GE Appliances opens hybrid water heater plant

The GeoSpring team assembles the first GeoSpring hybrid water heaters to come off the line in the new Louisville, Ky., manufacturing facility. Photo credit: Kelly Faloon/Plumbing & Mechanical.

Recently I attended a “first-off-the-line” event at Louisville, Ky.-based GE Appliances. The event celebrated the launch of GE’s new Energy Star-qualified GeoSpring hybrid water heater. The new 50-gallon GeoSpring is an upgrade from the 2009 original - it combines heat-pump technology with conventional electric heating systems found in modern water heaters, reduces energy consumption by 62% from conventional electric water heaters, and can save the average consumer $325 each year, according to Steve Downer, GE product general manager, water products.

Downer and members of the GeoSpring team talked to reporters the day before the factory event to explain the lean manufacturing concepts used to open the GeoSpring manufacturing facility, which is the first to open at Appliance Park in 50 years. The $38 million investment in GeoSpring is part of GE’s total $1 billion commitment to the GE Appliances’ business, as well as the creation of 1,300 new jobs in the United States by 2014. For the GeoSpring, 100 hourly jobs were added as well as 10 salaried employees.

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Kelly Faloon was a former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical as well as the BNP Media Plumbing Group’s Integrated Content Development Specialist. She also was a former editor of the Radiant Comfort Guide the Radiant & Hydronics Report — both official publications of the Radiant Professionals Alliance — and twice-monthly Radiant & Hydronics eNews, an enewsletter for anyone interested in the world of heating with hot water.

Her editorial specialties included women in plumbing, recruiting for the trades, green construction techniques, water conservation, water treatment, hydronic heating, radiant heating and cooling, snow melt, solar thermal and geothermal.

After a 3½-year stint at sister publication Supply House Times, Faloon joined the PM staff in December 2001 as senior editor. She was named PM’s managing editor in 2006 and editor in 2013.

Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.

A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a 1986 journalism graduate of Michigan State University.