4 ms·

Great, now if someone can crack the engineering challenge of installing a name-brand heat pump for less than $18,000 (CAD) that'd be great.

com2kid 4y ago
Lots of do it yourself videos on YouTube showing installs for well under 5k. Labor is expensive right now. :(
- b112 4y ago
  Name brands tend to be unbuyable by the consumer in Canada, and if you import one, or buy via grey market, the threat is that you have no warranty.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  All the quotes I got were for a day of install. I assume it'd be one tech, but let's be generous... 2 techs x 8 hours x $150/hour = $2400 for labour. So that means either the pump itself costs $15k, or somethings wrong in this market.
kennywinker 4y ago
Or my alternate hot-take (or cold-take?): Great, now if someone can crack the engineering challenge of an air-to-water heat pump water heater that doesn't turn your basement into a walk-in refrigerator, that'd be great.
- metadat 4y ago
  Add a server rack and things will warm up down there.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Make it a liquid-cooled server rack and we can cut out the hot water heater entirely
    - thrill 4y ago
      Run it on solar power and pull the water out of the atmosphere and we can save a bundle on running power and water.
- ulrikrasmussen 4y ago
  Why would it do that? The heat exchanger is placed outside.
  - thaeli 4y ago
    Heat pump water heaters mostly draw from room air.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    Common heat pump water heaters (often called “hybrid”) have a heat exchanger on the top of the tank, and pull heat out of the surrounding air.
- chrislund 4y ago
  Depending on your market, Sanden and Mitsubishi make air-source DHW heat pumps where the evaporator/heat source source is remote (i.e., outdoor) rather than integrated with the tank. I can't speak to Mitsubishi's line but IIRC Sanden has the DHW go straight to the outdoor unit, but then you may need freeze protection, which I think Sanden provides via heat trace. When my current water heater bites the dust, I plan on getting a Sanden, and looking in to the feasibility of making a glycol loop between the outdoor unit and an indoor "indirect" tank to eliminate the need for freeze protection.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Thanks for the tip! Where I am Mitsubishis seem to only be available through big-name installers, and the only thing they offered me when I talked to them was the all-in-one style that cools your basement. Living in an old house with not great insulation between floors, that was a hard no-go. I'm now googling the Sanden ones and getting some promising results I hadn't seen before.
- ortusdux 4y ago
  Rheem, the brand HD carries, is easily ductable. Both the inlet and outlet can take 100' of 8" ducting. I set mine up with T's, electric dampers and some simple logic.
- kevstev 4y ago
  How cold does it really get? This could be great for a wine cellar.
- Danieru 4y ago
  What you want is an "Ecocute". It is a air source heatoump supercritical co2 tanked hot water system. Designed for the Japanese market. Without install a 500l tank version costs about 1.5k usd in Japan. So you should be able to get one installed for about 20k usd in the US. If you beg the HVAC guy of course.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  What challenge? Any of the HPWH brands can duct exhaust out of the home. Try Sanden if you want more than that.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    The all-in-one heat pump hot water heater pulls in warm air from its surroundings, pulls the heat out of it and puts that into its water. Then it lets out its "exhaust" colder air. Ducting to outdoors improves things, because it doesn't put that cold air back into your basement / utility closet, but you're still pulling heat out of the air - which your house heater now has to put back into the air - and unless your space is perfectly airtight, that's probably just going to be sucked in via the nearest air gap to outside. It's a bad system. Split systems make sense, and I know they exist, but they seem weirdly rare. Some data on this topic: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-heat-pump-water-heater-freeze-your-basement/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-heat-pump-water-h...
