The Genius Of Hot Water Heat Pumps
Vložit
- čas přidán 4. 03. 2024
- The Genius Of Hot Water Heat Pumps. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code UNDECIDED for an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/undecided Today is a really hot topic: heat pump water heaters. No, it’s not sexy, but water heater technology is kind of ingenious with its simplicity. A typical electric water heater has two heating elements; one near the bottom and one near the top, all housed in a very well insulated cylinder. As cold water is fed in near the bottom of the tank, the hot water is pushed out near the top. It’s also pretty simple efficiency-wise. For each unit of electricity that’s used, you get one unit of heat energy added to the water.
However, my water heater is wearing one additional piece of technology on top … like a hat. It’s a heat pump. That means for every unit of electricity I’m spending I’m getting 3 to 4 units of heat added to the water. It’s way more efficient than any electric or natural gas water heater you can get, but hybrid heat pump water heaters have some quirks and challenges. Also, my setup is a little unique … like … what’s that strange mini-me version of a water heater sitting next to it?
Watch Why Everyone is Wrong about the Apple Vision Pro (including me) • Why Everyone is Wrong ...
Paul Braren's experience with the Rheem noise issue:
tinkertry.com/three-year-heat...
Corrections:
08:49 - I've updated one of the charts used in the video. I converted therms to kWh for the gas vs. electric energy use chart. It's now truly apples to apples, which highlights how inefficient gas is vs. electric. But it also highlights how dirt cheap gas heating is! Updated chart is on my website (link below).
Video script and citations:
undecidedmf.com/the-genius-of...
Get my achieve energy security with solar guide:
link.undecidedmf.com/solar-guide
Follow-up podcast:
Video version - / @stilltbd
Audio version - bit.ly/stilltbdfm
Join the Undecided Discord server:
link.undecidedmf.com/discord
👋 Support Undecided on Patreon!
/ mattferrell
⚙️ Gear & Products I Like
undecidedmf.com/shop/
Visit my Energysage Portal (US):
Research solar panels and get quotes for free!
link.undecidedmf.com/energysage
And find heat pump installers near you (US):
link.undecidedmf.com/energysa...
Or find community solar near you (US):
link.undecidedmf.com/communit...
For a curated solar buying experience (Canada)
EnergyPal's free personalized quotes:
energypal.com/undecided
Tesla Referral Code:
Get 1,000 free supercharging miles
or a discount on Tesla Solar & Powerwalls
ts.la/matthew84515
👉 Follow Me
Mastodon
mastodon.social/@mattferrell
X
/ mattferrell
/ undecidedmf
Mastodon
mastodon.social/@mattferrell
Instagram
/ mattferrell
/ undecidedmf
Facebook
/ undecidedmf
Website
undecidedmf.com
📺 CZcams Tools I Recommend
Audio file(s) provided by Epidemic Sound
bit.ly/UndecidedEpidemic
TubeBuddy
www.tubebuddy.com/undecided
VidIQ
vidiq.com/undecided
I may earn a small commission for my endorsement or recommendation to products or services linked above, but I wouldn't put them here if I didn't like them. Your purchase helps support the channel and the videos I produce. Thank you. - Věda a technologie
If you have a heat pump water heater, what's been your experience? Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code UNDECIDED for an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/undecided
If you liked this, check out Why Everyone is Wrong about the Apple Vision Pro (including me) czcams.com/video/FTVpISHL-y4/video.html
Correction: I've updated one of the charts used in the video. I converted therms to kWh for the gas vs. electric energy use chart. It's now truly apples to apples, which highlights how inefficient gas is vs. electric. But it also highlights how dirt cheap gas heating is! Updated chart is on my website in the article: undecidedmf.com/the-genius-of-hot-water-heat-pumps/
Love your content! You are great! Thank you
Why not get a tankless water heater?
Though you state how "meat locker cold" your utility room is, you make no mention of attempting to cool your house using the Rheem. It would save additional monies by cooling your house for free while allowing the Rheem access to a much greater volume of air from which to extract heat to heat your water.
i installed one in 2019. Love it, electricity use went way down. It was really easy to install too.
legionnaires disease is the issue you really likely to run into with a heat pump system you need to have your water heated too and moved around your system at at least 160F to kill the bactreia and most heat pumps heat the water to 130-140F and that's at the output not at the return point so the last sections of your system will never have water anywhere near the needed tempeture so you need to have the system flushed from time to time or you need to run a hybrid system of heat pump and old gas or oil heater to kill off the bacteria that gives legionnaires disease
As an HVAC guy I would like to point out something that is sort of glossed over here that can be a either a benefit or an annoyance mostly based off of climate and location. The concept for a heat pump comes down to moving heat is cheaper than generating it. That heat is coming from somewhere. In a standard heater it's coming from your utility. With this it is coming from your home air which is coming from your heater. I'm in Texas so for the vast majority of time, this is great as we are trying to cool the air anyways. In your situation it's great because you have the most efficient heater available. For someone in a drafty house that already has issues keeping temps in the cold north... Not so much. In our first to situations it is worth the added cost and complexity of more moving parts that will break and are not built to be easily serviced (at least not on the refrigerant circuit side). But this is a minor improvement to be done after focusing on things like passive saving with insulation and upgrading the highest energy consumers like your HVAC system. I do plan on installing one of these at my house and we have done a few for customers with standard water heaters in a hallway closet that vented directly into the houses air. So far so good! We're getting more options for these all the time. Great video and I want to secretly live in your maintenance room!
