Ductless Heating Solution: Air-to-Water Heat Pump Benefits Explained

In this video, Josh Salinger of Birdsmouth Design Build introduces an air-to-water heat pump system that offers an efficient heating and cooling solution for homes while eliminating the need for bulky ductwork. Air-to-water heat pumps offer a range of benefits over traditional air-to-air systems - this model, for example, comes pre-charged and uses 90% less refrigerant.
Watch part 2 where Ben Bogie joins Josh in the rooms where the wall-mounted fan coil units will be located: • Air-to-Water Heat Pump...
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[@RicknessJ82]

Since you are using wall mounted fan coils for distribution, and no existing hydronic infrastructure, it would be interesting to hear your reasoning on why an air to water system is better than running refrigerant indoors as is the standard practice today with heat pumps in the US. I'll list the ones I picked up on: 1. It can do domestic hot water heating provided customer gets an indirect tank. Doesn't need another compressor running in the utility room and would likely be much faster recovery than the stand alone heat pump water heater units. 2. The ability to store heat in a buffer tank for later use. However, that was a pretty small tank, I'm not sure how useful this is for demand shifting. Let's say a 40 gallon tank at delta T 30F stores about 3kWh of thermal energy. Its something, could last an hour or two with a pretty small load. Feels like the tank would need to be enormous before this is significant. 3. Reduced refrigerant leakage and later the ability to use R290 as I'm not sure that will ever be allowed to be piped inside the home. Those are really exciting to me, but not sure homeowners would demand that, I think EPA would have to ban R410a and R32, R454b before this is significant but curious to hear your thoughts. 4. Can be used directly into existing hydronic infrastructure, especially radiant floors, but this is rare in most homes and didn't sound like this was the case in your project. Did I miss any? I think reason 3 alone is enough to do it, but not sure its marketable to consumers. I think refrigerants are run indoors now because its one less heat exchanger and no hydronic circulators, no freeze protection, thus a simpler, maybe more efficient and lower cost system. Could all that be overcome to make air to water heat pumps the best solution for homes that don't have hydronic distribution planned or already in place?

[@matthewvanrossum406]

When using it for cooling how does it deal with condensation??

[@unitednerd7414]

So if i switch to air-to-water i will only get audio on the left?

[@finehomebuildingmagazine]

Lol, sorry about that...

[@pan6479]

baseboard heat or floor radiant? Does it retrofit into existing baseboard?

[@JoshSalinger]

It has wall mounted fan coil units for this project that we will be showing in a subsequent video. Any number of different ceiling cassettes, in wall units, wall mounted units, in floor or in wall distribution are available and can be used. If one is doing cooling, one wants to use the fan coil units that have condensate drains. It is technically possible to retrofit into existing baseboard, but it is highly unlikely the loads would match and one couldn't do cooling as it would create a lot of condensate.

[@jimrussell-us]

That’s an interesting system. What’s the ROI time and what are the electric utility rates at the site?

[@JoshSalinger]

Not sure of the ROI, but the electric rates are cheap at around 14 cents/kWhr. The value for the client was getting rid of the ductwork, getting cooling (they had none prior), getting off of fossil fuels, replacing their gas water heater and having a quiet system with demand response. This was of greater value to them than the ROI of just the dollars and cents.

[@jimrussell-us]

Thanks. That’s about my current gross kWh rate. This was a little different than other solutions I had seen. What is the typical electric load that the system draws? Is there any backup water heating? (Sorry if you already answered)

[@MAD-DUKE]

This looks really cool. I would like to know more, price of the unit, also didn't show what the delivery system, without ducts how do you bring air into the room? Just circulation? We need more info on this!!

[@JoshSalinger]

@matthewvanrossum406 The cold water goes to a wall mounted fan coil unit that has a small fan, some coils and a pan that catches any condensate during cooling. The fan coil unit has a power supply, two plumbing connections and a condensate. We used a washer/dryer box behind it to drain the water away. Ben Bogie did a video on the fan coil units for this house that will hopefully be posted soon that describes (and shows) this.

[@MAD-DUKE]

I want to see the Fan units, prices. And how effective and quick can it cool/heat a room.

[@59seank]

How do you keep the water in the outside unit from freezing?

[@jamesroscoe7555]

Antifreeze? Like gshp?

[@JoshSalinger]

The system is rated for cold climates and has a heat pan on the outdoor unit. The water lines get insulated and if the temp goes below freezing the system will reverse to put hot water in the lines to keep them from freezing. If there is a power outage, the outdoor unit drains so it won't get damaged.

[@59seank]

@@JoshSalinger Thanks Josh.

[@baxt1412]

Create coolth lol

[@TeddyRumble]

Personally, I anm VERY cooth.

[@EvansBibleMusic]

There is no such thing as R32A. It's just R32.

[@beachboardfan9544]

Yea whats the cost of that control system? In my experience thats going to be the first thing to fail and it cost 80% of what the entire system cost... 👎