US Patent Issued to Rheem Manufacturing on Nov. 4 for "Defrost systems and methods for heat pump water heaters" (Alabama Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,460,849, issued on Nov. 4, was assigned to Rheem Manufacturing Co. (Atlanta).

"Defrost systems and methods for heat pump water heaters" was invented by Alex Williams (Montgomery, Ala.) and Piyush Porwal (Montgomery, Ala.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A heat pump water heater can include a refrigerant circuit, an evaporator coil in fluid communication with the refrigerant circuit, a fan configured to move air across the evaporator coil, one or more temperature sensors, a heating element located proximate an air flow path between the fan and the evaporator, and a controller. The controller can be configured to receive temperature data from...