What the heck is a desuperheater?

In an e-mail the other day, someone referred to the "desuperheater" on their geothermal heat pump. What in the world, I thought, is a desuperheater?  I was still feeling proud of myself for figuring out what a geothermal heat pump was (see blog post below) and now someone puts a whole new word into the mix!  And it is such a strange word.  Desuperheater.  You can't really de-construct it to figure out its meaning.  So I did what any self-respecting citizen of the world would do, I googled it.  

A desuperheater, it turns out, is a device that works along with a geothermal heat pump system to provide hot water to a home or other building at ALMOST NO ENERGY COST!  So not only do geothermal heat pumps heat your home in the winter and cool your home in the summer, and save approximately 40% of your energy costs in the process, but you can add a desuperheater to the system and have cheap hot water to boot!  There are times in life when I really feel that I am living in the future.  I think Al Gore is right, we have the technology to end global warming, we just need to put it to use!

I am not an engineer, so even after reading multiple articles I really don't totally understand how a desuperheater works, but apparently heat is a byproduct of the heat pump unit that lives in your home when you have a geothermal heat pump system.  Maybe this is especially so in the summer.  Anyway, I guess a desuperheater uses that excess heat to create hot water at fraction of the cost that a conventional hot water heater would use.  Damn!  That is so cool!  So there is a house not one block away from my home that is currently having a geothermal heat pump system WITH A DESUPERHEATER installed.  I am definitely having a "living in the future" moment.  

Comments

[Chris Hamlin-Beight]

But How much is a geothermal heat pump system? How long does that take to recoup the cost?

Chris

[TC]

A geothermal heat pump system can cost $15,000 or more. But if you have monthly heating bills of over $1,000, like some of my neighbors, it can pay for itself pretty darn quickly.