Flawed ACT Housing rollout of Airoheat hot water tanks - 'green' maybe, but don't actually work!

Oh you want a flawed ACT Housing decicion my mums place takes the cake. In the 30 years she has lived there the only ‘upgrade’ she ever reveived was the removal of carpet (that she installed) to be repalced with cold vinyl floor tiles and a down sizing of the heater. So now the it is not possible to get the house warm, and as the doors have large gaps under them (due to there being no carpet) even more hot air escapes. It costs her a fortune (well actualy it costs her 3 kids a fortune) in winter heating costs.

ant said :

I do hope the government is not following the US model and mandating how hot you can heat your hot water. People with kids should be able to easily set their thermostat lower to keep the kids safe but those of us without kids would like to be able to wash up in hot water, not lukewarm greasy water like in America. More nanny state nonsense.

Too late, it has been law in the ACT for a good 10 years. The max temp in a residential building is 50. Although as the document below says if you have a tank it must be set to 60 for hygine reasons with a tempering vavle bringing it back down to 50.

http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2130/Pn18.pdf

+1 to ant’s comment

I do hope the government is not following the US model and mandating how hot you can heat your hot water. People with kids should be able to easily set their thermostat lower to keep the kids safe but those of us without kids would like to be able to wash up in hot water, not lukewarm greasy water like in America. More nanny state nonsense.

I got an Airoheat installed about 3 weeks ago to replace a 20yo electric off-peak tank. Fortunately the installers forgot (cough) to include the “mandatory” limiting valve, which incidentally would have cost another $300, so mine is unrestricted – and actually pretty impressive with the hot water it produces. Yes you can hear a bit of fan drone for a few hours roughly equal to a quiet split system a/c compressor, but again placement is more critical than volume so not an issue for me or the neighbours.

Net cost for the install was under $1500 with Kev’s rebates etc; instant gas would have been double that due to relocation of the unit and piping etc. Mind you if I lived just 10km away in NSW (ugh!) it would have cost only $700 as they have a $800 State rebate as well. And yes it sounds like all electricity suppliers will phase (little sparky pun there) out off-peak over the next couple of years – only to be environmentally friendly, you understand…

I would also like to know if anyone can shed some light on the rumour that ACTEW don’t want to ‘do’ off peak hot water any more . . .?

This does not sound right at all. The push these days is for more use of different electricity tariffs – if you have the right kind of meter (the newish ones with an LCD instead of the old spinning disc) you can even have your account set up so that you pay for your normal service electricity at different rates depending on the time of day (ie. electricity used in the middle of the night is charged at off-peak rates, but you pay a premium for electricity you use in peak time). The idea is to have better price signals to flatten out the demand for electricity across the day.

You got something fixed or replaced in a govie house??? How on earth did you manage that? Seriously though I feel for you Miz, noisy machine whirring must drive you nuts…

Gungahlin Al said :

Be consious of your neighbours with positioning of heat pumps and A/C units. Getting woken at 5am by the a/c turning on is not the way to good relationships over the fence.

Might not foster great relationships, but I know that in the morning, I sure look a lot happier because my heat pump ran through the night keeping me toasty while my neighbours look frozen and angry.

Thanks everyone for all the wise advice and good info for follow up. (And damn, now I want a Rinnai infinity too!)

Does anyone remember when they first started recommending that HWS temps be lowered, for safety and economy, and then they discovered that was too close to the temp for growing Legionnaires so they had to revise the recommended temp? Just saying, check this before doing any adjusting.

@17

You wouldn’t get that response if you spoke to “Belconnen Al”.

LOL

Be consious of your neighbours with positioning of heat pumps and A/C units. Getting woken at 5am by the a/c turning on is not the way to good relationships over the fence.

I had one of these installed recently. Tempering valve was to blame for initial cold water, but they came and adjusted it for me. All good now.

