They seem to be making them and using them in China. I've searched forever and cannot find them available in the US. Ideas?

I've been chatting with the Aquaproducts guys NJ Bill mentioned in the other thread. They are making some pretty attractive claims about their units... of course, haven't tried it myself. Looking forward to it though!

Hmm, didn't see anything on their website about it. We have a customer who wants to go geothermal water-to-water radiant, existing system is an all-electric home with baseboard -ouch!. Can't happen. They sit on a VERY deep limestone shelf. Very expensive to drill or dig trenches. Seems aquaproducts only does BIG things. Again, any ideas?

big things?

http://rcs.aquaproducts.us

Seems to be house sized units. However, don't take this as a recommendation, just the sum total of my knowledge on the matter so far

their docs are pretty weak, but if you call and chat with them, they might get you rolling in the right direction.

Been there, the link is down, will try calling in the AM., TY

Rob: We may take them solar. They blew us off on a manual J to buy an energy audit. I know where the heat goes, but that is life on the internet.

I will never post the 30 per square foot thing ever.

those things serve two totally different functions.. are they going to redo the energy audit for oversized heat sources?

Rob: I know that, you know that. What she intends to do is unknown to me.

The audit guy was a better salesman?

I've got two Aqua Products 5 ton reverse cycle chillers on the way and will be installing them in the next couple of months.

They will supply heat for the radiant floor, cooling for the air handlers, preheat for the domestic hot water and hot water for a swimming pool. The units are staged and can run either in the same mode or independently.

Backup is a standard domestic hot water heater. The units provide all the heat down to 24F at which point the system automatically switches to gas because its cheaper (since the COP is a function of outside temperature).

I'm expecting a COP of about 3-3.5 in heating mode for most of the year and a COP of 4.5 during the summer when heating the pool (due to higher ambient temperature).

Using our current gas prices of about $1.40/therm and $0.10/kwhr and assuming a 90% efficiency on the gas heater that means 100,000 btus will cost $1.55 when burning gas vs $0.86 when running the heat pump.

Since we needed air conditioning anyway the marginal cost was the price of the chillers and two flat plate heat exchangers (for the domestic hot water preheat and the pool) and we saved the cost of a separate pool heater. Overall a bit more expensive but not much. Certainly a lot cheaper than a ground source heat pump.

We'll see how it works out.

Update on Aqua Products.

They are closing out their R22 products at half of manufacturer cost. That means you can get a 5 ton RCC for $900 and the matching heat pump for about $1000.

I figured at $1900 it was pretty reasonable. Worst case if the RCC blows up I still have the heat pump which is a standard top of the line unit I can use elsewhere.

I have a Unico 5 ton reverse cycle chiller running two air handlers tied into steibel Eltron solar for heat and DHW. The Unico unit has performed well. I used Unico because that is what the customer wanted. If I had to choose a reverse cycle chiller, the Multi Aqua product has a good reputation.

Hi - Brian Nelson of Nelson Mechanical Design from Martha's Vineyard here. Air to water heat pumps will make combustion obsolete - probably within five years. I am a master plumber and mechanical engineer (MSME) - my firm is a pioneer in the green mechanical market on our island. In addition to plumbing and conventional heating systems, we design and install geothermal (direct exchange with copper tubing and closed loop), air to air heat pumps, solar hot water, and digital control systems to optimize these installations. We designed and installed the mechanical systems for the Vineyard's first two net zero houses (geothermal radiant and fan coils powered by wind turbines). We are currently designing and installing mechanicals for the first two LEED for Homes houses on the Vineyard. One of them is 10 tons of horizontal closed loop geothermal operating Florida heat pumps (water to air and water to water) - fan coils and radiant. The other LEED home is Daikin air to air and probably Buderus wall hung boiler heating the radiant. The only reason to state the above is to perhaps lend validity to my opening remark - air to water heat pumps will take over the boiler market in five years.
We have done our research and have followed the history of heat pumps (US utilities were pioneers in 1930s through 1960s in air to water, water to water, water to air, even solar heat pump hybrids - but our research and development was doomed by low fossil fuel prices). Japan and Europe picked up where we left off (sounds familiar) in the 1970s and made a multitude of refinements in heat pump technology. We have watched with interest how Daikin and Mitsubishi refined the air to air heat pump using a variable speed compressor to optimize energy use. The efficiency of these units (and the Maine based Hallowell units) is rapidly approaching geothermal efficiencies at half the installed cost. We also watched Viessmann and Buderus migrate towards air to water heat pumps in Europe - we reckon that they don't bring them to the US because that would demolish their American boiler market. Our experience is that the operating cost of these air to air and air to water heat pumps is close to half that of a condensing boiler or furnace.
We seen the Japanese (Daikin, Sanyo, and Mitsubishi) develop their own versions of the air to water heat pumps, test and sell them in Japan (over a million installed!) and recently introduce them to Europe. Their inverter drive compressors (variable refrigerant flow) are more efficient than the Viessmann and Buderus one or two speed compressors and have better performance (these units are designed to deliver 135 F water using 5 F outside air!).
The latest unit from Daikin (Altherma) is the complete package - air to water heat pump, with a control system ready for solar integration, that makes hot and cold water for radiant and higher temp - around 140F - for domestic hot water. Visit daikinuk - the British Daikin website. This unit will revolutionize the American radiant market - a Daikin sales engineer told me it would be out this fall here in the US. Half the operating cost of a condensing boiler at about the same price. Because geothermal is so expensive, we always offer our clients alternatives - mostly air to air heat pumps as systems with similar efficiencies and operating costs. But if the client wants radiant, we have to either go geothermal or back to combustion... now we will have a real air to water alternative. The COP of the Daikin will be higher than the Aquaproducts unit or the Unico Unichiller.
I predict that when Daikin brings this Altherma unit to the US in the fall, Viessmann and Buderus will have to introduce their air to water units too - at the expense of their boiler business.

