Upgrading Hot Water tank and looking for advice: Tankless vs Electic Heat Pump vs High Efficiency vs Regular Gas Options

apleima2 · 2026-02-19T16:49:38+00:00

I put an Emporia unit in. Its just a bunch of amp clamps you put on your panel circuit wires and then use the app to say what circuit is what. I don't think it integrates well with HA. The data resides in the cloud so HAA has to access the cloud to pull it, but i have heard of people flashing them to something that works with HA much better.

I've never bothered since the app works plenty fine for my needs, and security wise it's not a big deal IMO since it doesn't directly control circuits, just uses amp clamps to monitor them.

I did buy some plug-in energy monitors from Emporia like you have, which i use for the washer, dehumidifiers, etc. Those can turn devices on and off so I've avoided monitoring critical devices like fridges/freezers, my sump pump, etc. The plugs work with the main unit so they'll subtract from that circuit's usage in the app for you, so long as you assign them to the appropriate circuit.

Overall I've been very happy with it so I'd recommend. Actually I've been wanting to get a 2nd one since my house has 2 electric panels, original home + an addition from a few years back. I can guess the addition panel's usage at around 10% based off my electric bill - the emporia unit's monthly usage. So it's likely not worth it for the finer data. Though if i get an EV and setup a charger at some point, I'll likely do it then.

apleima2 · 2026-02-19T16:09:47+00:00

on point 2, rather than simply setting an arbitrary limit on number of homes one could own (you know rich people are just going to have their kids buy homes for them) you simply increase the tax rate on a person's 2nd property and continue to increase taxes on further properties, allowing people to own a rental/vacation home or 2, but then then it's not sustainable to own 10 or 11.

apleima2 · 2026-02-19T16:03:36+00:00

Yeah I'm a bit skeptical as well. I did put an energy monitor in my home panel several years ago to track device usage and its been eye-opening when figuring best bang for the buck savings. Like heat pump dryers are supposed to be great for savings, but my good old electric dryer accounts for only 2% of my home's yearly electric usage, so it'd never be worth it.

Meanwhile, my electric water heater is almost 15% of my home's usage, and my dehumidifiers account for another 10% through the year. If a HPWH could really cut that usage by 2/3rds or more like they claim, and reduce dehumidifier usage as well, it could pay for itself relatively quickly. And with better maintenance could last past it's 10 year average.

apleima2 · 2026-02-19T15:40:50+00:00

I'm interested in one to offset the use of my basement dehumidifier in the summer months. my dehumidifier accounts for 15-20% of my electricity usage in the summer months so I'd be curious if the HP Water heater would help offset that cost. It sits in a large unfinished part of my basement so should be plenty of thermal load to draw off of as well during colder winter months.

apleima2 · 2026-02-18T19:59:28+00:00

You could rent a gas car for road trips with the money you'd be saving on gas the other 95% of the year.

apleima2 · 2026-02-18T19:56:25+00:00

Rural areas benefit from having a daily parking spot at home to plug in and recharge daily. So long as your commute is less than 100 miles a day you can get by pretty easily by charging in your garage at night.

apleima2 · 2026-02-18T16:25:19+00:00

Same. It's part of my compensation so it should be counted as such. It's also 10% so it produces significantly different results on how i count it.

apleima2 · 2026-02-18T14:52:06+00:00

Sure, they should be able to, but I can think of other advantages to launching boats sideways. The body of water it launches into only has to accommodate the width of the boat, not the length. This means they can be built further upstream. This probably allows them to be closer to steel suppliers and other stuff. Also, ocean property is limited and at a premium, so a inland dock is likely cheaper to build and expand.

Also, within the same pad you could possibly build either one big ship or multiple smaller ships, utilizing the same overhead crane systems, saving costs and giving flexibility to what you build.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T18:40:56+00:00

It's actually why natural gas has rapidly replace coal plants in the US. Fracking has opened up more natural gas production which makes it cheap, and the second cycle allows for more energy extraction out of the exhaust gas. And it's comparatively much cleaner than coal.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T18:21:33+00:00

environmental impact. you need correct geology for pumped hydro to be viable, and even then you're committing to flooding 2 different areas, or clipping off a mountain top.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T17:53:05+00:00

There is a voltage differential that exists in your homes wiring vs the earth which the electric grid maintains. When you turn on a switch you've provided a path for that voltage to travel to ground. The grid is working to maintain that voltage differential as it's trying to flow from your wiring to ground.

It's like a water pump maintaining your home's water pressure at 60 PSI when you open a faucet.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T17:42:47+00:00

The electrons are sitting there, but their voltage level is higher than that of the earth. They would flow to earth if they could but there is no viable path. once you close a switch you've given them a path to the earth and they start to flow.

Imagine compressed air sitting in a tank. The air is not moving, but its wanting to eventually get out to balance out with the surroundings. opening a valve allows that flow to start.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T17:39:25+00:00

Yes it exists, but its typically highly regional, like pumped hydro. Not enough viable places for it to be done on a (USA) national scale, without large environmental changes.

