In October 2023, my wife emerged from the bathroom one morning to report that we had no hot water. I found that our gas-fired, on-demand water heater had failed and was leaking a small amount. I called our plumber, who confirmed we needed a new water heater.
We immediately faced the following decision: Should we replace our water heater with a similar gas-fired on-demand unit or change to an electric heat pump water heater? We have been hearing a great deal about the efficiency and ecological benefits of heat pump water heaters, and on-demand gas units like the one we had are said to emit considerably more carbon than even gas-fired tank units.
Placement for a heat pump water heater would be a challenge. The water heater had been located in the attic, and the heat pump water heater was somewhat taller than even the gas-fired tank unit that was installed at the time we bought the house. That meant it could not fit in the attic and would need to be installed in the garage. We found a reasonable location, although we would lose storage space in the garage. It also meant that the loop for our hot water recirculating system needed to be extended down to the garage, making the loop longer.
The plumber said that he could replace the on-demand gas unit with a similar one in a couple of days, but it would take a week or so to obtain a heat pump unit, which would also cost considerably more. We had to make a snap decision because we didn’t want to be without hot water any longer than necessary. Wanting to be good ecological citizens, we opted for the heat pump unit despite the cost, complexity, and delay in installation.
As promised, the plumber obtained the heat pump water heater, an American Standard 50-gallon unit (model ASHPWH-50). Installation took about two days and involved running a considerable amount of pipe from the old location in the attic to the new location in the garage, installing a new 30-ampere 220-volt electrical circuit at the heater, and bracing against earthquakes. The installation went well, except a defective water leak sensor had to be bypassed.
First Impressions
The first thing I noticed about the new water heater was its significant noise. The specification sheet listed it as emitting 40.1 dBA, which is about the same as a refrigerator’s (and also an implausibly specific value). However, the water heater was much louder than this.
The on-demand water heater spoiled us: we never ran out of hot water. We soon found that not to be the case with the new water heater, and I turned the water volume for my showers much lower than before. Perhaps scarcity is a good thing.
The new water heater is a “hybrid” unit with a heat pump and also a conventional heating element. It has several modes:
- Green (heat pump only)
- Comfort (“rational use of the heat pump and, if necessary, the heating element”)
- Fast (heat pump + heating element)
- i-Memory (“learns your habits and replicates them autonomously”)
- Electric (heating element only)
There’s also a Boost mode, which is like Fast, but reverts to the previous mode when it gets up to temperature. Initially, it was set for Comfort, but I couldn’t understand when it was and wasn’t running the heating element. I asked product support and the installer, but I still couldn’t make sense of Comfort mode, so we changed to Green. I manually turn on the Boost feature when we need extra hot water.
The noise issue
The noise generated by the water heater was bothersome, especially since it was noticeable in my office adjacent to the garage. I downloaded a sound level measurement app on my phone. I sent a video to American Standard (actually Ariston) product support. They told me I had not measured it under the right conditions. Of course, my garage is not an anechoic chamber.
I consulted “the internet” and found conflicting answers about the noise generated by heat pump water heaters. Some comments described them as very noisy, and others found them quite acceptable. I tried to find others locally with similar water heaters for comparison and failed. In late 2024, the behavior of the water heater changed: sometimes it had a loud “whirr,” and sometimes it didn’t. This prompted me to make several recordings of the sound (and analyze it with a spectrum analyzer app) and determine that much of the excess noise was coming from the fan in the heat pump. I again contacted product support, and they agreed to ship me a replacement fan. My plumber replaced it, and the noise is much better now.
The app
Like many new devices, the water heater connects to the internet through my WiFi and, through a cloud service, allows an app on my phone to control and monitor it. The app, called Comfort Link, is acceptable but less than excellent.
