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High-Efficiency Hot Water Systems for Student Housing

Lower Costs. Lower Emissions.  Reliable Hot Water

Student housing creates significant, predictable hot-water demand—often concentrated in the morning and evening. WaterDrop Systems are engineered for these high-demand environments.

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Our factory-assembled COâ‚‚ heat-pump water-heating systems help colleges and universities reduce energy consumption, control operating costs, eliminate on-site combustion, and advance campus sustainability goals.

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Image by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

Reducing Water-Heating Costs

Domestic hot water can be a substantial operating expense for residence halls. WaterDrop Systems use high-efficiency heat pumps to produce hot water with less energy than conventional electric-resistance equipment.

Thermal storage allows the system to heat water ahead of peak demand and store it until students need it. This can help institutions:

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  • Reduce water-heating energy consumption

  • Take advantage of lower-cost utility periods

  • Reduce exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility

  • Avoid unnecessary equipment oversizing

  • Improve long-term building economics

Actual savings depend on the building, climate, utility rates, and existing system. WaterDrop can help evaluate the potential financial benefits for each project.

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Support Campus Sustainability Goals

WaterDrop provides an all-electric alternative to fossil-fuel-fired water heating. Eliminating on-site combustion reduces direct building emissions and supports campus electrification and decarbonization plans.

WaterDrop Systems use COâ‚‚, or R-744, a natural refrigerant with a global warming potential of one. The systems can help institutions:

  • Reduce direct greenhouse-gas emissions

  • Advance carbon-neutral or net-zero commitments

  • Support ESG and sustainability reporting

  • Prepare for evolving energy codes

  • Make greater use of renewable electricity

  • Reduce the climate impact associated with refrigerants

Green Facade Building

Simplify Installation and Operations

Traditional central hot-water plants are often assembled on-site from components supplied by several manufacturers. WaterDrop shifts much of that complexity into a controlled manufacturing environment.

Each system is engineered, assembled, integrated, and tested before delivery. This provides colleges and project teams with:

  • Fewer field-built connections

  • Less coordination between trades

  • Reduced installation and commissioning risk

  • Integrated controls and monitoring

  • Centralized maintenance

  • One source for system-level support

WaterDrop offers complete centralized Skids as well as modular Droplet systems for retrofits, phased upgrades, and projects with limited space.

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Success in Senior Housing 

Kingsview Manor | Fresno, California | 106 senior affordable homes
63,150 sq. ft. | All-electric DHW retrofit

Kingsview Manor needed to replace two central gas-fired water-heating plants serving its senior housing community.
 

The existing system was experiencing significant energy losses associated with constant recirculation, poorly insulated piping and hot/cold crossover. The project also faced a physical challenge: the existing mechanical room did not have the space or structural capacity required for the thermal storage needed for the new central heat-pump system.
 

The project team selected packaged WaterDrop systems and moved the new hot-water plants outdoors.
 

Two WaterDrop systems were installed, each incorporating nine COâ‚‚ heat pumps, a 505-gallon primary storage tank and a 120-gallon swing tank. Additional heat-pump capacity was incorporated into the design to accommodate future increases in occupancy.

The Result:
Three Days. Three Hours of Downtime.

The WaterDrop installation was completed in three days.  Actual hot-water downtime was approximately three hours.

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For an occupied senior housing community, the project provides a powerful example of how factory-built central heat pump water heating can reduce the disruption associated with a major DHW system replacement.

Data Visualization Dashboard

5pm-8pm

DAILY

“Using a factory-built heat pump skid  eliminates field installation errors and installation uncertainty and dramatically reduced construction timelines relative to a site built system.”

John Neal, Association for Energy Affordability

 Planning a Senior Housing Project?

Whether you are designing a new senior living community or evaluating replacement of an existing central gas-fired water-heating plant, WaterDrop can help determine whether packaged central heat pump water heating is a good fit for the project.

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