skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Hydronic Heating Coil Versus Propane Furnace, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (Fact Sheet)

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1118071· OSTI ID:1118071

Insight Homes constructed two houses in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with identical floor plans and thermal envelopes but different heating and domestic hot water (DHW) systems. Each house is 1,715-ft2 with a single story, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and ductwork located in conditioned crawlspaces. The standard house, which the builder offers as its standard production house, uses an air source heat pump (ASHP) with supplemental propane furnace heating. The Building America test house uses the same ASHP unit with supplemental heat provided by the DHW heater (a combined DHW and hydronic heating system, where the hydronic heating element is in the air handler). Both houses were occupied during the test period. Results indicate that efficiency of the two heating systems was not significantly different. Three issues dominate these results; lower system design performance resulting from the indoor refrigerant coil selected for the standard house, an incorrectly functioning defrost cycle in the standard house, and the low resolution of the natural gas monitoring equipment. The thermal comfort of both houses fell outside the ASHRAE Standard 55 heating range but was within the ACCA room-to-room temperature range when compared to the thermostat temperature. The monitored DHW draw schedules were input into EnergyPlus to evaluate the efficiency of the tankless hot water heater model using the two monitored profiles and the Building America House Simulation Protocols. The results indicate that the simulation is not significantly impacted by the draw profiles.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1118071
Report Number(s):
DOE/GO-102014-4302; KNDJ-0-40341-00
Resource Relation:
Related Information: Building America Case Study: Whole-House Solutions for New Homes, Building Technologies Office (BTO)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English