If your average house only has one person showering at a time an 18 kW 3.51 GPM Tankless Electric Water Heater would work. It would cost about $500.
To replace that with Keurigs would take some work. They draw 900 to 1500 watts depending on model. So it would take between 20 and 12 Keurigs to match the power draw. I’m not sure what the inlet/outlet tubing diameters are but it seems some replacement parts labeled 1/4" so that’s half a gallon per minute max. You’d need 7 or 8 running in parallel to move enough water. Probably 21 900 watt Keurigs running in groups of 3 would come closest.
I estimate about $2000 in Keurigs plus another few hundred dollars in fittings and a lot of time to reproduce a purpose built $500 water heater.
And of course Keurigs break frequently and you’d definitely void any warranty.
Good luck!
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Not as many as you think, a water heater only has 3 times the electrical capacity of a standard wall outlet. So probably less than 6 Keurigs, but you’d need them on three (or more) separate circuits otherwise you’d blow the breakers.
RankWeis@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Thank you, I love the internet. Was discussing this with my roommate and didn’t know where else to ask!
tmRgwnM9b87eJUPq@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Just to add: they should not be chained, but they should run in parallel.
Qwazpoi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If we’re looking into their heating capacity they should be able to heat approximately 7 and 1/2 gallons of water an hour. A lower end water heater can supply about 85 gallons of water per hour so you’d need about 11 of them to meet a small house capacity.
If we’re looking at their water holding capacity and power consumption. The average house has a 40-60 gallon water heater and a Keurig has a 48oz reservoir. 10 Keurigs would give you around 4 gallons of hot water. You would need 107 to get to a 40 gallons capacity. When heating they use 1500 watts according to the Internet, so you’d need 160,500 watts (or 1,345.75 amps) of Keurigs to be the equivalent of a low end water heater for a house. The average 40 gallon heater uses between 4500 and 5500 watts.
AstralPath@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I get real Technology Connections-guy vibes from this response. Thanks for the math stranger :)
mojo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You say between 6 and 10, the other commenter said 427. I don’t know what to think!
Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The other one is just comparing volume.
This post is just basing it on heat capacity.
There’s another saying 34 equating it to a tank less heater.
The original question is too vague - there’s no one to one mapping between keurigs and water heaters. If you’re just trying to heat your houses hot water, any of those answers are valid. So is “1”. It’s just a question of what you REALLY want and what your constraints are.