Geospring power usage for 1st year

solarvic · October 2011

It is exactly one year since I installed my General Electric Geospring waterheater. Always run it in ecomode @ temperature 125 f except a month in hot weather @ 140F. I installed a utility power meter so I could monitor the power usage. Wished I would have had more history on the previous electric 40 gal waterheater I had. I did have the old water heater on the utility meter for 2 days before I installed the new Geospring. and old one used 22 KWh. At that rate of 11kwh per day I should have used 4015 kwh for a years waterheating. With the new Geospring waterheater I used 497 kwh for the year and had hotter water for month. Don,t know for sure about acuracy of what the old waterheater would use as I only had 2 days usage on the meter. I live in a doublewide manufactured home and have the waterheater installed in the utility room just off the kitchen. I also put a gas space heater in that room which probably helped the eficiency some. When the waterheater runs it will output some cold air. Nice in the summer but not winter. When humidity is high I would get a gallon of water about every 2 days. I use a 1 gallon milk jug to catch the water. Fueling the space heater for me was no cost as I have free gas from my gaswell. That had another benifit as it can heat my whole house without needing to run my gas furnace that uses about 700 watts when it is running. Furnace has a globar and the best estimate is the globar uses about 400 watts. The noise don,t bother me as I usually have the tv on or a radio and after working in a foundrt most of my life my hearing isn,t 100%. The fans seem to have 2 speeds. If the room gets cold enough the fans ramp up thier speed. I am gridtied to the maximum that I can supply to powergrid so am installing an offgrid system because I have lots of power outages. Going to put inverter and charge controler in utility room. Figured the heat from the offgrid system can go to the waterheater. I got the GEospring because its energy rating was higher than the rudd and rudds brother. Only complaint is it was made in China. Quality seems good and has 1o year warranty. I would recomend this waterheater and would buy another if it last at least 10 years. :Dsolarvic:D

Ralph Day · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

It's always so nice to hear about your free gas:grr!!! I heat with wood, but that takes a lot of effort, plus some diesel fuel and gasoline...a new chainsaw once in a while.

Your number for your old water heater sounds accurate. Before going off grid 7 years ago (hybrid now) our usual daily kwhrs were 13 or so. Removed the electric hot water heater and replaced with sdhw and Takagi propane the daily kwhrs went down to 6.5. The 40 gallon unit was on a 120F or lower temp setting and slaved through a timer...3hrs morning 3hrs night. 11kwhr per day if the unit was capable to be on all the time sounds about right to me.

Do you also get royalties from the gas well, as well as free gas? That would be icing on the cake.

Ralph

techntrek · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

Not to start a flame war on climate change, but at least your wood heat is carbon-neutral where the gas is not.

Cariboocoot · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

techntrek wrote: »

Not to start a flame war on climate change, but at least your wood heat is carbon-neutral where the gas is not.

Actually most of us who use wood burn quite a bit of fossil fuel to obtain it, so it's not carbon-neutral. Natural gas burns very clean, and being largely methane it is theoretically renewable (sourced from decomposing organic matter).

Neither will I believe the hopelessly "green" enviro-pundits who claim much of B.C.'s pollution is due to all the wood-burning stoves used for heat throughout the Province. But some of them do spew a fair amount of particulate matter - and carbon-laden ash. :roll:

solarvic · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

Ralph, I feel fortionate to have the gaswell and small monthly gas check. Makes my retirement a little easier. Actually I was going to heat with wood too. I bought an outside wood furnac by classic boiler,had the waterline burried insulated, heat exchanger installed in furnace all hooked to outside and the sidearm kit on the waterheater and all the line installed between the furnace except for about 10 ft of copper pipe. Went in house to get my wallet to go buy the copper pipe and noticed the answering machine blinking. Had message that Gas Co was coming next day to plot out my well. I never did get the pipe. I actually sold the furnace for what I payed for it bacause that was just after hurricane Katrina that caused a run on outside wood furnaces. Ironically one of the people that worked for the gas co bought it for his own home and didn,t have gas. I even had enough wood cut for a good start on the heating season. Gave the wood to a neighbor for his wood furnace. Techntrek. Bet if you could get gas free you would use it too!!! I did get enough royalitys to pay for my solar system and after taxes and the 30% tax rebate my original solar system cost me zilch. Gas wells usually produce a lot at 1ST and production each month declines. My production went to a lot lower level than when new but has been preety stable for last 3 years. My well tender told me the gas co trys to get maximum production at first to recoup the cost of the well and then shut them to a lower production level for a long time. There are still wells not too far from me that are over 30 years and still producing. Then there are some that only lasted a couple years. If my well were to quit I think I would get another outside wood boiler as I still have the underground pipe and wireing and the sidearm kit for the waterheater.

techntrek · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

All true, it takes gasoline to get wood in most cases (although I use an electric chain saw and electric splitter... just need the PV now). And natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fuels - with the large reserves we now know we have in North America its very likely it will be used to wean us off of coal and oil. If you look at a million-year timeline you might say its renewable but that's pushing it. Trash dump methane doesn't count, not nearly enough to do much good and eventually dumps will be a thing of the past.

They might have a point if most are still using older stoves. Modern catalytic and non-catalytic stoves solve most of the particulate problem though.

techntrek · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

solarvic, I don't blame you for taking advantage of the free energy source. I would have used it too for many years, but in recent years I've been moving towards an all-electric (and wood) household even though I have a 500 gallon propane tank. Granted that source is not free - far from it with LPG prices nearly tripling in the last 7 years - but my final step of getting PV will be far more expensive and probably more labor-intensive than if I stuck with propane (excluding the high labor amount I'm already incurring using 4-5 cords of woods each year). So cost isn't the driving factor for leaving LPG behind. I love that you used your royalties to finance your PV!

solarvic · October 2011

Re: Geospring power usage for 1st year

I was using lpg before I got the gas well and it was expensive then. Why I bought the wood boiler outside furnace. Last year Passed some new laws about the outside wood boilers. The woodstove manufacturer has to get thier stoves certified or they aren,t allowed to sell them here. And the fuel you burn has to be wood. Some people tryed using other fuels. In some ways I think these new laws are good because it stopped the oders that some stoves put out. I think if you already had an uncertified wood stove you can continue to use it but not allowed to sell it to anyone else in the state. I heard of a few bieing sold in a neighboring state that still doesn,t have the laws. :Dsolarvic:D

Geospring power usage for 1st year

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