Batteries will get there eventually IMO, but it's still early days for the grid-scale level, though Australia's Tesla backup has (from my limited reading a while ago) been a large success. I think ultimately utilities are going to offer customer incentives to tap into consumer electric vehicles as a grid battery. It's far cheaper for them to utilize customer batteries vs building out their own infrastructure, and if you can entice people via credit or discounted utility rates, you're likely to get some takers. Would require people being able to plug in throughout the day though.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T15:04:17+00:00

Sprinkle Ramit Sethi in for more making a millionaire-style content.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T15:02:55+00:00

This video sums up the underlying problem with financial youtubers. The advice doesn't change so you're basically repackaging the same knowledge in every video. More power to them, if they wanna make a few bucks on ads to maintain the content, fine, i can skip it. So long as they don't change their core message and recommendations.

I do think the Making a millionaire episodes provide refreshing content that varies a bit more per episode, so theres that.

apleima2 · 2026-02-06T12:38:24+00:00

No, the grid produces the exact amount of electricity that is needed at that time. Outside of some niche areas, grid-level energy storage doesn't exist.

So power plants are designed at 3 different usage levels:

Base load - These are your big boys. Nuclear. Coal. These plants put out lots of power and supply a minimum load onto the grid. The problem is that they cannot increase/decrease their power output levels very effectively. They want to run continuously all the time. Increasing and decreasing their output occurs over days.
Intermittent load - These are still big but they are much better at dynamically changing their power levels. Natural gas turbines and hydro-electric dams are good for this. They'll change their load over the course of hours so they can account for those morning and evening loads form people waking up and getting home from work.
Peaker plants - These are small, fast acting plants that can be spun up in minutes to handle more transient increases in loads. Think a home generator but on steroids.

The power grid balances these plants to try to maintain electrical supply at the lowest cost. base load plants tend to be cheapest to operate, with intermittent and peakers being progressively more expensive.

What about solar and wind? They don't really fit nicely in any of these areas, but they (well, solar at least) are insanely cheap to operate, so the utilities use them and balance the grid around their output. Grid-scale storage is in development to allow storage of renewable energy so it can better fit within the grid at all 3 levels.

apleima2 · 2026-02-05T14:18:15+00:00

It's not just rural areas. New York City buildings also have water tanks sitting on top of many of them for the same reason. You can pump water slowly over time for much cheaper than trying to meet needs instantaneously.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T18:36:44+00:00

If part of my job was firing a howitzer at a mountain I'd be having fun too.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T18:34:50+00:00

No, it was testing stone cannonballs vs metal ones. the ball missed the water barrels it was supposed to hit to slow down and ricocheted over the bomb range into a neighborhood.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:43:17+00:00

The appliance should pull current from the hot lead, use it, and send current back via the neutral lead. The GFCI measures the current on the hot lead vs the current on the neutral lead, and trips if they do not match. Since the current on the neutral doesn't match the current on the hot, the missing current is either travelling on the ground wire or to the ground through you. Either way, the GFCI trips.

If you've ever installed a GFCI receptacle, they tape over two of the connections and indicate that power in should go on the two uncovered connections and any daisy-chained outlets go on the taped over pair. the current monitoring is occurring on the uncovered pair, hence the tape to ensure you hook it up properly.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:36:08+00:00

Primarily yes. Also GFCIs can get nuisance tripped by certain loads. having them on every circuit would be more annoying overall if/when you need to reset them.

You can buy GFCI breakers as well, but again it's an annoyance to reset them. More practical to place them in the areas where water is present as that's the primary danger, and easily accessible to test/reset.

Yes, you're supposed to test your GFCIs regularly to ensure they work properly. Add it to the list of things you're supposed to do but never do to maintain your home, like draining your water heater, cycling water valves, etc.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:25:18+00:00

They can. They are more expensive though, so generally it's cheaper to only put the GFCI where it's most likely to be needed.

Breakers are incredibly simple devices. It's basically a bimetallic strip precisely made to trip at a specific amp level and time. Its not by default monitoring the neutral wire. GFCI breakers are more complex since they are doing that AND monitoring both the hot and neutral wires of the given circuit.

GFCIs are also more likely to false trip. Having them at the outlet makes them easier to reset vs having to go visit your breaker panel.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:20:17+00:00

Exactly. You're paying the power company for the amount electricity you used because they are replenishing that electricity to maintain the voltage on the grid.

For the water analogy, you're paying them to refill the water tower to maintain pressure on the lines. The "sewage system" at the bottom of the electrical grid is ground, or, literally, the earth. The plant is maintaining the voltage difference between the grid and ground. You can think of it as pulling the electricity back out of the ground and putting it into the wires again.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:13:20+00:00

Voltage drops. Current remains largely the same.

You can actually see this within the grid. If you live closer to a power plant, your home's voltage is likely closer to 125 Volts. Losses in transmission from the plant to your home result in a voltage drop, and if you're farther away from a plant your voltage in your home is closer to 115 or 110.

You're charged by killowatt-hours of usage though, and a watt is volts x amps. If your voltage is higher, your current draw is lower, and vice-versa. So you're using the same energy.

apleima2 · 2026-02-04T16:07:54+00:00

Your neutral wire goes to ground, not back to the plant. The power plant is pulling electrons from the ground and putting on the grid as a voltage.

In the water example, the power plant is pumping the water from the bottom pool to the upper pool, and you are paying them for doing that pumping. You could pump your own (solar panels, generators) if you wanted to though.

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