I came to the comments to mention this. Where I live we heat for 9 months of the year. We heat mostly with NG forced air. I have a small kitchenet in my utility room. I heat that room with NG. In the summer it's already too cool in that room, So big fat nope for me ever getting one of these. What I do have is a direct vent ICB tank-less water heater. Check out the new ICB line up. Designed by techs for ease of maintenance. Only 4 moving parts and all easy to get at. Blows away my 13 year Noritz. What a pos that was. I'm glad my Noritz blew out the heat exchanger and I got a new IBC. It uses gas for freeze protect unlike the Noritz that used resistive heaters and often froze up. Last winter I got to test my IBC in minus 40 and it never frooze up once.
You don’t have to locate these in conditioned space. Ours is in the crawlspace. We heat 9 months a year and have no problems with HPWH and a mini-split/forced air heat pump heating the house. Saved enough over oil and electric resistance to charge our car.
Based ON climate and location. You cannot base something off of something else. Great comment though! Take my upvote!
@@mountjoyvYou don't have to put them in conditioned space if you have some unconditioned space to put them in.
@@mountjoyvefficiency plummets with cooler intake air. Even inside it's already dropping substantially, but throw freezing or subfreezing air at it and most HWHP will be approaching a COP of 1. They just struggle in cold climates, you still need to obey physics.
These water heaters in southern climates in garages are amazing. Basically free AC for your garage. Work amazing.
Yeah, it's either free AC while it heats, free hot water while it cools. Whichever suits. Here for whatever reason we put them outside though (all types of hot water heaters go outside). Guessing it's the comparatively mild climate.
You can also get versions that only need a 120v outlet, since it requires so much less effort to pull the heat in the south.
That is huge to know. I live in Las Vegas, if I can get "free" or by product cooled garage, I am one happy indiviual.
@@da3dsoul Yes those are really to be a direct replacement of a gas water heater with only a 120v outlet nearby.
They heat the water much slower in backup element mode than the 220v 20A ones do which are electric only replacements.
I have mine in the attic and I closed off a section above my spray foam area to be outside but under the roof.
It's super efficient in the summer due to roof temps getting around 120-140F, also heats way faster in heat pump only mode.
Been working great like that for 12 years now and has saved the cost of 2200$ at the time 4 or 5 times over in electricity.
I have the 80 gallon State water or AOsmith version, really happy with it over a standard water heater.
I live in Nova Scotia. I installed a 50 gal Heat Pump Water Heater in 2018 but I didn't remove my old 50 gal Electric Water Heater. Instead I have the cold feed supplying the HPWH and the HPWH feeding the EWH. That way the HPWH does the majority of the heating and the EWH just keeps the water at temperature. Doing that immediately cut my household electricity costs by a third and doubled the amount of hot water available to me. Thus no problems with recovery time. And the basement is well ventilated. So I have no regrets. It's worked very well over the last six years.
Many years ago as a kid I lived in a house in Quebec that had a solar water heater that preheated water for the electric water heater in a configuration similar to yours. The solar wasn't solar-electric, it instead pumped water through a glass panel on the roof that was directly heated by sunlight to warm it up & return to the tank (like a greenhouse for warming water). It worked pretty well, even in winter & cloudy days.
I don't know if they make stuff like that anymore, today a thermopump would probably be the way to go like you did.
@@WhiskyCanuckYes they are still around, I'm currently running a DX drainback system. When the roof panel temp. hits correct heat temp. it kicks on pump to bring water up to panel for heating. It is a closed loop system, that heats the portable water, within a 80 gallon storage tank via internal coils. From there I connected it to my natural gas water heater of 50 gallons. End result is gas WH hardly ever kicks on (Colorado has many sunny days) . This is with only 2 roof panels.
@@WhiskyCanuck "I don't know if they make stuff like that anymore,"...... Uhhhhhhh WHAT? as soon as you make one, you will own it---- outright. So what's the Q? Do you need some CZcams tips on how to make it?
@karlwithak. Did I forget to mention that I get twice as much hot water, I didn't have to pay to take the old water heater out, AND I save more like $30 per month? For an installed cost of about $2,000, giving a low-risk ROI of somewhere around 18%. Tax-free.
Sure, it's not the biggest item on my budget but every little counts.
@@DerekRoss1958 And you already had the 50-gallon tank as a sunk cost. Not the most sophisticated set-up, but why not use what you have and save a few bucks?