Its not that noisy. Silly to put it near a bedroom, but its quite tolerable next to my kitchen. Barely hear it.

screaming banshee said :

miz, I’m just wondering if they have also fitted a tempering valve that may not have been there previously causing the hot water that is available to be ‘less hot’

Yes likely a source of the problem. When we rolled out a lot of solar HWSs in a pilot retrofit program with Brisbane City Council, we then got a number of complaints about inadequate heat. But it was invariably a tempering valve issue, where they weren’t installed before.

For those not familiar, hot water to ‘hygiene uses’ i.e. baths, showers, basins now have to be limited (under the Building Code of Australia) to 50 degrees max to prevent scalding, which IS a serious problem in older (and not so old) places. But most plumbers do this cheaply by just putting one valve right at the beginning, meaning the kitchen and laundry are also capped at 50. A “Greensmart” plumber should know how to avoid this problem.

In our new home, we specified that only the hygiene uses be tempered. They had to run a separate line for the laundry and kitchen, and this had to be copper instead of black pipe, due to the high temperatures that come out of the Endless Solar HWS. But we get great hot water where we really need it, and safe hot water where needed too.

On the noise, this is a big problem with heat pump systems. When heat pumps cost similar to a good solar HWS, and Canberra has such consistent sunny days even through winter (just not the last week or so…) I don’t understand why Housing would have gone the way of heat pumps. Poor advice I think. The noise from air conditioning units is bad enough, without throwing heat pump HWSs into the mix too.

James-T-Kirk said :

I too love my Rinnai – When it arrived we couldn’t set the heat higher than 50C in the kitchen – (all for the bathrooms being limited to 50C), but a bit of an internet search, and we can set the water in the Kitchen to 75C – Whoot!

Bloody stoopid govmit limiting what I can set my hot water heater to – Next they will want to tell me how old I *have* to be to retire!

they set it to 50c for the kiddies who are far more clever than mummy and daddy, and can work out the settings on the DVD player like the child lock – they didn’t want a child scalded by really hot water. the dishwasher still cleans, as does the washibng up in the sink under 50c temp.

Thumper, sadly, the warm fuzzies have iced over!

I’m pretty sure a tempering valve is fitted – they said the max temp is lower for safety and economic reasons.

Mind you, I could ‘turn a dial on my old one to a safe temp that also saved me money. . .

Banshee’s right. All new or replacement storage hot water units must have a tempering valve fitted to limit temperature to 45 degrees.

screaming banshee said :

miz, I’m just wondering if they have also fitted a tempering valve that may not have been there previously causing the hot water that is available to be ‘less hot’

By law any new or modified hot water heaters must have a tempering valve. It must limit the temp to 60′ or 65′.

One odd thing though is with ‘infinity’ systems are limited to 50′ without a controller, or 55′ with. Not sure if this is gov regulation or just the way the company makes them. My guess is regulation as taking the cover off one reveals they can, in theory go higher, but doing so clearly loose efficency.

I’ve had a Rinnai Infinity for 7 years now, and wouldn’t have anything else.

Choose your temperature, turn on the hot, and enjoy.

And you only heat what you use.

I too love my Rinnai – When it arrived we couldn’t set the heat higher than 50C in the kitchen – (all for the bathrooms being limited to 50C), but a bit of an internet search, and we can set the water in the Kitchen to 75C – Whoot!

Bloody stoopid govmit limiting what I can set my hot water heater to – Next they will want to tell me how old I *have* to be to retire!

peterh said :

makes me love my rinnai infinity. 42c constant gas heated water.

+1

miz, I’m just wondering if they have also fitted a tempering valve that may not have been there previously causing the hot water that is available to be ‘less hot’

Reverse cycle air-conditioning or heat pumps lose efficiency below 4 degrees, i.e. they don’t work.

makes me love my rinnai infinity. 42c constant gas heated water.

Yet another example of the Government giving the public the cold shoulder.

Sorry can I correct the cost of my old hot water – should be $50 per fortnight, not per month.