Getting home off oil. Installed heat pumps. Hydraunic retrofit backup question.

Submitted by simplafyer t3_10gz0jv in DIY

So when it gets very cold or wet and cold our heat pumps just barely fail. Loose about 1f an hour without supplement heat from old oil hydraunic system.

Since it only needs to turn on shortly once maybe twice a day. Would a 50 gal heat pump hot water heater function as that tiny burst I need?

I know one only outputs like 4k BTU an hour without going into hybrid mode. But as far as I can tell supplemental draw is low.

Has anybody tried something similar? Other than potentially not providing enough heat what other pitfalls am I not aware of?

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NoBack0 t1_j55l6y0 wrote

IIRC, a heat pump water heater will remove heat from the room where the water heater is located to concentrate it into the water heater. In other words, the room will get cooler. This may or may not be an issue for you.

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Sluisifer t1_j55w7e3 wrote

I doubt there's enough heat in your basement to pull that much out of it to be useful. If it's conditioned, you're just moving that heat twice, and if you're relying on the ground/walls, the heat flux is pretty low.

Simple resistance heating is likely your best bet here. Gets you off oil and is likely only marginally worse performance than an expensive HP heater.

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HelmyJune t1_j57ovv0 wrote

Using a heat pump water heater to heat your home with a hydronic system is like trying to cool your home by opening the refrigerator door. A heat pump water heater pulls heat from the surrounding air to heat the water. Then you try to use that hot water to heat that same surrounding air you just pulled the heat from…

Heat pump water heaters don’t make sense in cold climates as they are pulling heat from air that you then have to heat via other means. Stick to gas/oil for supplemental heat or if electricity isn’t that expensive and it doesn’t get too cold you can just use a resistive heater. But that is typically much more expensive than gas/oil.

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DryOrganization7429 t1_j58an7i wrote

I was thinking of using an electric hw tank for hydronic heat source backup - remember you are getting supplemental heat in a super cold condition when heat pump is less efficient.

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