I had a Rheem heat pump water heater installed in my Florida garage in 2012. Worked great in heat pump only mode year round until the compressor had problems at about the 9 year mark. After the heat pump broke, the unit still worked great with just standard water heater heating elements though until I could get proper support for the device. Long story short, no plumbers want to touch these water heaters for repair. I called Rheem support line and they confirmed that the heat pumps are sealed units with no parts replacements possible. They sent me a brand new unit (which was a nice upgrade too) for free as mine was still under warranty. I was able to get a few bucks at the recycler due to the compressor and other copper parts while turning in my dead unit. Love these things and as I learned, it is nice to have two heating systems built in of one breaks.
oh man, in someplace like Florida, that's practically cheating. Take some of the heat and moisture out of the air in the garage for free while heating your water? I feel like that should become standard for new builds.
@@KMCA779Totally agree. It is awesome for Florida.
9 years seems OK. My gas water heater also needed repairs at that age.
@@KMCA779 I'm in FL and have an air conditioner in the garage to control humidity and keep all my toys and tools from rusting. I wonder if this water heater would run long enough to actually dehumidify the garage.
Being able to replace the heat-pump part without getting a whole new tank would be good, as the tank should last for decades. I did see a manufacturer taking that route recently. Maybe it was mixergy?
I've had a heat pump hot water heater for three years now. It's the same model as yours. I went from traditional electric to the heat pump and have been saving over $30 a month. I've recovered the investment and it still works great. Mine is in an un air-conditioned garage in FL so plenty of hot air to be had. It's also nice that the garage is a few degrees cooler and has much less humidity. Do make sure to clean the filter. I use a leaf blower on slow speed to blow out the coils once a year.
Thanks for sharing!
I'm in the same boat, in Florida in the garage. I have mine set to heat pump only. Looking at the numbers for efficiency - it was a no brainer for me. In the summer, with a family of 4 using a 50 gallon Rheem I have never run out of hot water. I will say in the winter in heat pump only mode if we don't plan out hot water usage we have ran out of hot water before. But keep in mind, I am not using the heating elements. It's nice to turn them on with my phone when I know we will need it. The added bonus of keeping my 2 car garage a little cooler is nice too. But I have to admit, even with the door closed - in the summer you really don't notice a difference unless you are right in front of the fan. Now during the winter, I do notice the garage is a lot cooler. All in all, I'm 100% happy with it. One big thing I was surprised you didn't mention in your video is the need to have a drain for the water it pulls from the air. That might be a big one for people, something to consider. I love the leaf blower idea - that for sharing, I'll have to try that out!!!
@matty6212 yeah using air from my compressor was a bit too much the leaf blower was perfect. I notice less humidity more than cooling in summer as well.
Same exact experience in Alabama -- same Rheem unit in a garage. Saving money every month & the garage being cooler is a nice bonus. It's easy to address extra demand when we have company using the phone app. I check the filter every month, and I've been surprised to see how clean it stays.
I was going to ask this same question. I live in FL and my water heater is in an un airconditioned garage. Was looking at hybrid to replace it down the line. Is there a big swing in power demand between summer and winter? Do you see an efficiency drop in the winter when it gets cold?
If you pair your hp water heater in the same room as an inverter/solar system the extra heat from the inverter fans can provide the air heat to supply the room with energy for the water heater to consume. Also keeps the inverter room cool. Thats a symbiotic mechanical relationship
Living in Australia that would seem to be a significant advantage.
I have a boiler for hot water and radiators and a server rack that makes some heat. I think a heat pump water heater will be nice and comfortable living in my basement.
Yeah…. Nah. Read the specs and charts on a heat pump. That inverter doesn’t generate enough heat for the HP to work efficiently.
It’s best to have the HP in a warm/hot environment so the heat exchange is more efficient.
@@peteaulitWhile the highest efficiency would be achieved in warm space, that doesn’t mean very good efficiency (compared to conventional electric or gas) can’t still be achieved in a cool space.
I've been thinking about moving some of my server gear in there. They'd benefit from the cooler space and the heat pump would benefit from the heat they generate.
Plumber here, i've installed maybe 10 of these...they're pretty cool, downside is the inlet and outlet are on the side of the tank, it makes installation a little tricky to look neat and organized. Also they have an extra step since the condensate needs to be piped to the floor drain....One small downside for end users is that the filter needs to be cleaned once monthly where a tank water heater only needs maintenance once a year.
So if the heat pump water heater had a FREON leak, would you be able to diagnose what was causing the problem and repair it? Would you need an HVAC person to come in and use their FREON leak detector or bubble leak detector, braze the leaky component closed, pull a vacuum and then and the proper weighed in amount of FREON charge? Or would you just tell the customer it's busted and they need a new one? Are there even FREON ports on the thing where you could plug in a FREON pressure gauge to see if the compressor and evaporator coils are working? I'm worried that if I buy one and it breaks just a few days after the warranty expires, if anybody could fix it for something tricky like a FREON leak, or does it just end up in the landfill if that happens?
@andytraiger4079 Just like your refrigerator, it's a factory sealed system. This is the operating model, which is different than the typical HVAC model that you describe above.
@@andytraiger4079 I'm sure it has no ports to hook up gauges up to. It probably can be fixed, but if rebates and incentives are still in effect when it dies, it'll be cheaper to chuck it into the landfill. No just draining the tank and replacing a heater element. But typically coolant leaks don't happen on sealed systems after the warranty expires. More likely the compressor dies.
