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Any heat used is better than no heat used. Water heaters that are also AC units do exist (a heat pump is an ac run backwards)
by nimish 2y ago
Any heat used is better than no heat used.
Water heaters that are also AC units do exist (a heat pump is an ac run backwards)
- bongodongobob 2y agoNo it's not. Claiming heat from a fridge would be like grabbing a cup of water for a minute a few times a day. The extra shit that needs to be manufactured and transported is surely not worth the effort at all.
- cameldrv 2y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if someone starts making these. The heat that comes off a typical refrigerator is enough to heat about 1/3 of a typical house’s hot water usage.
- bongodongobob 2y agoWhat?? Not even close.
- orra 2y agoTo put numbers on this, you can buy a C rated fridge freezer in the UK which uses 176 kWh of energy per annum. That's an average power consumption of 20W. But electric heaters are say 1200W or 2000W.
- Avamander 2y agoThat includes the lights and all the rest. That gives you like 3m³ (790 gallons) of 60°C (140°F) water. Which is really not a lot.
- Nevermark 2y agoMini-split HVAC systems create both heated and cooled air, and send them to just the rooms they are needed, while also redistributing existing disparities of hot and cold. The latter being the most efficient HVAC mode of all. I could imagine at some point, all our heated and cooled air, water, and ice could be one system. For fast temperature demands, such as hot water or ice, perhaps reservoirs of chemically stored heat and cold could be built up at useful locations, for very high speed release when needed. Completely dispense with storing hot or cold air/water, except for fridges. But provide the cool air for them, as a byproduct of being one system, avoiding the local inefficiency of both cooling air in small quantities and generating heat at the same location. It would make it cheaper to have more fridges and ice makers around a houses, if you just had to plug them into power and an HVAC controlled "inlet/outlet".
- nimish 2y agoCorrect! This is how some advanced systems already work in multifamily, where one room's excess heat is routed to another rooms lack of heat -- "Variable Refrigerant Flow" or VRF
- nimish 2y ago> Claiming heat from a fridge would be like grabbing a cup of water for a minute a few times a day. Did you know that people do this? The brits love making a cuppa tea. It's free energy and the heat pump in the fridge is already doing the work.
- mrshadowgoose 2y agoNope. If the cost to "reuse" the heat exceeds that of the status quo, it simply doesn't make sense.
- cameldrv 2y agoA lot of people have these in their houses already. Go to Home Depot some time and you’ll see lots of heat pump water heaters.
- mrshadowgoose 2y agoSorry, didn't see any "kitchen fridge/hot water tank combo units" on their website. Care to provide a link? Or perhaps you may have missed a nuance in the comments above yours? Nobody is claiming that heat pumps don't work, they certainly require a source of heat to pump though, and the air in a kitchen fridge ain't that.
- cameldrv 2y agoYour comment in reply to: "Water heaters that are also AC units do exist" https://www.homedepot.com/b/Plumbing-Water-Heaters-Tank-Water-Heaters-Heat-Pump-Water-Heaters/N-5yc1vZckra https://www.homedepot.com/b/Plumbing-Water-Heaters-Tank-Wate...
- mrshadowgoose 2y agoJust a heads up, your reading comprehension kinda sucks.