Hybrid Water Heater Location
It’s about time to replace my hot water heater. Family of 5. Hot water uses include 1 bathroom, laundry, kitchen sink and dishwasher. We will be adding a 2nd bathroom in the next year and doing an addition with a new primary laundry room in the next 2-3 years.
The current standard electric water heater is fed by a 30amp 240v circuit and is located in a 400sq/ft daylight basement under the stairs. Added more electrical capacity or gas supply/vent for a tankless solution would not be very easy and we do have a fair amount of power outages every year. I would like to install a hybrid hot water heater as a replacement which would also have the added benefit of reducing my AC needs.
The space is enclosed and is usually between 60-70F. The dryer vent also runs through it and I could easily add vents so air from the rest of the basement could reach the room. I will also be converting the rest of the basement footprint (400sq/ft shop space) into living space in the next year.
I’m wondering if the hybrid unit will work well enough in this space. In the winter the basement is heated by a gas fireplace but I will be installing a mini split for the upstairs soon and may include the basement in that system.
When we expand the house we will have 600-700sq/ft of new garage space that I would plan move the unit to.
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It sounds like it should work fine in that location. If you find that it's cooling the space too much in the winter, you can switch to resistance-only mode.
That’s what I was hoping. I know they say you need 1000 sq/ft of open space but the more I read, the more it seems like that’s not a hard set rule.
The rule I've seen is 1,000 cubic feet, but I've put them into smaller spaces, with vents, without too much trouble, and I have had trouble in spaces about 1,000 cf that don't have wall vents, so it's not a hard-and-fast thing, in my experience.
I forgot to ask about sizing. Would you recommend a 65 or 80 gal unit?
65 gallons should be fine for a small family, but if you have the space and the budget, and/or you use more hot water than average, you might find that an 80-gallon is worthwhile.
I have a Rheem Gen 4 HPWH. It's in my garage in Central Texas. It is my understanding that the unit is really only about 600 BTU, so the real amount of cooling is not really significant. Before I put a mini-split in my Garage so I could wood work year round, it may have had a slight impact on my garage's temperature and humidity, but wasn't going to make a huge difference.