@@andytraiger4079 you got a point there...if that top part busted i would have no idea what to do...but they seem pretty robust, i haven't gotten any follow up calls on any ive previously installed; the first one was probably like 2017. they do have the electric coils that will turn on like a standard WH if the heat pump is not able to warm the water quickly enough, so i guess if the heat pump part breaks your just left with a standard WH. One big downfall is that it has a computer built into it...and when that inevitably breaks i bet its expensive to replace. Just curious why do you capitalize FREON? is it an acronym and if it is, what does it stand for?
@@jonathandevries2828 Nah, Freon is a name brand of refrigerant, it shouldn't be capitalized. I was just trying to emphasize that I was concerned about Freon pressure (or more correctly, refrigerant pressure) and not water pressure. I have no idea what type of refrigerant these things use. It's probably NOT Freon since Freon is being phased out. If I had to guess it would be R134a like is used in refrigerators and cars. I find when talking to people about HVAC stuff, it's more useful to refer to the refrigerant in the system as Freon, even if it's something else. Because most people know what Freon is, but they may have never heard the word "refrigerant" before.
I'm about to need a new water heater and I've been thinking about the heat pump water heater; but it gets me a little concerned that it might not be worth the investment if the heat pumps on those things tend to fail after a couple of years.
A few years ago I came across a video of a guy who used a modified water heater tank filled with phase change material that was heated via a solar setup on his roof.
The phase change material had a higher thermal capacity than water and served as a thermal battery for heating and hot water production.
Even though the system is reliant on the sun..... it could be boosted with a heat pump in times of need.
Out off all the heating and hot water systems I've witnessed - this guys was the best, most efficient and cost effective I've ever seen. & I've seen a lot... including a farmer using a pile of manure and a coil of copper pipe to produce hot water.
My grandfather had a sun room built on the side of his 2 story house, with large boulders in the bottoms as a heat sync, and copper coils in it, going to a second water heater tank that would recirculate the water through the coils and feed the main water heater. He would get free hot water all summer. the sun room was 2 stories and the other end of the house was the stairs, it would circulate air in a loop all through the house.
@@stevenjohnson1409here in Oakland ca where earthquakes are expected I use a 40 gallon gas water heater not hooked up as a storage tank to feed my water heater. So it is refreshed whenever I use hot water. I added a solar powered computer fan on top pulling air through the exhaust. It does not do much for heater but it help draw ambient air which is warmer than the water coming in.
There's a company in the UK called Sunamp that makes phase change thermal storage but for some reason their domestic gear isn't compatible with solar thermal.
For the total water heater results; you also need to include the make-up heat in the home; the heat pump's CoP is driven by the heat generated in the home; so you need to additionally measure the furnace usage increase over the same period. In the case of a ground-source-heat-pump; the additional cost will be in electricity costs (extra pump / compressor / fan time)
This is my question. In colder climates, in the winter that heat is coming from somewhere. And if you heat with gas, you have a gas water heater with extra steps for however many months of the year you run the heat. In summer, maybe that evens out with less ac usage?
@@davidh2186 couldn't you just flip it to resistive heating mode during the winter? Our water heater is in the basement and a kid left the walkout door open one day when it was about -5c outside. By the time I found it the basement was freezing, but the rest of the house was fine, I can't imagine a hpwp chilling our basement more than that.
@@davidh2186 You still benefit from the COP of the heat pump watt for watt. That's wattage *scavenged* from the HVAC that otherwise would've ultimately radiated away. It's sort of like a thermal drip pan, hanging on longer to the heat you've already paid for.
This is a misconception about heat pumps. Yes the heat pump doesn't care about where the heat is coming from, but it doesn't need to be in a "warm" room to work.
I have mini-spit AC that are also heat pumps in winter.
It gladly takes heat from the outside and pumps it inside. Outside it's 34 degrees out, while a nice 75 degrees inside. It concentrates heat. Heat is just thermal energy, even 34 degrees has plenty of thermal energy to concentrate.
For this reason though, yes you don't want to put your heat pumps in a climate controlled room.
If you move the heat-pump into the attic and scavenge the lost heat from the home... it's a massive win electrically.
As an hvac professional i "converted" an old dehumidifier into a water heater. I used it for a couple months while replacing my leaking boiler with "tankless coil" to a new boiler with a domestic tank as a zone off the boiler. Being it was DIY its recovery was slow but worked well.
You could also have used an appropriately sized window AC, getting much faster recovery.
@ronriley3752 True. But the AC unit is compact, meaning no extra space inside the cover. The dehumidifier, on the other hand, had plenty of room after removing the bucket. I was draining condensate to a floor drain anyway, so it sat on its casters and appeared nearly as designed, with the exception of a couple washing machine hoses attached to it.
You'd make a great neighbor.
They use mixing valves now. The water heater is run hot and mixed with cold at the outlet. Makes for more hot water available.
