I live in a high desert environment with cool winters and hot summers. For my existing 1200 sq ft home, I’m wondering how to determine if I could use a tankless water heater in a hydro-air heating system. The climate here is fairly sunny in winter and I could pre-heat with solar. I’d also like to get rid of my central down-draft evaporative cooler and run a cooler through my ducting.
My house now has a pellet stove, and an LPG furnace and water heater. (Natural gas isn’t available.) I like the pellet stove for the cheery ambiance of fire, it’s cheap to run, and the fuel is made in the good ol’ USA. But it can’t be automated, it takes up too much floor space, and it’s noisy. Roof penetration is also an issue.
The furnace is 30 years old — I shut its gas valve and circuit breaker after getting the first gas bills winter before last, soon after I moved in. The water heater is twelve years old, constant pilot. I chucked the old kitchen stove and even with a pilotless gas cooktop and electric wall oven, my gas bills seem way high for bachelor cooking and showers once a week whether I need it or not. 😉
Many of my neighbors are using direct-vent kerosene stoves for space heating. (Monitor and Toyotomi are the makes available locally.) They’re cheaper than LPG, quiet, programable and have a small footprint. I’ve been thinking to go that route… and just a couple of days ago found out that Toyotomi makes a kerosene-fired tankless water heater.
I’ve been thinking for some time about going tankless for hot water and have plowed through most of the threads on the subject here. Might as well say that I lived tankless for years in Japan and it was fine… but those were someone else’s apartments and I never had to think about resale value. (This is my first home and I’m remodeling it top to bottom.)
For cooling, I have a central downdraft evaporative cooler that’s not tied into the furnace ducting. (Swamp coolers work very well ’round here and I don’t foresee any need for conventional air conditioning.) For reasons of noise, ease of maintenance, and roof penetration I’ve thought it would be nice to have the cooler located nearer the ground and tied into the ducting.
Any and all comments welcome.
Replies
Greetings BD,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someones attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
Sorry BD,
Perhaps someone at JLC might have some advice. Cheers.
http://www.jlconline.com/cgi-bin/jlconline.storefront
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
There is not really much discussion on HVAC over there and not real place for it.I would try heatinghelp.com and hvac-talk.com
http://www.heatinghelp.com/
http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/
sobriety is the root cause of dementia.
Thanks RM and Bill. I'll have a look at those sites. Evaporative coolers don't come up much here... seems funny as I think they go with the classic FHB philosophy, and places like Vegas and Phoenix are growing like crazy. Hydro-air with tankless seems like it could work in these sorts of climates, too.I heard from an architect in Tucson a few years ago that there have been some advances in swamp cooler tech, but it was an aside and I didn't ask for details. Anyone got a good source for the latest and greatest?morde diem -- the Zigdog's motto -- bite the day
The latest and greatest are two-stage coolers that chill the air before it gets to the pads. They can deliver air that is actually cooler than the wet bulb temperature, and at lower humidity.One reason swamp coolers don't get much press is they are cheap (HVAC guys hate that part), and they represent less than 5% of the residential market. But they consume 1/4 to 1/10 the power of a conventional AC system, so I suspect they will only become more attractive as utility rates continue to rise. HVAC contractors will always hate them though ;-)http://www.toolbase.org/tertiaryT.asp?DocumentID=2102&CategoryID=1435http://oikos.com/esb/52/smartcool.html
Edited 5/3/2005 2:25 pm ET by TJK