I snapped a picture of my hot water heater tag. I run it on heat pump only mode. The only time I had the elements on is when it leaked all it’s freon out, I temporarily changed it over to heating element only mode, until the technician could get out and service warranty covered repair at no charge. Default mode is to allow both element and heat pump to work, the elements only come on then when there is a long draw of hot water and it is taking to much time for the heat pump to get the water up to temp.
Bill… OK… That makes sense if … 110 volts on the compressor. 4.5 amps X 110 volts = 495 watts… Back 3 days or so you said [quote=“billparn, post:11, topic:9202”] 460 watts or so, now it has been showing 597 watts the last 3 times it has come on and ran. [/quote] … Something else running to bring it up to 597… looks right… Or whatever… compressor running on 220 volts at 4.5 amps would be around 1000 watts… All in all I do like the concept and maybe we’ll look at it again when it comes time to exchange the tank again… Also I attached a ( both legs hi hi ) pic of my heater. 4786 from Sense. My gen was showing 4750 and 5000 depending on element, I guess…
I see it using 597 watts now. My mains run closer to 121 volts when solar is on, 119 volts at night when solar is off. It is a cloudy today but solar is still working, attached is what sense is seeing on my mains…
So 120 x 4.5 = 540 watts and the the fans blowing on the evaporator may be the additional,watts.
I will to try and catch the mains to see if it is on just one leg, most likely it is…
OK… Bill Real fine… Next time I have my gen going I will take a pic. It shows either 4750 or 5000. Maybe a long while… Winter is setting in… Later…Gerry
Sounds Good, it if reads higher than the rating on the water heater. It could always be losses in the line. I just fixed some really bad wiring in my house. Without going through the entire saga, there was over 500 of 14awg wire sent through out my house before it winded back out to the garage, where the meter box is… crazy I know… no run should be that long, but that is how they did it. It has been a problem forever, I could not even run a portable heater out there because the voltage was dropping as low as 70 volts. I out of curiosity with the sense meter turned the heater on to see what a watts up meter was saying vs what sense was showing the draw at the mains… holy cow, the difference was great. bottom line is I was losing 400+ watts in the lines. I don’t recall the exact number might have been a lot more, but the crazy part is I was pulling and paying for a whole lot more power from the mains then was actually being utilized at the portable heater. Which explains why have had electrical wall fires in the past. I solved the problem by running a new 15 amp circuit and used 12awg, instead of the borderline 14awg crap most contractors run for 15 amp circuits. mind you 14awg is fine if you keep the runs below 100 feet, but at 500+ feet, the power loss is insane.
Do you recall the length and gauge of your generator wire running to your mains?
Bill… Real fine on all… About 28 feet and #10… It is feeding a 30 amp panel… Water heater, well pump and some outlets throughout the kitchen and living room. Lights in baths. Its for power outage back up…Later…Gerry
Agree, yes it was… I been here 25 years and new it was messed up, but until I used sense to read watts and voltage at the meter vs watts and voltage on the watts-up meter, as I kept plugging it into different outlets to record the voltage drop, and power loss in the wires. The cool part is in doing that I was able to trace the lines without even opening the walls or going into the attic, based on voltage drop and power loss… Kinda Cool… It started as an experiment,but when I saw how bad it was, I immediately ran a new line directly to the last 1/2 of the circuit, with a separate 15 amp breaker. (problem solved)
Bill… Sorry this is late… PBS… This Old House …had your hybrid water heater on the show. They did not go into a lot of detail on power usage, but they did take the cover off and talk about the theory of operation. They did say is uses less power. but can be slow if you have a house full… or require a big demand. Ment to tell you last week… you maybe able to find it rebroadcast this week…Sorry… Later…Gerry
Oh Wow, that is awesome they did that. You don’t have to run it in heat pump only mode like I do. You can run it on hybrid (default) mode, if if the demand goes above the slower recovery it kicks in the standard heating elements and will heat the water up in no time (albeit more expensively). It also has a high demand button, if you have a lot of company over, just push that button and it will immediately go into standard electric heating mode (disclaimer, i never used that button).
I am finding sense does not always realize it is running, and sometimes has it under other bubble. Before it detected it no problem, but here lately it just seems to have forgotten how to detect it and is only showing up under Other. Having other weird issues with Sense as well, I keep telling it that my stove is not on when I run my coffee pot, but it keeps saying stove on every morning when i turn on the coffee pot. I am not sure what the button to report problem this is not the reported device is doing, does not seem to do anything except for the immediate run. I sure wish my hybrid water heater would come back, now I have no idea how much power it is using because it gets lost under other.