I have run the Rheem for the past five years here in Oregon. We have piped its inlet near to the ceiling of the 12foot-tall garage so as to scrape the absolutely hottest possible air into the system. The exhaust is also pumped into the garage where it is dry enough (the air...) that it quickly dries all the rain which the vehicles track in - and this is in the winter. In the summer, the effect is even more dramatic. Although I've not been tracking its consumption per se, I can assert that it''s quick to recover in either season.
Thanks for the video.
I have the exact same unit (just at 65g instead of 50g). I'm not using the app schedule and now get ready to geek out :)
I'm using home assistant to drive the schedule, with a bunch of automations:
1) I have a very short schedule, basically 6am to 10am to get water ready for the morning shower
2) The rest of the time the unit is forced off
3) When nobody is at home, water heater is off
4) When I start my work out on Pelton, water heater comes on to get me ready for the shower
5) When water tank is less than 33% full, water heater comes on to get some water in just in case
6) When I detect humidity and presence in the bathrooms (got sensors there), water heater comes on just to make sure the shower can be complete, if water is less than 50% it goes into high demand, when the bathroom is vacated, it goes back to disabled
7) I keep it at 110F on weekdays and 130F+ on sundays to avoid bacteria
8) When I run the dishwasher or the washing machine, water heater comes on to help with heating water
This is all automatic, I'm lazy...
Looking at your numbers, you use up 3-4kWh a day. I'm sitting at 1.5/2kWh per day for a family of 4.
If you are ready to put in some little programming and sprinkle around few sensors (as I'm sure you are :p), you can extract some awesome savings from this bad boy. I'm sure you can get at least a 30% down from your numbers.
I also have my unit in the garage, in California, so I'm fully ready for summer!
Do your dishwasher/washing machine use hot water? Because I am pretty sure it is most common for them use cold, and heat it up in the machine. If that is the case, turning it on for that makes little sense.
I know one that had a whole wash ruined because something malfunctioned in his waterlines, and hot water leaked into the cold water, and the washing machine just heated it like it was cold water (why it doesn't have a temperature feeler I don't understand) - at any rate, because of that, it was boiled.
@@KrydolphMost European brands are recommending to connect the dishwasher to hot water, as the heater in a dishwasher is not as efficient as a heat pump water heater (the most common type).
110°f is to cool for safety. Most bacteria will or nearly stop reproducing at around 110°f but many won't actually die. At 115°f you'll be killing bacteria on net but it is very slow. It is why we codes in some places prevent storage below 130°f
A water flow switch is all you needed to turn it on while using water. You didn't need all of the extra stuff. They are very cheap, and far more reliable than humidity sensors.
I have no idea what you mean when you indicate that the tank is low by a percentage? Do you mean in temperature or actual water? It should never be on without being full of water.
@@Krydolphusing the HPWH to heat water for washing is more efficient. The machines use heating coils. I use solar electric for heating dishwasher water.
@@hoffinger ofc it does. But the machine needs to be able to handle it. I didn't know some could
There's actually a 'hidden' cost to heat pump water heaters. The energy to heat the water is taken from the building if it's installed indoors. This means that the home's central heating system has to work a little bit harder. In effect, your heating system is producing the heat that is pumped into the water, so that extra hidden cost needs to be factored into the equation. Basically speaking, the heat pump water heater can be considered as an added 'heat loss' in the home. In the summer time it is helping the homes A/C system, so it may be a 'wash' to some extent over the long term.
This really is a huge “but” that wasn’t covered properly. Basically if the heater is inside your building envelope, you aren’t heating with the heat pump, you are heating water with your furnace + the heat pump overhead in the winter. I can’t see in any universe how this will ever work out as a savings in those common climates and situations.
Sure in new construction with the water heater suitably placed (or people in the south with water heaters in garages) this can be a big win. But I strongly suspect lots of people will mis fire on this technology and be quite disappointed. Thermodynamics doesn’t lie.
If you heat your home with natural gas, your heat pump water heater essentially becomes a natural gas heater. I'd like to see someone run the numbers on that.
Some heat pumps have an external unit, where they can steal heat from the outside air, though the COP for for water hot enough to kill legionella, when it's well below freezing outside is closer to around 2, instead of 3-4. Other heatpump units are set up to extract waste heat from ventilation exhaust, to heat water, so that the energy you've spent to heat the house, gets to pull double duty.
In this heat pumps situation, it extracts the already heated air from the house, which yes, cools the house, however, the actual heat loss only happens when the heated water leaves the house through the waste water pipes, so any cooling that happens in between is released back into the house as uncontrolled heat.
Source: I'm an energy engineer.
You can put a tube to the outside, so you pull air from outside AND put the colder air back outside.
This is in my climate best in the winter. It still has a cop of 2.9, but i dont lose heat from inside.
@@hs0003 They can use a sanitary tank maybe? I know you can use these with air to water heat pumps.
We had a heat pump water heater for about three months. We swapped it out for an on-demand, propane water heater. There were several reasons:
1. The water heater is in a utility room that shares air with the rest of the house. The utility room was always cold and spilling cold air into the rest of the house. We live in a cold region. We were having to overcome the cold outside *and* the cold from the utility room. I looked into vent kits - simple plastic shrouds from Rheem were over $135 - just for a plastic exhaust shroud. Plus, I'd need to bore a hole through the exterior wall of the house.
