GeoSpring Hybrid Electric Water Heater - Recovery Time, Unit Running

The recovery time is a function of a number of different factors including the amount of hot water used, the temperature of the incoming water, the ambient air temperature, heating source etc.

The GeoSpring heat pump can recover 8 gallons per hour (at 68F ambient air temp) while standard heating elements can recover about 22 gallons per hour. The difference is, the heat pump only draws about 550 watts of energy compared to 4,500 watts from standard heating elements. So if an average shower uses 16 gallons of hot water, the heat pump would run about 2 hours to reheat the water and use about 1.2 kilowatt hours of electricity. For the same 16 gallons of water, a standard electric water heater would take about 48 minutes at 4,500 watts of power which is about 3.2 kilowatt hours, almost three times the energy.

Although the heat pump runs longer to reheat the water, it still ends up using up to 67% less energy. Most owners use hot water in varying amounts followed by long periods of little or no usage. The heat pump has more than sufficient time to reheat the water and satisfy the hot water demands. If more than the average amount of water is used, GeoSpring is uniquely designed to switch from heat pump to resistance heat and back again to provide the same volume of hot water as a standard electric water heater. In the winter time when ambient air temperatures are likely to be lower, the heat pump will have to run longer to heat the water.