AirTap™
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Imagine a water heater that heats its water–not by gas, nor by electricity–but simply by the air surrounding it. Your power or gas bills would be significantly lower, and you would be doing the environment a service by conserving a considerable amount of energy. The AirTap™ does just this. Once connected to your existing water heater, the AirTap™ unit acts as a conventional heat pump, using a compressor (powered by a low-wattage electric current) to extract heat from the surrounding air, and then sending this heat through long copper tubes into an adaptor where it is dispersed in your water tank. This, in turn, heats the water to the same degree as would a gas burner or electric heating component, distributing the hot water throughout your home safely and efficiently. If it takes four units of energy to heat water, AirTap™ utilizes one unit from an electric outlet, and three units from the surrounding air, reducing your energy consumption by about 2.5 times that of your current water heater. To put into perspective, AirTap™ uses less power than an 8-cup coffee machine to run the compressor, and its energy consumption level is equivalent to keeping two coffee machines on for a day. In many states, the Department of Energy offers rebate incentives for households that use AirTap in place of their current water heater. |
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Why AirTap™?
We asked ourselves why a consumer should be limited to just two choices of water heaters.
Both require heavy amounts of energy per day, adding to the increasing amount of carbon emissions, let alone
your utilities bill. Thankfully we’ve designed an alternative: one that uses a much more natural, renewable
source of heat and saves you hundreds of dollars a year in energy costs.
According to the US Department of Energy, the average American household with a
typical water heater (gas or electric) spends about 14-25% of its energy costs on heating water alone.
(US Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.)
With the AirTap™ installed onto your existing water heater, you will reduce this percentage by about half.
Even the current “alternative” water heaters are highly inefficient: tankless water heaters have an initial and
operating cost 3 times that of the AirTap™. In addition to the high cost of the unit itself, the homeowner may be
required to increase the electric service capacity of their home due to the massive electric load these tankless water
heaters use.
Solar paneled water heaters are also a pain on the pocketbook: the initial cost of a solar water heater system is 8
times as expensive as the AirTap™, while requiring the same amount of electricity to provide hot water on cloudy days.
What’s more is that the environmental benefits of the AirTap™ are the same.
Operating Cost of Various Water Heating Systems:
The table below compares the initial and operating costs of various water heating systems. As shown, the AirTap™ yields
the lowest total cost.
After the first year, the AirTap™ will continue saving you $200 or $300 every year for gas or electric water heaters, respectively. Average savings are for a typical 4-person family. Depending on the cost of energy in your area and the amount of hot water you use, these savings can reach up to $500 or more every year.
If every household attached AirTap™ to their current water heaters, over 75 million tons of pollutants could be removed from the environment per year, and could save over $5 billion per year.
In addition to these benefits, AirTap™ also releases cool air which can be ducted into your household as a means of air conditioning, and acts as a dehumidifier, removing any condensation that may form around the AirTap™ unit. Energy Efficiency of AirTap™ The table below shows the efficiency of the AirTap™ under different temperatures. Note the high efficiency, even at freezing temperatures.
