Came across this in my newsfeed would this be something useful here? quafficient

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Came across this in my newsfeed would this be something useful here? quafficient | Fischer Future Heat

lchiu7

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#296374 12-Jun-2022 12:26

A very high tech instant hot water system manufactured and sold in the UK. Looks like it could be quiet useful here. Does anyone know if it's sold here or would there be permit issues?

https://fischerfutureheat.com/product/aquafficient/.

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gzt

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#2925649 12-Jun-2022 13:18

UK has tons of legacy gas instant hot water systems. Imo this is a replacement. I'm not sure there's any need for these in NZ. Peak load would be horrendous. Unless that's the advantage of this system? Storing thermal energy in a smaller and maintainable way?

tweake

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#2925706 12-Jun-2022 13:52

gzt: UK has tons of legacy gas instant hot water systems. Imo this is a replacement. I'm not sure there's any need for these in NZ. Peak load would be horrendous. Unless that's the advantage of this system? Storing thermal energy in a smaller and maintainable way?

it looks to be simply thermal storage in a smaller package. that would be handy for smaller places where they have had gas boilers or small cylinders. i suspect the element is probably the same as normal.

there is other things that use similar tech, so the tech is not brand new.

Jase2985

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#2925708 12-Jun-2022 14:01

zero info on how it works how much power it draws and their how it works video is a joke.

richms

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#2925712 12-Jun-2022 14:24

For the UK to get off gas on their notoriously undersized house supplies and support an electric car charger, then something like this and a managed load shedding car charger will be essential.

Will also mean they can get rid of their comical electric showers that they all had put in because of the useless hotwater systems that were the norm over there before combination boilers. Not sure why they never seemed to move to mains pressure electric storage to replace the extra low pressure ones that were the norm there.

Richard rich.ms

lchiu7

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#2925713 12-Jun-2022 14:31

That it true and some Googling didn't find much. It was an ad after all

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

tweake

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#2925793 12-Jun-2022 16:18

richms:

For the UK to get off gas on their notoriously undersized house supplies and support an electric car charger, then something like this and a managed load shedding car charger will be essential.

Will also mean they can get rid of their comical electric showers that they all had put in because of the useless hotwater systems that were the norm over there before combination boilers. Not sure why they never seemed to move to mains pressure electric storage to replace the extra low pressure ones that were the norm there.

a quick google shows they look to run a similar power supply to us.

i suspect the issue is the age and type of houses. eg a lot of them have washing machines in the kitchen, because houses where not originally built with inside laundry's. i suspect it the same with hot water, houses not originally built with big hot water cupboards. plus they had cheap gas supplies so a lot of it is small gas boilers.

Beccara

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#2925794 12-Jun-2022 16:26

Smells like this is just using the high discharge capacity of a Lithium battery pack to dump 20-30-40kw into the water which is what the gas hotwater systems do but with a gas burner and then will "trickle" charge the pack back up. Tie it in with a CT clamp on the main incoming and they could recharge at a high rate without popping anything

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huckster

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#2925798 12-Jun-2022 17:00

Am sure I saw this or an equivalent on here https://www.youtube.com/c/fullychargedshow/featured but can I find it.....

spid

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#2925847 12-Jun-2022 22:09

This looks like another example of a phase change water heater described here https://www.smallsolar.co.uk/heatstores/. There is another model I looked into when replacing my gas cylinder recently but cost is prohibitive and not being available here would be a challenge to get installed. I can't remember the name of the product I was looking at but it didn't review well for fast charging but did work well as an energy store off solar. It also was more like a continuous flow system where maximum efficiency would be to only heat to the required temperature rather than mixing at the tap (which isn't really a problem as no water is stored so legionnaires isn't a problem.)

MartinGZ

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#2925859 13-Jun-2022 00:51

There is nothing new with phase change materials and for many decades their use been proposed for storing passive solar gain for use later on, especially in low energy homes. Not much commercialisation as far as I’m aware.

I was intrigued on this application so did a bit of digging. I can find nothing about how that particular device works, but Sunamp seems similar and there is plenty of info around.

Energy efficiency. Sunamp is often quoted as having an energy rating of A+ (Excellent), but only when used in conjunction with a gas boiler. When used as an electric water heater (and “storage”), its energy rating drops to C. That seems to be the rating for a standard electric cylinder, although there are some good ones with B & A ratings. So it is likely that it is no more cost effective in terms of running costs. (BTW, I pity the poor installer, for the larger ones (270 litre equivalent) are over 200 kg dry weight!)

As I’ve said before on things like this, show me the independent testing. If they were brilliant it would be splashed in big letters across every web page. There is nothing on the Sunamp website that shows the energy test results or the formal energy rating certification, not even in their special certifications page. I only found it in the installation manuals. Hmmm.

The SUNAMP Hot Water Battery: What is it and How Does it Work? - YouTube

neb

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#2925873 13-Jun-2022 07:56

tweake:
a quick google shows they look to run a similar power supply to us.

Nothing like ours, they have ring mains to deal with the inability of the thin power cables to carry much current. It was done as a copper-saving measure after the war and then cargo-culted into everyday use.

tweake

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#2925899 13-Jun-2022 09:00

neb:
tweake:

a quick google shows they look to run a similar power supply to us.

Nothing like ours, they have ring mains to deal with the inability of the thin power cables to carry much current. It was done as a copper-saving measure after the war and then cargo-culted into everyday use.

i was referring to the household connection limits, which seams to be 60 amps just like us.

compared to places like USA where they can run instant hot water because they have minimum 200 amp house connection.

wellygary

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#2925917 13-Jun-2022 10:22

Beccara:

Smells like this is just using the high discharge capacity of a Lithium battery pack to dump 20-30-40kw into the water which is what the gas hotwater systems do but with a gas burner and then will "trickle" charge the pack back up. Tie it in with a CT clamp on the main incoming and they could recharge at a high rate without popping anything

Yeah, but if its dumping north of 20 KW into a water heater. its gotta have a pretty big battery,

(napkin engineering follows)

Assume 30Amp supply = 7 KW, means it needs to be able to draw 13 KW for potentially up to 20 minutes, (if you are replacing an on demand system the biggest load will be morning showers)

So you are looking at a 4-5 Kwh lithium battery minimum, (A power wall is 12Kwh for ~10K NZ uninstalled) so at that price point you are looking at $3-4K for the battery ...

This is gonna be an expensive water heater...

richms

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#2925965 13-Jun-2022 11:31

tweake:

a quick google shows they look to run a similar power supply to us.

i suspect the issue is the age and type of houses. eg a lot of them have washing machines in the kitchen, because houses where not originally built with inside laundry's. i suspect it the same with hot water, houses not originally built with big hot water cupboards. plus they had cheap gas supplies so a lot of it is small gas boilers.

There are lots with 40A-60A supplies that cant be upgraded easily because its just looped thru all the houses in a row, and that was enough for things when used with gas for the big loads and noone using electric heating. Here almost any house built now has 80A, and there isn't the hassle of your power going thru your neighbours making an upgrade to 3 phase near impossible. Old houses here have generally had the supply to them upgraded as part of the pole maintanance or undergrounding from the aneamic supplies from the 60's etc. Not so over there.

Richard rich.ms