If this wasn't exciting enough, all of the above is antiquated technology! Once again, our low fossil fuel prices have hobbled our innovation... All of the above units use an HFC refrigerant (R410a) which has a well established upper limit of temperature and performance. The real deal is the Eco-cute heat pumps coming out of Japan - they use CO2 (carbon dioxide) as the refrigerant (last used in the 1920s on refrigerated ocean vessels for shipping fruit) - much much higher pressures (around 1300 psi instead of 400 psi for R410a) but much higher temperatures. Over a million of these units are in place in Japan - they are subsidized up to 80% to boost market share. Now that the Japanese are ready, they are exporting these CO2 air to water heat pumps to Europe. Sanyo unveiled their version of the Eco cute heat pump - 180F water, domestic hot water and radiant - at better efficiencies than geothermal!!!!! For more indepth info on these air to water heat pumps, visit www.R744.com for all the technical details. We are in the stone ages here!!! And I get to tell my clients about these developments they can't have!

My website is www.nmdgreen.com - I haven't updated it with our most current projects but it may be of interest.

thanks

Brian Nelson

Interesting stuff!

Thanks for sharing. You stand out among plumber and you may be right about your own market (Martha's Vineyard is affluent as I recall).

Here at home, natural gas prices have been dropping precipitously and 3/4s of the boiler being installed in the Twin Cities (much colder here than there) barely make the mandated 82%. It is true that if you have a COP of 300% you may (depending on overall or system operating efficiency) cut operating cost in half comparing condensing boilers to the various DX systems. But the cost of DX based systems will remain relatively high.

As for the Europeans defending their boiler business, I'm quite sure they will be motivated by perceived market conditions and follow the margins.

One has to keep in mind the unique situation Japan and Europe are in, having spent their modest natural resources generations ago. They will always pay more for fuel they we, unless we artificially scuttle our own ship with hair brained ideas like "Cap & Trade".

I don't think I'll give up my boiler business just yet. In the current capital poor market, with nearly zero new construction, I believe your 5-year estimate is optimistic. I've been promoting radiant floor and condensing boilers for 20 years and fight with and 82% mindset every day.

Wishing you all the best.

Your point is well taken - our market is not always in step with the rest of America. We have a rapidly diverging market in terms of wealth... the rich folks here can afford to be green, the working class folks are getting squeezed hard by the higher prices (about 20%) caused by the rich folks. But we feel optimistic about selling to both groups - before the recession hit, propane and fuel oil on Martha's Vineyard hit $4 per gallon and the phone was ringing off the hook - so it was a glimpse of what America will look like when our energy prices start to rise again. I think it always comes down to getting past the first cost hurdle - something which radiant has had to contend with and really seems to have successfully achieved - getting homeowners to think of their long term savings rather than the price of the project. And it will all come down to fuel prices - when they go up, we will be ready with our solar and heat pump solutions.
thanks
Brian

quote:

Altherma

Brian,

I'm just curious how many air to water systems have you installed? I'm on my first one.

Steve