Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

solarvic

I have the GE geospring waterheater and have been trying to take advantage of the cooled air it expells when running. WE have been having hot weather for Northern Pa. Today it is suposed to be 92 f with high humidity. I have been switching off the power to waterheater in the evening. In the morning I turn on the waterheater and it will come on and keep the house cool till about 11 am before I need to turn on the regular a/c. I knew we were going to have hot weather from long range forecast so I let the dirty laundry build up so I could do it on the hot days and keep the waterheater running longer. So when you turn on the waterheater it seems to do a self diagnostic test that takes about 90 seconds before the compressor and fan starts. So does anyone think this is hard on the waterheater cutting its power every night? :Dsolarvic:D

vtmaps

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

solarvic wrote: »

So does anyone think this is hard on the waterheater cutting its power every night? :Dsolarvic:D

I don't see why it would be. If you leave it on, doesn't it cycle on and off anyway? --vtMaps

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Yes it cycles on and off on its own if left powered up. There are 2 leds that stay lit constantly while there is power connected to waterheater. When you cut the power the leds stay lit for a few seconds before they shut off. Guess I will keep up my practice unless there is a hvac guy that thinks its bad practice. Solarvic

techntrek

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

A/Cs and heat pumps have an internal resistive heater that helps with refrigerant and oil issues (NOT the same as the large resistive heater used for emergency heat when it gets really cold outside). In past discussions on this forum it was stated that its ok to turn the pump's breaker off to kill the heater to save energy if it won't be used for a while, but that it should be turned on 12-24 hours before it is used again. Its possible the Geospring also has this heater and by turning it off every night you will damage it over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crankcase_heater

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

The waterheater is next to my kitchen in the utility room temp still 70f in the morning when I get up. Also the water is still hot and I have washed a load of clothes before i turned it on and still had plenty of hot water. solarvic

techntrek

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

The utility room may be 70 but that doesn't mean its warm enough for the pump, if it has a heater. It may not. Either way maybe the control board will prevent the heat pump from operating if it is too cold. Thinking logically it may rely on waste heat from the water tank to heat the pump, so if its too cold from a "black start" then it might only use the water tank's resistive heater until the tank is warm enough to heat the pump - you still have lots of residual heat every day so it might not get cold enough to be a problem.

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

I turned off the electric last evening and powered it up this morning and it came on and run about 20 minutes till it shut off. I never have run out of hot water yet so the 50 gal is big enough for me. My daughter across the road from me is always running out of hot water with a conventional 80 gal. electric waterheater. They hace an oversized tub and my granddaughter runs it lipping full and if she takes a shower it is at least a good 30 minutes running the water. I decided that I don,t think the water ever would get cold enough even if it does have a heater for the refrigerant. Today I run the dishwasher after the waterheater shut off and it didn,t use enough hot water to cycle it on. solarvic

westbranch

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

A bit Off Topic , but it seems like you G daughter's shower needs a flow constrictor on it,8)
or a timer on the volume of hot before it goes cold...

techntrek

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

More than once I've gone out to my utility room and closed the hot water valve when my kid's showers have run way too long. Amazing how quickly they get out! :-)

Before anyone blames me for child abuse - this is after many warnings to stop taking 30 minute showers, and I've provided a timer they can use. Which they don't use. They aren't little children either, 10 and 12, more than old enough to take responsibility for their actions...

Cariboocoot

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

In my experience they start taking responsibility for their actions when they move out and have to pay the bills themselves. Sometimes not even then. :roll:

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Yes when my daughter moved out I burned the bed. The next time she and her family moved back in she had to buy a new bed. They lived out of state 20 years before they came back to pa. Lived with me about 5 months while they were getting thier house built accross the road from me. I was glad to help them out but was happy when they got moved into thier house. While they were here I had $280.00 electric bills. After they moved my bill went down to about $75.00 per month. That was before I got the solar system. Now they have thier own $300.00 electric bills. Still probably not too bad considering they have an all electric home but I think there is at least a $100.00 waste that could be trimmed easily. :Dsolarvic:D

RandomJoe

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

I like finding what I consider more "elegant" ways to do things like this, than simply killing power!

I Googled "GE Geospring" and found an installation manual, but don't know if there are other models that are different.

The one I found has a touchpad on the water heater where you can put the thing in "vacation" mode, which resets the water temp down to 50 (effectively meaning it wouldn't run for quite some time) but leaves the unit powered on.