Good:
- Allows me to remotely control the water heater, including turning on Boost mode when needed and turning off the water heater when we’re on vacation
- Displays the water heater temperature so I can judge whether to take a shower
- Shows the history of power usage by the water heater by month, day, and hour
Not so good:
- The water heater has an icon that appears when it judges when it’s OK to shower. This isn’t on the app, but it would be very useful.
- The water heater temperature shown on the app doesn’t agree with that shown on the water heater. The support people explained that the water heater has several temperature sensors, and the app displays (I think) the average between the tank top and tank bottom temperature. But that doesn’t explain why the front panel displays something different.
- Limited history of power usage data (e.g., daily data for only the current and previous month)
- Poor resolution of power usage data. Measurements seem only to be taken only once per hour, so the heating element usage is reported in 4.5 kWh increments and the heat pump in 0.5 kWh increments.
- There seems to be no API to download data other than through the app.
Efficiency
The heat pump is indeed more efficient than the electric heating element. This is suggested by the usage graph, where the orange bars represent energy usage from the heating element:
But of course, the days we used the heating element are also days where I turned on Boost mode because we were using more hot water, which exaggerates the difference. I measured the tank temperature over time as it heated up:
- Heating element (4.5 kW): temperature rise 68.9°F/hr = 15.3°F/kWh
- Heat pump (0.45 kW): temperature rise 17.3°F/hr = 38.7°F/kWh (77°F ambient)
- Heat pump (0.45 kW): temperature rise 11.9°F/hr = 26.5°F/kWh (61°F ambient)
- Heat pump (0.45 kW): temperature rise 11.4°F/hr = 25.3°F/kWh (57°F ambient)
As expected, the heat pump’s efficiency depends on the ambient temperature, which determines the amount of heat the heat pump can “harvest” from the air. Compared with the heating element, the heat pump’s overall efficiency ranges from a factor of 1.65 to 2.53.
Operating cost
The heat pump water heater is efficient, but is it more cost-effective than our previous gas water heater? As noted above, it isn’t possible to make an exact comparison because we don’t know how our usage may have changed. If we make the worst-case assumption that our usage hasn’t changed, we are now using an average of about 5.3 kWh per day (153 kWh/month divided by 29 days). At an off-peak rate of $0.44/kWh, that works out to $2.33/day. Counting only those days where we used only the heat pump, that’s about 4 kWh/day or $1.76/day. Before getting the new water heater, our gas usage was about 8 therms/month, virtually all of which was for hot water. At our current rate of about $2.50/therm, that works out to $20/month or $0.67/day.
As our plumber had hinted when we installed the new water heater, gas is relatively inexpensive compared to electricity at current prices (unless you’re generating your own electricity). While an electric heat pump water heater is efficient and ecologically responsible, don’t expect it to save you money at current rates.
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
This being our last day in Perth, we had a leisurely start, although that was limited by the need to check out of our hotel room on time. We had breakfast in the hotel, finished packing, and checked our bags for the day at the front desk.
We began with a visit to the WA Museum Boola Bardip (Boola Bardip means Many Stories in the local indigenous language), which is located in an area designated as Perth’s cultural center, with theaters and performance venues as well as the Western Australia library and archives. The extensive museum has exhibit halls dedicated to wildlife, cultural, and historical themes. The exhibits, many of them interactive, were well-designed and informative.
It was lunchtime after that, and Kenna remembered a “healthy burgers” chain, Grill’d, that we tried and liked during last spring’s trip to Brisbane. We split a lamb burger, which was a nice change of pace.
We stopped by the Perth Town Hall but couldn’t see much because of an event. The Town Hall is the second-oldest building in Perth, so the receptionist suggested we check out the oldest building, the Old Court House Law Museum. The main room of the building was a small courtroom set up as it would have been in Perth’s early days. The museum also had several exhibits about the evolution of laws applied to Aboriginal people and women, which showed how much things have changed since the beginning of the 20th century and how far we still need to go.