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      The ducting brings the temperature drop to an almost unnoticeable delta. If you are worried, just install it near your furnace. It’ll eat radiant heat from that corner that would otherwise go into the walls, egress windows etc. Every other part of the year, you either don’t mind or benefit from the cooling. I have the stats from my own Rheem to know I’m coming out ahead financially during winter and also haven’t seen a meaningful swing in the basement climate. I’m a regular participant in that linked blog, too. :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stormbrew 4y ago
I recently installed a (quite large) heat pump for less than that, though it came close. A lot of the cost came from a few things: - the Canada premium: these sorts of things are just more expensive here. The base price was just higher than I could find in the US, but obviously importing is too expensive. I think the reason for this is there's almost no stock. - adapting my house: the house I live in was built to have central air added to it, but even so the pipes going from the furnace room to the outside had to be insulated both directions instead of only one for an AC. Ripping up our basement ceiling to do this added a lot to the cost. An unfinished basement would help a lot here. - HVAC company confusion: I had to go through like five HVAC companies before I found one that would believe me that I really wanted it. The one I got is a commercial outfit, so their prices were just higher. Even they were skeptical but they were willing to work with us, and by the end they talked about doing more installs so that was nice. I think the cost for the install and unit itself was $12k for a top of line carrier unit capable of working down to pretty low temperatures. But we already had a compatible carrier furnace and exchanger. Was another couple thousand for ripping up the basement, which we had other contractors do. This was also literally during the heat dome last year. They had to ship the unit across the country.
nawitus 4y ago
Why is it so expensive? It's like $1k in Finland.
- euroderf 4y ago
  Units are somewhere over a thou and (simple, not multiduct) installation is somewhere under a thou.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  I have no idea. You can definitely do it for cheaper. There are $1000-$3000 single-head units available online for self-install, and you could hire an HVAC person to come out and do the high pressure line part of it (or all of it) for a similar range. It just gets expensive with the name-brand ones. For some reason that $2k-6k turns into 10k-20k when you switch to a name brand (e.g. mitsubishi). They're only available through specific installers, and using a non-authorized installer means your warranty is void.
  - magicalhippo 4y ago
    Maybe we're talking about different things? I'm in Norway and we got a Mitsubishi Kaiteki[1] for $1800 total, including installation and 25% VAT. Of course, a multi-room install would probably get expensive quickly here too. [1]: https://kaiteki.no/ https://kaiteki.no/
    - zo1 4y ago
      36k BTU multi room split unit installs are like 4-5K USD here in South Africa, including installation from the rough prices I've seen.

