New heat pump water heater for space-constrained housing

Many water heater closets in manufactured and multi-family homes cannot accommodate heat pump water heaters (HPWH) as HPWH have a larger diameter than conventional gas and electric water heaters. In this Department of Energy-funded project and in collaboration with AO Smith and NRL, we are developing and integrating a new phase change material heat exchanger to increase the capacity of a 40-gallon HPWH and make it perform like a 50 or 65-gallon water heater.   

All Research Projects

Scale-up Building Retrofits

District energy forecast and controls

Energy storage to reduce energy bills and decrease vulnerability

Resilient Community Hub

Neighborhood-scale demonstration in rural Colorado

Building Envelopes

Design of attainable housing maximizing ponderosa pine cross-laminated timber

Laboratory and field characterization of ponderosa pine mass timber envelopes

Instrumentation and benefit quantification of mass timber buildings

Space-constrained Housing

Controls to maximize heat pump water heater potential

New heat pump water heater for space-constrained housing

Resilient and flexible housing retrofit solutions

Retrofit solutions and strategies to make homes more resilient to extreme heat