We continued on to the Perth Mint, where we took a short self-guided tour that explained the Mint’s history and how it related to the Australian gold mining industry. It was fun talking with one of the “coin geeks” there. Today, I learned that successive British monarchs face opposite directions when depicted on coins. Queen Elizabeth II faces right, but King Charles faces to the left when he appears on Australian coins.
We then went to Elizabeth Quay for a break and a small snack and watched our final Perth sunset of the trip from there. We walked back to the hotel, collected our bags, and took a taxi to the airport. Unfortunately, we arrived about an hour before check-in opened, but we waited that out, passed through security, and caught our 11:45 flight to Melbourne. After a short layover we caught a nonstop to San Francisco, a 13-hour flight but a comfortable one. It was good to get home, early on June 13. Now for the challenge of staying awake, to get onto California time!
This article is the final installment in a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
We have heard a lot about Rottnest Island, which is just off the coast of Perth. Rottnest (“Rotto” to the locals) is a recreational island with cabins for rent, several beaches with snorkeling (in the summer), restaurants, a golf course, skydiving, and more. It is also the home of about 10,000 quokkas. Quokkas are small marsupials billed as “the happiest animals on earth.”
We booked a round trip on the Rottnest Express last night, so we got an early start this morning and grabbed coffee and a breakfast wrap on the way to the pier. We got seats upstairs for both the view and the airflow. The trip started slow (about 10 knots) as we left the pier, increased to about twice that once we reached a broad section of the Swan River, and slowed again as we approached Fremantle. We stopped, picked up more passengers there, and then proceeded to Rottnest Island at a higher speed.
Although we had been equipped with a map, we weren’t sure where to go when we got to Rottnest. We stumbled on the main village and were heading out when we noticed some rain starting to fall. We returned to the village to get some snacks, and the sky opened up: it poured! We were thankful to be in the village as there weren’t a lot of other places to get out of the rain. While there, we noticed our first quokka and gates on the grocery entrance and other businesses designed to keep quokkas out.
Despite a lot of public education not to feed the quokkas, many of them hang out in the village to eat up the crumbs and other droppage from human diners. They are indeed cute, but the “always smiling” thing seemed a little overstated. They can be a little aggressive, too: when Kenna and I shared a chicken sandwich for lunch, a quokka climbed on the bench between us and tried to get to the sandwich. We moved rather quickly.
The rain continued off and on, limiting our ability to venture beyond the village until we boarded a bus for a “discovery” tour we had booked for the afternoon. The tour took us around the perimeter of the island, with excellent descriptive commentary from a guide on the bus. We stopped at several points to take pictures, most notably at the far west end facing the vast Indian Ocean, where there was also a large osprey nest.
Following our tour, we stopped briefly to pick up souvenirs (a t-shirt for me), and it was time for our return trip to Perth. Along the way, in one of the slower-speed segments, a couple of hydrofoil surfers managed to “draft” off our ship, keeping up for quite a long time. We were also tailed briefly by a few dolphins.
Returning to our hotel, we were exhausted but managed to venture out for a quick pizza dinner.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Monday, June 10, 2024
Kenna and I slept in a bit today, then set out into downtown Perth. We grabbed breakfast at one of the many coffee shops. Perth seems to be quite a coffee city, but there are no Starbucks here.
We walked to Elizabeth Quay and the Barrack Street jetty, from which many tour boats originate. We picked up some information on Rottnest Island tours and were surprised when Lee and Colleen, two of our fellow passengers on the Orion, also showed up. We may see them again.
From there, we walked to Kings Park and its botanical garden. We made some wrong turns but eventually found it and discovered it is up quite a hill from downtown and has a great view. The botanical garden is nicely labeled and includes specific sections for areas like the Kimberley. From a distance, we saw Lee and Colleen here too. We could have spent a lot more time here, but we wanted to make it out to Fremantle, so we caught a bus to the train station and a train to Fremantle.