2. As the water heater located in an inside space (the utility room) we heard the fan on the water heater - and ours was noisy. We had it reviewed by the installer who told us, "They all sound like that."
3. We are just two people - we now only heat water when we need it.
If we live somewhere warm and the water heater was in the garage, it would be a big, "Yes!" In our situation, the on-demand propane unit makes more sense.
Those are valid point for this specific system, but here in the Netherlands we actually use outside sources of even underground sources for both heating water and homes.
Those units may overcome the issues described, but agreed, if your natural gas usage is very low, it may not be worth the effort.
@@xFuaZehis propane heater is a Co2 factory. Water takes a lot of heat (BTUs) propane is worse than natural gas. It has to be transported. People tend to take longer showers with unlimited hot water than with a tank where you know it can run out. Heating water uses as much fuel as driving 6kkm a year.
@@hoffinger Generating electricity also generates CO2. In the US, 1 lb of CO2 is emitted for every kWh of electricity generated. It's pretty much the same for every country in the world where natural gas is the predominant source of electricity generation. If you look at Matt's chart where he compares his electricity use with the natural gas use the prior year, you see he's using 120 kWh vs 12-16 therms. One therm of natural gas emits 12.1 lbs of CO2 so you have 120 lbs of CO2 from the electricity and 144-192 lbs over the months of October to January. So while he's reduced his CO2 footprint, it's definitely not zero. Keep in mind that his old system was a tank-style non-condensing water heater which is the least efficient gas water heater (EF 0.6 to 0.7). Compare this with a condensing water heater which has an energy factor of 0.92 and the emissions are the same. Even Matt admits that this system is more efficient because he's added heat recovery from his air conditioning system so that adds cost to the installation and if it wasn't there, the electricity use would be higher as you can see from the jump in his chart. The bottom line is that (not surprisingly since there are laws of physics) the amount of energy to heat the same amount of water is the same whether you use a heat pump or a gas water heater. And since both electricity generation and burning natural gas emit CO2, you'll have the same amount of CO2 to heat the same amount of water. And before you complain that propane generates more CO2 emissions compared to natural gas, check the facts. For the same amount of energy, propane and natural gas emit practically the same amount of CO2 (one gallon of propane emits 12.6 lbs of CO2 vs 11.1 lbs for the same energy of natural gas). Not surprising since natural gas is C2H4 and propane is C3H8. And since the power grid is becoming ever more fragile due to neglect by the power companies, I'll take my natural gas water heater over a heat pump every time.
@@hoffinger Who cares? Co2 is plant food. Co2 is .0429% of the atmosphere. These trace amounts of Co2 do NOT "trap" any significant heat in the atmosphere--that's right. None. During the last ice age, Co2 was 4x higher than today. You can look that up. You have been lied to. Co2 is not a pollutant. It is a gas of life.
@@hoffinger Co2, trees love it.
I used a heat pump water heater in my condo in southern MA due to not being able to vent a natural gas tank. The heat pump tank worked well except with a family of 4, the 4th person would end up getting a cold shower. It was not really an issue since we rarely would do 4 back to back showers. I had to vent the doors leading into the utility room for the heat pump tank to get the air flow needed. It did shave a lot in cost versus the electricity bill ($75/month). The cost to recover to install was about 10 months. The brand was AO Smith. It failed twice in 6 years however. One was a coolant leak and the control board failed. Covered under warranty.
I added a 65 gallon Rheem water heater when my house was renovated - and I mean REALLY renovated. Back to the studs. Fully insulated. All electric. Solar too.
This is in the San Francisco Bay Area with a very moderate climate. The water heater is in a small basement room, which will eventually have batteries for the solar. It is vented to the crawl space on one side and a small 20 W blower vents out of the house from the other side. The room is always cool and dry. I hadn't figured on the savings from insulating everything and as a result I used 2,500 kW-hr less than I produced last year. I got a check for $249, the wholesale price of my excess, a pleasant surprise.
We have time of use rates, so the water temperature is lowered 5 degrees between 3 and 9 pm. Keeps the water heater from running. The supplied water rarely drops more than a degree or two.
@@karlwithak.Says the gentleman who failed high school physics.
@karlwithak care to go over the reasoning for your statement that insulation doesn't help maintain a homes temperature? Because the point of insulation is to stop heat from either exiting or entering a controlled system (home). The more insulation (higher R value) the less heat migrates across their fore maintaining the temperature.
TLDR: more insulation means less heat transfer = less additional heat (removal or addition) to maintain temperature.
@@karlwithak. the 80s? when single pane windows were the norm, is the best you can do? Assuming what your clame is true, as you gave me no way to check if what you are claiming is true. Really, a study from MIT in the 80s, if you are going to attempt to provide a source, at least give the name of the study, one of the authors' names, or even atleast the year. Why do we bother with insulation? Is it BIG INSULATION that is suppressing this information?