com2kid 4y ago

Lots of do it yourself videos on YouTube showing installs for well under 5k. Labor is expensive right now. :(

b112 4y ago
Name brands tend to be unbuyable by the consumer in Canada, and if you import one, or buy via grey market, the threat is that you have no warranty.
kennywinker 4y ago
All the quotes I got were for a day of install. I assume it'd be one tech, but let's be generous... 2 techs x 8 hours x $150/hour = $2400 for labour. So that means either the pump itself costs $15k, or somethings wrong in this market.

kennywinker 4y ago

Or my alternate hot-take (or cold-take?): Great, now if someone can crack the engineering challenge of an air-to-water heat pump water heater that doesn't turn your basement into a walk-in refrigerator, that'd be great.

metadat 4y ago
Add a server rack and things will warm up down there.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Make it a liquid-cooled server rack and we can cut out the hot water heater entirely
  - thrill 4y ago
    Run it on solar power and pull the water out of the atmosphere and we can save a bundle on running power and water.
ulrikrasmussen 4y ago
Why would it do that? The heat exchanger is placed outside.
- thaeli 4y ago
  Heat pump water heaters mostly draw from room air.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  Common heat pump water heaters (often called “hybrid”) have a heat exchanger on the top of the tank, and pull heat out of the surrounding air.
chrislund 4y ago
Depending on your market, Sanden and Mitsubishi make air-source DHW heat pumps where the evaporator/heat source source is remote (i.e., outdoor) rather than integrated with the tank. I can't speak to Mitsubishi's line but IIRC Sanden has the DHW go straight to the outdoor unit, but then you may need freeze protection, which I think Sanden provides via heat trace. When my current water heater bites the dust, I plan on getting a Sanden, and looking in to the feasibility of making a glycol loop between the outdoor unit and an indoor "indirect" tank to eliminate the need for freeze protection.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip! Where I am Mitsubishis seem to only be available through big-name installers, and the only thing they offered me when I talked to them was the all-in-one style that cools your basement. Living in an old house with not great insulation between floors, that was a hard no-go. I'm now googling the Sanden ones and getting some promising results I hadn't seen before.
ortusdux 4y ago
Rheem, the brand HD carries, is easily ductable. Both the inlet and outlet can take 100' of 8" ducting. I set mine up with T's, electric dampers and some simple logic.
kevstev 4y ago
How cold does it really get? This could be great for a wine cellar.
Danieru 4y ago
What you want is an "Ecocute". It is a air source heatoump supercritical co2 tanked hot water system. Designed for the Japanese market. Without install a 500l tank version costs about 1.5k usd in Japan. So you should be able to get one installed for about 20k usd in the US. If you beg the HVAC guy of course.
1123581321 4y ago
What challenge? Any of the HPWH brands can duct exhaust out of the home. Try Sanden if you want more than that.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  The all-in-one heat pump hot water heater pulls in warm air from its surroundings, pulls the heat out of it and puts that into its water. Then it lets out its "exhaust" colder air. Ducting to outdoors improves things, because it doesn't put that cold air back into your basement / utility closet, but you're still pulling heat out of the air - which your house heater now has to put back into the air - and unless your space is perfectly airtight, that's probably just going to be sucked in via the nearest air gap to outside. It's a bad system. Split systems make sense, and I know they exist, but they seem weirdly rare. Some data on this topic: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-heat-pump-water-heater-freeze-your-basement/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-a-heat-pump-water-h...
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    The ducting brings the temperature drop to an almost unnoticeable delta. If you are worried, just install it near your furnace. It’ll eat radiant heat from that corner that would otherwise go into the walls, egress windows etc. Every other part of the year, you either don’t mind or benefit from the cooling. I have the stats from my own Rheem to know I’m coming out ahead financially during winter and also haven’t seen a meaningful swing in the basement climate. I’m a regular participant in that linked blog, too. :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stormbrew 4y ago

I recently installed a (quite large) heat pump for less than that, though it came close. A lot of the cost came from a few things: - the Canada premium: these sorts of things are just more expensive here. The base price was just higher than I could find in the US, but obviously importing is too expensive. I think the reason for this is there's almost no stock. - adapting my house: the house I live in was built to have central air added to it, but even so the pipes going from the furnace room to the outside had to be insulated both directions instead of only one for an AC. Ripping up our basement ceiling to do this added a lot to the cost. An unfinished basement would help a lot here. - HVAC company confusion: I had to go through like five HVAC companies before I found one that would believe me that I really wanted it. The one I got is a commercial outfit, so their prices were just higher. Even they were skeptical but they were willing to work with us, and by the end they talked about doing more installs so that was nice. I think the cost for the install and unit itself was $12k for a top of line carrier unit capable of working down to pretty low temperatures. But we already had a compatible carrier furnace and exchanger. Was another couple thousand for ripping up the basement, which we had other contractors do. This was also literally during the heat dome last year. They had to ship the unit across the country.

nawitus 4y ago

Why is it so expensive? It's like $1k in Finland.

euroderf 4y ago
Units are somewhere over a thou and (simple, not multiduct) installation is somewhere under a thou.
kennywinker 4y ago
I have no idea. You can definitely do it for cheaper. There are $1000-$3000 single-head units available online for self-install, and you could hire an HVAC person to come out and do the high pressure line part of it (or all of it) for a similar range. It just gets expensive with the name-brand ones. For some reason that $2k-6k turns into 10k-20k when you switch to a name brand (e.g. mitsubishi). They're only available through specific installers, and using a non-authorized installer means your warranty is void.
- magicalhippo 4y ago
  Maybe we're talking about different things? I'm in Norway and we got a Mitsubishi Kaiteki[1] for $1800 total, including installation and 25% VAT. Of course, a multi-room install would probably get expensive quickly here too. [1]: https://kaiteki.no/ https://kaiteki.no/
  - zo1 4y ago
    36k BTU multi room split unit installs are like 4-5K USD here in South Africa, including installation from the rough prices I've seen.