One of our first goals in Fremantle (“Freo” to the locals) was to visit the Indian Ocean for the first time. We went out to a nearby beach and touched the water, which, of course, felt like…water. Soon after that, we ran into a couple of other fellow passengers from the Orion, who had just returned from the Maritime Museum. They told us it was excellent, so we headed over there.
After a quick late lunch in their snack bar, we toured the exhibits. One memorable exhibit for me was Australia II, the Australian winner of the America’s Cup sailing race in 1983. It was a big deal at the time and continues to be a source of pride for Australians.
Fremantle hadn’t initially seemed much like other beach towns (Santa Cruz, Brighton UK, etc.) I have visited. But as we headed more into the city center, we began to see the makings of a beach town: some brewpubs, a game arcade, souvenir shops, etc. It was still somewhat more restrained than many.
Exhausted from several miles of walking, we returned to the train station and rode back to Perth, where we had more walking to do to get to the hotel. We opted to have dinner in the hotel’s pub, which was mediocre and surprisingly closed at 8 p.m. — earlier than most any pub I have seen.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Sunday, June 9, 2024
Today started quite early because they needed to get us off the Orion early and prepare it in eight hours for the next cruise. We had our suitcases out for pickup at 7 a.m., ate breakfast, and exited the ship about 7:30. We had to go through Australian customs, which went smoothly for us but resulted in delays for some others, primarily some MDs who had medical supplies with them and one passenger who had bought a wooden oar somewhere along the way.
There were two busloads of passengers going to the airport. Our bus driver polled the passengers about our departure times and then took us on an impromptu bus tour of Darwin. Darwin is a surprisingly modern and clean city, and the driver was rightfully proud of his home town.
We arrived at the airport about three hours before our flight. Unfortunately, we couldn’t check our luggage until 90 minutes before flight time, so we had to wait outside security. There were enough of us there that we were able to use the time to reminisce about the cruise.
When the time came, we obtained our luggage tags and sent our bags down the conveyor. Unlike in the US, we just entered our names and destinations to check our luggage; no ID was required. Similarly, we went through security without showing an ID or our boarding passes, and there was no ID check getting onto the plane. This was very surprising to us!
The flight to Perth was uneventful. When we arrived in Perth, we found the climate to be very different. While it is the dry season in Darwin and the Kimberley coast, it is the wet season in Perth, which has a climate quite similar to the San Francisco Bay Area but shifted by six months. It was rainy and cloudy when we arrived.
When we got off the plane, we were surprised to see Dave’s friend Bruce and his wife waiting for us at the gate! That’s a consequence of not requiring a boarding pass to go through security and was a nice throwback to pre-9/11 practices.
We checked into our hotel, The Melbourne Hotel (yes, located in Perth), and found that we had booked a nicely outfitted but unusual guest room. For example, there was no door to any of the bathroom area; it was open to the bedroom. This is fine, but it takes a little getting used to.
Dave’s friend Bruce had made reservations for a lovely restaurant in North Fremantle,
Bib and Tucker. I had kangaroo for dinner, which had a nice flavor and is a very lean meat (accordingly cooked somewhat rare). Our hosts pointed out that the kangaroo they serve is farmed explicitly for that purpose.
After a very busy day, we said goodbye to Jan and Dave who left for the US that evening and to our hosts. We took the train from North Fremantle back to Perth, where we crashed.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Today is an at-sea day as we cross back over the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf to Darwin, where we will disembark from the Orion tomorrow morning. Again, the seas were rough, but not as much as the outgoing crossing. As with other at-sea days, there were lectures from the naturalists and an information session on future cruises. The day ended with the Captain’s cocktail reception and dinner. The cocktail reception featured a slideshow of photos that passengers had submitted (unfortunately, I misunderstood how to submit mine). There was also an auction of a specially-decorated flag from the ship to benefit the crew welfare fund and of a didgeridoo from Goyma’s family, the proceeds from which went back to his family. Happily, both auctions produced high bids for the beneficiaries.