@@karlwithak.Interesting if, as @derrickfoster644 pointed out, more than a bit dated. So let us add a bit more information. This is a 1903 house that was build with wood shingles over boards on the outer walls and lath and plaster on the inside. No insulation. The 2x4's measure 2 x 4-1/4 inches, which allows for more than the usual insulation. Neither OSB nor sheetrock had been invented yet when the house was built. The rebuilding added foam in place insulation everywhere except between the ground floor and the crawl space, which is batts. The stand up attic is now conditioned space. As someone who lived in the house for years before the update, I can assure you that life is much more comfortable... and cheaper, even with four added rooms.
I have the same model installed this past summer. I live up in Canada. I put mine in the same room as my ventless heat pump clothes dryer, which actually gives off warm air. So my tank takes advantage of that heat source. I also decided to vent my output only, but I put a T on the vent. So in the summer, I dump the cold air back into my basement, and in the winter, it vents outside (using the old dryer vent location). This allows for a very balanced setup. There is only 3 people in my house, so I leave mine on heat-pump only mode, and its saved me almost $50/month compared to my old gas hot water tank. Sadly, I cant do a direct comparison, as I also switched from a gas furnace to a cold-climate heat pump at the same time, so my whole bill is entirely different. Getting PV installed this summer, cant wait to drop my bills to a few $/year.
LINT!!! plus NO FREE LUNCH! The heat is coming from inside your envelope.
I do the EXACT SAME THING!!!
Hm you vent the HP WH outside in the winter?? Im in Ontario, and have the same unit. But what you’re missing about what you described is that you’re doing yourself a disservice. You’re putting your house under negative pressure. You’re venting air from the water heater that’s maybe 16 degrees C, and in exchange, the air is balancing itself out with outside air coming in thru cracks, around the windows etc, at -5 or whatever the outdoor temp is. You can just exhaust air without expecting it to come back in. Lmk if I misunderstood, or if this this makes sense to you
I think the installation costs are worth keeping in mind.
It will vary widely based on location and circumstance, of course, but here in MN I was recently quoted $6,500 for installation of a heat pump (not including the unit's price).
That quote included things like:
- capping the natural gas line
- running upgraded electric to the water heater location
- installing up-to-code condensate management / drainage
These are costs that you will not incur if you replace like with like at least when your current heater is NG. And when water heating costs are reletively little in the first place, it can be a disuading price tag.
For myself, at least, its hard to think I cant better spend that money making improvements elsewhere.
I'm in MN, and that is an INSANE quote. They likely didn't need the work or were not knowledgeable with the process so they wanted to be rewarded for having to do new things... Also don't a bunch of these heat pumps run on 120v power? No need for electrical upgrade if you pick correctly.
@@xenidus
Based on my experience replacing my home heating furnace with a heat pump, that quote seems extremely high.
Installing a heat pump water is so easy its easily done bu the home owner if you are "AT ALL" handy
Hi Matt, I live in Australia, and when I looked into heat pumps I was impressed with them, however after the rebate from the government it was still going to cost around 4k. So I installed a timer to heat hot water from my solar panels, 6 cents feed in tariff and soon will put the 4k to additional solar panels. This has worked for us. Keep up the good work!!
I'm interested to hear this. I was looking at the solariskit (UK co) for solar water heating rather than use electical/solar but not figured out a low cost storage tank yet.
Same in Europe, (France here) Thermodynamic Water Heater costs 10 time a simple water heater (and is by far a simple construction). Did the same, got a router on my PV array to redirect solar power to the heater than the grid (we are not paid for injected power to the grid here if you self install)
A solar hot water heater did not make sense for you?
@@randomvideosn0whereDirect solar HW installs(flat panel and evacuated tube) were common in Australia until a few years ago but solar PV is so cheap, feed-in tariffs so low and plumbing so pricey that now it makes sense to have solar PV only and electric HW. The HW cylinder and heat pump are generally installed outdoors.
@@randomvideosn0where Saw them in Turkey/Egypt in the 90's, put one on the house in 2007, great value for money, even in winter we get 25c in the UK.
I'm in SoCal and switched to heat pumps for water and space heating last year, and so far, I'm impressed. My water heater is in the garage, which is enclosed but with vents to the outdoors, so for most of the year, it has the added benefit of keeping the garage cooler. I leave it on heat-pump-only during warmer weather and switch to hybrid during cooler weather.
I also live in Massachusetts and have had a heat pump water heater for 12+ years.
A lot of people are commenting that these units should be installed outside of the building envelope, but you can’t practically do that in MA (or any northern climate), because the pipes would freeze. If you live in a warmer climate zone, it absolutely makes sense to put it in a garage or somewhere similar, but not here in MA.
Now let’s address those comments about increasing the home heating load: virtually all homes in MA have a full basement. Because the basement is underground, it tends to stay at around 50 degree (F) all year round. My basement, like many, is insulated from the main living floor. This means that most of the heat for my hot water isn’t coming from our pellet stove, it’s coming from the ground. It’s basically indirect geothermal heating. To add to that, the heat pump doesn’t seem to lower the temperature in the basement by too much, maybe a few degrees max.
