Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
We have a 100 Amps panel. All appliances are electric: stove, oven, dryer, etc. We also have a well, so well pump. Our panel is almost full. We also have an interlock for a generator.
Our domestic water comes from the boiler , but the coil is scaled and changing it is expensive. We would like to install a heat pump water heater so our hot water doesn't have to be heated by the boiler, using oil all year long. But we don't know if we also need to upgrade the panel or not. One installer said we needed to, but another say we won't. Since upgrading is a $2k bill, I want to ask here to get some thoughts about it. Of course I don't want to have issues with the breakers.
All appliances are electric: stove, oven, dryer, etc.
We also have a well, so well pump.
We also have... a generator.
We would like to install a heat pump water heater...
And the boiler is oil?
How is the generator fueled? Also oil?
Do you have air conditioning now too?
How many amps does the heat pump water heater require?
( a standard electric WH is usually 30A)
Quote:
One installer said we needed to, but another say we won't.
It's a judgment call that needs a "Load Calculation" to be certain.
You would have to add up all your amps and see where you stand . Just because your out of slots in your breaker box dsnt mean you need an upgrade . Some models have mini breakers to make more room , or you may install a sub panel .
Hard to say. Never been to your house. 100-amp is substandard. Modern homes use much more power than they did in the 70's.
Doing a service change in your case does require a new feed from the pole. That isn't cheap, but gives you good future capacity as well as more spaces (40) in your new panel. If you're all-in at $2,000, that would be a good price where I live.
I wouldn't think twice about the upgrade, and you will be glad you did. Nothing like a new fresh panel offering expansion and capacity for an addition or a garage shop.
If it's a money thing, I get that also.
You would have to add up all your amps and see where you stand . Just because your out of slots in your breaker box dsnt mean you need an upgrade . Some models have mini breakers to make more room , or you may install a sub panel .
I faced this same dilemma. But it was a bad mixing valve, at the boiler, not the coil.
Looking into the heat pumps, the control boards regularly go bad. Around $200 repair. Tanks rot. Anodes go bad, sometimes cannot be replaced. Lots of mechanics compared to a simple cheap electric hot water heater. So your simply trading one problem, for another problem. On top of that GE just shut down their factory to make these due to low demand. Other manufacturers will probably discontinue eventually as well.
Looked into a tank added to boiler. Needed to add another zone, pump, tank, etc. Decided to pass on that too.
I decided the boiler, as is, was the best solution.
I decided if the coil ever needs replacing, I would simply do that. I think it was $300 for the coil and $150 install. Why add another appliance that needs to be maintained. The boiler uses such little oil in the summer and the boiler needs to be kept hot anyway to keep the gaskets from leaking. As long as its hot, it never leaks. The added benefit to keeping the boiler is endless hot water.
PS. Another option is an acid cleaning. Where they hook up acid to both ends of the coil, and use a pump to cycle acid through it to clean the calcium deposits. I forget the price, but it was fairly cheap.
PS. Before I fixed it, replacing the shower head to a 1.5gpm LINK fixed the problem because less hot water was flowing through. Typically most shower heads are 2.5gpm or more.
We got a quote of $1500 to change the coil or almost $3K to get an indirect water tank. Acid cleaning was not offered. We have hard water so the coil will scale again in due course (not as hard as to justify a softening system, we have an iron wash). That's what got us started on finding a different system. As it is now we don't have hot water, just warm.
We are installing solar panels so that's why we thought about going with an electric water heater (heat pump or not).
Slots in your breaker panel are like checks in your checkbook, do not correlate to actual capacity remaining
New Hampshire isn't the best environment for inside-air sourced heat pump water heaters. As OP mentions, we rarely need air conditioning and the heating season is about half the year. In a small house, the heat pump is just going to be indirectly fueled by your boiler during colder months, as it parasitically draws heat from the air, and/or it will use the "back-up" resistive heat coils.
Electricity here in New Hampshire is not cheap! If a heat pump water heater ends up running on backup heat often, that might erase any oil savings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merjolie8
We have a 100 Amps panel. All appliances are electric: stove, oven, dryer, etc. We also have a well, so well pump.
So if you're going to add the electric or heat pump water heater, you will almost certainly want to upgrade.
With all other appliances being electric, adding an electric water heater (heat pump still has resistive heat as a backup) could easily put you over the edge of 100A. For example, if you are running both the washing machine and dryer, and then turn on the oven.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merjolie8
Our domestic water comes from the boiler , but the coil is scaled and changing it is expensive. We would like to install a heat pump water heater so our hot water doesn't have to be heated by the boiler, using oil all year long.
As the heat pump water heater works by extracting heat from room air, during the heating season your water would still be heated by your boiler, just at an extra level of indirection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 399083453
The boiler uses such little oil in the summer and the boiler needs to be kept hot anyway to keep the gaskets from leaking. As long as its hot, it never leaks. The added benefit to keeping the boiler is endless hot water.
Good points.
If you track both oil use (a spreadsheet with tank fill date & volume) and runtime, you get a fairly good idea of how much oil you are actually using.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Slots in your breaker panel are like checks in your checkbook, do not correlate to actual capacity remaining
