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Many water-to-air geothermal heat pumps provide partial hot water generation via a desuperheater. You can also buy a small water-to-water geo unit and dedicate it to hot water generation.

Look up "Thum Gum." There are similar products at the big box stores.

Sounds like symptoms of a bad capacitor. Did you test it with a multimeter? That's the only way to tell for sure if it's bad. Capacitors are cheap and easy to change, but you need to know what you are doing, as the capacitor is connected to 240 volts and will retain a charge after the power is...

That would not have worked for me for two reasons. 1) There's no room in the utility closet for that long of a breaker bar. 2) Using a bar you need to have a second person hold the tank and apply equal torque in the opposite direction, which isn't practical. An air impact wrench solves both of...

I had to ask. Too bad it wasn't that simple. You've probably seen this on the videos, but get some silicone grease and lube the threads and o-ring when you put things back together.

Did you release the water pressure before trying to remove it? Your filter looks to be installed with unions. If so, no need to cut pipe to replace it.

I gotta believe a properly driven impact wrench would bust it loose. The IR 231 needs an average of 4.2 CFM and uses 22 CFM at full load. A typical pancake compressor providing around 2.5 CMF and holding 6 gallons, (0.8 cubic feet) doesn't have the capacity.

As I said above, it looks like the blue wire on the lower left is the 24V C (common) wire from the transformer. Note that it says "SEC BL-COM" on the transformer, which indicates the blue wire is the common for the secondary side (24V) of the transformer. Check and see if you get 24VAC between...

Show us the labels on the lugs on the left side of that circuit board. The C wire from the thermostat needs to go to xfrmr-c, or whatever it's labeled. Looks like it might be that blue wire on the bottom left of the circuit board. If so, you can get a double spade connector, put it on the end...

Could the slot be on side of the furnace? Here is a screenshot from a York manual, referring to using 20x25 and 16x25 filter sizes. It says you need both side and bottom returns for CFM above 1800. It also says not to put the filter inside the furnace. What is the size of your furnace, or the...

If the "hole" in the bottom of the furnace really goes to the "ground" and not to another return duct, then it looks to me like that stand at the bottom of the furnace was built to allow airflow from the side and top. Looks like the side and bottom returns are connected by open ductwork. Some...

This one worked fine for me on a 7 year old WH. At 1350 ft-lbs, it looks like it has more than twice the reverse torque of the 231. "Ingersoll Rand 2235QTiMAX 1/2-Inch Drive Air Impact Wrench"

In the winter that heat would increase the efficiency. If it were 95% efficient, the heat loss would be 0.05 x 40VA = 2 Watts. It's probably somewhere between 2-6 Watts, so not likely an efficiency driver.

I don't know about resale value, but I was happy to get the oil tank removed from inside my house. It took up a whole closet.

Ok. I was going by what you wrote, which was that the total price for the 50 therms was $110, $85 of that being the service and delivery: "For a low heating shoulder season month that uses 50 therms that's 50 x $0.50 = $25 for the gas, $85 for the delivery, $110 total for 50 therms, or...

From a purely financial perspective, the payback on gas conversion is not a long time, and you would make money on the transaction. Spending $9K for something that cuts expenses by $1,100 per year, for 20 years, has a simple payback of (20 x $1,100)-$9,000 = $13,000. If you consider the time...

To follow up on this, removing the fixed service fee (assuming it's $85/moth), and assuming all other details remain the same, the annual savings for gas versus oil would be $1,096.48. This cuts the payback period by 3X. At that point, removing the oil tank and installing the gas retrofit...

Impressive analysis, as usual, Dana. I just want to point out that because the OP already has gas, and is using it for other purposes, the financial analysis of oil vs gas absolutely should not include the fixed ($85) service fee. This fee is going to be paid regardless of whether the OP keeps...

I have a spreadsheet from Penn State University that lets you enter the price for different fuels and the equipment efficiency, then it compares costs. I don't know if they still publish it. It's pretty simple stuff though. There are probably similar things available online.

I converted from oil to gas in one house and from oil to geothermal in another house. I don't miss the oil. The oil was messy and smelly. The furnaces were noisy. Around here natural gas cost less than half the price of oil, per 1 million BTU output. A 96% gas furnace would be about $11 and an...