For dinner, Dave and Jan were kind enough to join us in the COVID dining area for our final dinner on the Orion. It was a particularly good dinner, and we witnessed a beautiful sunset and moonset.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Friday, June 7, 2024
I checked in with Dr. Bob early this morning to remind him that I needed to be checked and cleared to take today’s helicopter flight to Mitchell Falls. He told me that I had been diagnosed too recently and had to be removed from the flight list. I was disappointed. I pointed out that I had been diagnosed at 7:45 a.m. the previous day, and the cutoff time was given as 8:00. But after further consultation, he called back and said I was good to go because the helicopter ride was somewhat after 8:00.
We made a Zodiac boat transfer to a nearby beach. A few minutes later, three helicopters landed on the beach. We met our pilot and were given a safety briefing (tl;dr: STAY AWAY FROM THE SPINNING ROTORS). Dave and Jan were the other passengers on the helicopter with us. I had the left front seat next to the pilot (who sat on the right, as if we were flying on the left side of the sky).
With an open window next to me, the view was, as expected, gorgeous (both in the sense of attractiveness and the presence of gorges). We rode the 30 miles up the Mitchell River to the falls, mostly admiring the terrain as no particular animals were visible.
On arrival, we hiked up a short trail to get several good views of Mitchell Falls. We had enough time to explore the rocky terrain in the area before returning to the helicopter landing area for our trip back to the beach. The return trip was equally awesome.
For lunch, I joined in with others who had also tested COVID-positive and ate separately from others on the observation deck. This precaution was taken because, even though we were eating outside, eating is one of the times when it is easiest to spread the virus. The upper deck was enjoyable and quiet, although we noticed that several people who we knew had tested positive weren’t there.
After lunch, we had an informative lecture and a trip to another native art site. This schedule was coordinated with another (somewhat larger) ship in the area, Le Jacques Cartier, that we had also seen this morning when visiting Mitchell Falls. Unfortunately, the art site wasn’t big enough to accommodate both ships simultaneously, and we went second. The tide was very low when we went, so we had a very long (and delayed) zodiac boat ride to shore. We had to climb shore rocks to get to where the art was, which was slow for some visitors.
There was quite a bit of Indigenous art to look at, but before we could see it all, an urgent call was put out to return to the zodiac boats because the tide had fallen further. We climbed back down the rocks and waded out farther to reach the zodiac boats. We were disappointed not to have enough time to admire the rest of the art.
Today’s delicious dinner was an “Aussie BBQ” with all the trimmings, which I ate with my fellow COVID patients. After dinner, there was a talent show featuring many of the cooks, waiters, and porters from the hotel staff. It was a nice way to introduce them more personally.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Thursday, June 6, 2024
I felt a little stuffy this morning, and given the ship’s COVID outbreak, I decided to get tested. I called Dr. Bob, the ship’s doctor, who came by with a couple of swabs, one for me and one for Kenna. A few minutes later, he called back with the result: I had tested positive, but Kenna was negative. He returned a little while later to check my vitals, listen to my lungs, and deliver Paxlovid, which I had taken on both of my previous COVID cases.
The ship’s protocol for handling this was straightforward: I needed to isolate myself in our room for 24 hours, and Kenna should stay away as much as possible. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus appeared on my cabin door. I selected meals, which were delivered to me in the room. Since the cruise ends on Sunday, I will need to wear a mask on the ship for a few days for the rest of the cruise.
Kenna went out to eat with the rest of the ship (specifically with Jan and Dave, whom we had spent time with) and then went on the day’s activities. The morning activity was a ride to see Thor’s Hammer, a tall sandstone rock formation. Kenna’s Zodiac was piloted by Karla, the expedition leader, and paired with Kurt, the geologist, in another Zodiac. Between the two, the group got a good geology lesson with specimens of quartz crystals that Karla borrowed from a rocky outcrop where they stopped.
