chill the pool water.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
I'm sure this might happen somewhere, but I grew up in Florida and it never happened in Orlando. I would always have been happy for the pool to be warmer.

nfriedly 5y ago

> Typically we dump it outside (waste) but we should be heating our hot water tanks, swimming pools, or anything else that needs concentrated heat at the same time that we're removing it from the indoor air. My house actually does that! I had never heard of the idea before moving here, but we have a geothermal system and in addition to the ground loop, it also dumps heat into the hot water heater when cooling the house. (Until the water reaches some maximum temperature.)

rstupek 5y ago
In order to get the energy credit on install of the geo system the install had to include a hot water heater as part of the install
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  And the cool thing is that the spare "coolness" of the water is released into the air, providing free Air Conditioning while also cheaply heating your water.

extraduder_ire 5y ago

> we should be heating our hot water tanks, swimming pools, or anything else that needs concentrated heat That comment about swimming pools nearly made me leap out of my chair. I was already convinced to get a heat-pump, but I was just planning on putting excess heat under the frost-line to save it for winter. To think, if it was insulated and disinfected properly, you'd have both a cheaply heated pool, and a huge thermal-battery.