There is also an "ACM" jack that can be used to plug in a module that lets the power company tell the heater what utility rates are. It will reset based on that signal. Of course no info in the manual how the module talks to the control board, but perhaps something to look into - if it's just discrete switch signals for each state (low / med / hi) you could wire a switch - that could be installed in a more convenient location - to the "hi" input and cause it to reset down.

I also found in a NOTES section:

NOTE REGARDING UTILITY POWER-MANAGEMENT DEVICES
(Sometimes called Peak Load Reduction Switches):

...note about devices that cut 240V to 120V, of course not usable...

However, switching devices which cut power from 240V to 0V on a periodic basis are acceptable.

So simply killing power is probably fine, if that's the easiest way to do it.

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

That utility management connection is for a device the power co can put on to cut the power to your waterheater when the grid demand is high. I have a friend that has that on her waterheater. She has a different electric supplyer. Her powerco furnishes everyone with an 80 gal Marithon waterheater. Iam aware of everything you got out of the user manual. I don,t turn off the waterheater except when we have hot weather. Probably not worth the bother. I turned it on after bieing off all night and it only runs about 15 minutes to recover the heat it loses overnight. These waterheaters have sprayed foam insulation and the only place it loses heat is where the pipes come out rhe top. Might be worth my time to wrap a couple of ft. of the hot water output pipe. My utility room has the breaker box so not much problem turning off the breaker if I want too. :Dsolarvic:D

silvertop

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Our biggest energy conservation was having our youngest son move out! He would run the electric dryer on high heat for ONE t-shirt ! Give them a few years ( of bills ) and they will all understand !:cool:

sub3marathonman

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

I'm getting a Geospring water heater, and I have been wondering if it would be worthwhile to keep my 4-year-old water heater as a "holding tank," unpowered but absorbing the heat in the garage to prewarm the water to the Geospring. Living in Florida is a major factor in this idea.

Or is it better to sell the current water heater and get a small amount of payback from it that way?

BB.

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Unless you strip the insulation from the old water heater (or add some sort of plumbed in external collector), it will absorb very little heat from the garage. Otherwise, you could use it for fresh water storage in an emergency.

-Bill

techntrek

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Keep it and use it as a preheat tank warmed by a solar water system.

LucMan

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

solarvic wrote: »

I have the GE geospring waterheater and have been trying to take advantage of the cooled air it expells when running. WE have been having hot weather for Northern Pa. Today it is suposed to be 92 f with high humidity. I have been switching off the power to waterheater in the evening. In the morning I turn on the waterheater and it will come on and keep the house cool till about 11 am before I need to turn on the regular a/c. I knew we were going to have hot weather from long range forecast so I let the dirty laundry build up so I could do it on the hot days and keep the waterheater running longer. So when you turn on the waterheater it seems to do a self diagnostic test that takes about 90 seconds before the compressor and fan starts. So does anyone think this is hard on the waterheater cutting its power every night? :Dsolarvic:D

As long as you have the electric resistance heater disabled (additional recovery capacity) it should not be a problem if the ambient temperature where the Geospring is located stays above 70 F.

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Lucman. The only time I shutoff the power to the Geospring was during the 3 power outages I had so far this summer and a few nights in our above average heatwave. It is inside my heated utility room in a doublewide manufactured home. I took the door off my utility room so the cold air from the geospring helps to keep my kitchen cool. So far it has really worked well for me. :Dsolarvic:D

LucMan

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

If you pipe your hot water to my house you will be able to cool your house all day long!8)

Ken Marsh

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

Don't have any experience with Geospring but doubt that it has a crank case heater.
Being a small compact unit it doesn't have enough refrigerant to slug the compressor or even foam the oil.
You probably will not hurt the unit by turning it off and on frequently but doubt that it will do you much good either.
We heat DHW with reject heat from the air condx but find that air condx load is much greater than any DHW need.
When the 100 gal hot water tank is up to temp it switches and rejects its heat to source water which goes out on the lawn.

solarvic

Re: Is this hard on my Geospring waterheater?

The way I look at it is oportunity cooling, like some people that are off grid oportunity pump thier water after batterys are charged, I think someone here said the geospring expells about 3000 btu of cool air. So when I don,t have to have the other air conditioner on I am still building up crediys with my GTI. From most everyones observations I feel that cutting the power at night doesn,t hurt the waterheater. :Dsolarvic:D