The afternoon excursion was their best opportunity to see crocodiles as the tide was going out on Porosus Creek. They were still a little early, but after a while finally got a few sightings including a chance to watch a crocodile devour a crab, before having to return to the ship.
There was also a briefing for tomorrow’s helicopter trip. The helicopter company was consulted to see if they would permit masked Covid-positive people on the helicopters, and they said it was OK, provided they were diagnosed before 8 am today (I was diagnosed about 7:45). Whew. I will still need to be checked to see if I’m running a fever (I wasn’t today), so my fingers are crossed that I can go.
My day was mostly spent reading and doing consulting work since I had to stay in the cabin anyway.
In the evening, Kenna was told they had found another place for her to sleep to minimize her exposure. It is a cabin for harbor pilots to use when necessary. We appreciate the creativity of the hotel manager, Fran, in finding this for her. Fran has been amazing through this entire cruise, and this evening brought Kenna a night light to use in the temporary cabin.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Today’s breakfast came with an announced request to allow the COVID-infected people to pick up breakfast first, after which they would clean the serving utensils and invite the rest of us for breakfast. We were asked to wash our hands at a sink on the back deck to limit any further spread.
Today’s activities consisted of two outings in Zodiac boats, which we just toured and didn’t land anywhere. The morning cruise was around a few nearby islands and into a mangrove-lined area where we hoped to see some crocodiles. We didn’t see any, but we did see some birds and the stunning local geology, and we were treated to some more stories from Goyma, our indigenous guide, who happened to be on our zodiac boat.
Around lunchtime, I ran into Dr. Bob, our ship physician. He said there was a “trickle” of additional COVID cases but that some had recovered, none of the existing cases were severe, and most patients were taking Paxlovid. This is probably appropriate considering most passengers’ ages (we estimate the median age at 73).
After another ship repositioning, we were off on zodiac boats to Montgomery Reef, a unique reef formation. The reef is just below sea level at high tide but emerges more than several feet above water level, to the delight of birds and other creatures. We saw several turtles in the water and many birds (mostly egrets) on the reef and in the air. During the approximately 90 minutes we were there, the reef went from just emerging from the water to over 10 feet above water level, with very substantial amounts of water draining from the edges of the reef.
As we were leaving, we noticed a zodiac boat flying the Lindblad/National Geographic flag. Sure enough, we pulled up alongside it and were treated to tropical drinks served from a punchbowl before our ride back to the Orion.
Dinner was again outside and comfortable; meals will probably be outside for the rest of the cruise. After dinner, they arranged to shut off the lights in one area of the ship and held a star party. We easily saw the Southern Cross, as expected, but also the Big Dipper, except it was pointing down to Polaris, which was below the horizon.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Bigge Island (pronounced “biggie”) is named for someone named Bigge although the island is big. It is the home for some more Gwion Gwion (ancient) and Wandjina (newer) rock art. Starting from the beach where we landed, we took a short hike to the art sites, with narration by our guides, particularly our indigenous guide, Goyma. I practiced some of the photography skills taught by our photo experts at some lectures earlier in the trip, with some success.
After lunch (and some repositioning of the Orion), we landed at a different beach with a few boab trees. This included a huge and notable tree called the Mermaid Tree, around which a low platform had been built to protect its roots, much as has been done around some giant sequoia trees in California.
We then walked further along the trail to where a couple of “parade grounds” built by bower birds were located. The bower bird is very plain-looking, so to impress a potential mate, it creates a straw tunnel and decorates its approach with local materials. These aren’t nests, just ways to attract a mate.
Returning to the ship, we found menus tucked into four doors across the hall, indicating additional COVID cases had been found. Dinner was moved outside to the aft deck, which was very comfortable and pleasant, but a lot of work for the staff since the galley is downstairs, necessitating a lot of shuttling back and forth.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
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