In October work turned to the interior of the house and the garage. One of the first things we installed inside was the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, along with the hot water heater. We finished installing these systems by the second week in October. The HVAC system, made and donated by Carrier, was the most energy efficient available at 94% efficient. The hot water heater is a tankless hot water system made by Rinnai, which provides instant hot water at high efficiency as well.

The Carrier Infinity 96 Gas Furnace uses the most current technology available. It is a multiple speed furnace that is Energy Star rated. This high efficiency rating means that the gas is used to heat the house not go right up and out the vent pipe. The advanced controls of this system allows the furnace to maintain temperatures consistently close to the temperature setting by running longer, quieter heating cycles thereby reducing the temperature swings by half.

Ordinary furnaces warm a house with a series of full speed blasts of warm air. When the furnace is not operating, the temperature can drop significantly before the next cycle kicks on. The EcoDwell furnace utilizes technology that allows the furnace to operate at low heating capacity up to 90% of the time, making the furnace quieter and much more energy efficient.

The furnace is coupled to a two speed heat pump that Carrier calls the Infinity 16, which utilizes environmentally friendly, chlorine free refrigerant called Puron. The heat pump has a SEER rating of 17 (good thing) and is also Energy Star rated. The heat pump provides the cooling necessary for those hot summer days, it also provides the heat on cooler mornings and evenings which eliminates the need for the furnace which may overheat the house.

The Carrier system controls both temperature and humidity day and night. It is capable of changing the fan speed, maintaining and monitoring the humidity levels even when the system is not actively heating or cooling. Maintaining the proper balance of moisture in the house keeps people more comfortable at higher temperatures in the summer and lower temperatures in the winter which reduces energy usage. In the summer, the variable-speed blower system works in conjunction with the thermostat to remove up to 30 times more moisture than a standard heating and cooling system, keeping people more comfortable. This feature can save up to 21% in cooling costs.

Next to heating and air conditioning Americans spend the most energy on making hot water, estimated at 25% of their energy bill. We don’t use hot water twenty-four hours a day, but we pay to heat it all day. The idea behind a tankless hot water heater is to create hot water on demand. The Rinnai system we used in EcoDwell promises unlimited hot water, personalized control and it takes up less space than a traditional hot water heater. The Rinnai system quickly heats water very efficiently using natural or propane gas. Depending on a lot of variables, including incoming water temperature and your setting for outgoing hot-water temperature, hot water starts flowing in two to four seconds. Since it is heating water as you need it, and not pulling it from a tank, you never run out of hot water.

A tankless system costs about 2.5 times the cost of a traditional hot water heater of similar capacity. It will typically pay for itself in a few years from the energy savings and last twice as long. Capacity is measured by flow rate with a tankless system instead of by the size of the tank. If you overtax your tankless system instead of running out all the water in the tank, the flow of hot water goes down. Many people find this easier to deal with than actually running out of hot water and waiting for the next tank-full to heat.

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