You don't actually run water through the pipes of the heat pump. It's just gas exactly like an air conditioner. The water stays inside, and the hot gas in the pipes heat your water. The water will never be on the outside of your house.
@@cameronmacdonald6525 That's only if your unit has a separate condenser. The Rheem from the video has the entire heat pump system attached directly to the water tank, so you'd have to run the water lines to the unit wherever it was, which would mean running water lines to a non-insulated space.
in the south it would make sense having it inside home to help remove heat and humidity from house. people who had original water heater in garage was probably to put it in a warm space to save on air conditioning and heat water faster but if switching to a heat pump unit it would be better in the living space. I have never seen anyone have basement insulated from rest of house in Pennsylvania since usually heating system is in basement and heats it up to room temp anyway.
What temperature is your basement in with winter?
@@scottkolaya2110 Every basement I've had in Massachusetts are pretty much within a handful of degrees (F) year-round.
Variability can occur if you have badly leaking casement windows.
I have had a heat pump water heater for a couple years now. My old electric water heater started leaking and when I was looking for a new one I came across the heat pump one. My electric bill is $20 a month cheaper and has paid for itself already.
Thanks
Brian
What state do you live in?
Living in Germany with possibly the most expensive electricity and gas prices in the world, I switched to a similar setup. I don't have an hvac system because we have an old house (Bestandsbau) . My water tank has 3 heat sources, a heat pump, an electric heating element and a loop of copper tube hooked on the old gas furnace. The whole setup is in the cellar which was very cold after a couple of hours of operation. So I optimised the air flow. In summer the heat pump uses very warm air delivered by an air duct from the attic. It presses out the cooled air to the outside world through an opening on the wall. In the winter is the attic cold and the cellar is warm du to the residual heat of the furnace. So the duct is disconnected and I heat the water with waste energy. I also have 10kWp solar with some battery buffer to complete the set up. Of course they are connected with a raspberry pi and controlled with some custom python program that I created.
I've had a GE Geospring hybrid water heater for over 10 years. It's great. It's located in the garage so we don't have to worry about noise from the heat pump, and because we're in Houston, there's ample warm to downright HOT air in the garage to draw energy from. I run it in hybrid mode where the heat pump is drawing less than 2 amperes on its own, but the heating elements do run some to compensate. Also, it was $1000 at the time minus tax rebates, and I installed it myself which was very easy to do, so the up front cost was hardly more than a standard electric one, and the cost savings over time have made it worth it.
This is brilliant! Thank you for the video, sir. It's like a free AC unit with the purchase of a water heater.
Great video! I've performed a full M&V study on HPWH installs for a local utility. The recovery time on the heat pump is absolutely longer, unless you you rely on the electric resistance heating element (which negates a lot of the benefits).
The biggest factor on performance/payback is user behavior. Homeowners who took back-to-back showers would run through their stored hot water and rely on the heating element. People who used less hot water, spread out their usage, or set the HPWH to work in heat pump only mode saw huge savings.
The desuperheater is really neat! I haven't seen that anywhere else yet.
I JUST bought the EXACT same brand and model water heater as yours last week! So excited for your video. I read everything I could in manuals/forums and then called Rheem directly to ask about what exactly Energy Saver mode does. They couldn’t tell me, but simply read back to me all the talking points. There is nothing smart about this unit in terms of analyzing your usage and adjusting to it. Energy Saver isn’t the most efficient at all, rather, I think it is a mode to curb complaints because the recovery is better when using the heating element in the mix. Heat Pump mode is by far the best for energy use. I’ve had a lot of fun playing with the schedule, setting it to mode “off” for long periods of the day. The hot water in it while off still remains crazy hot. Nighttime showers for my kids I set on high demand occasionally. Overall Heat Pump mode is 50% less energy than Energy Saver. Also, don’t set your unit to Off mode in the app because that disables it and you have to turn it back on from the unit (however scheduling “off mode” via the schedule works great 🙃). App and programming needs some work. I’m 100% on team “heat pump all the things”. So glad you did this video! Thank you!!
I installed a Rheem heat pump water heater two months ago. My biggest challenge was finding an installer who would replace my gas water heater and move the new tank to a different room with adequate volume. Plumbers in my area would not touch the product, and the big box stores did not have installers with the licenses necessary to tie in to existing pipes. Water heater installers hold limited licenses.
In frustration, I had the Orange Big Box drop ship the new water heater to my garage. Installation, including running a 240v branch circuit, a 120v receptical for the condensate pump, and tapping existing hot and cold water lines took about four hours. Total cost for the water heater and all of the piece parts was under $1,000 after rebates.
My experience, so far, has been positive. It looks like we will use about 800kwh per year, which is within the surplus power our solar array generates each year.... FREE HOT WATER!
What state?
@@PatrickKQ4HBD
You're not thinking of reporting him to the plumbing inspectors, are you now?
The IRA allows $2000 rebate.
@ 1:15 "Generating more heat energy than the amount of energy you put into the system" => This isn't true. it MOVES more heat energy than is needed to move that heat (like a transistor) but heat pumps to not generate heat; they simply move it around.
Thanks for this, Matt! I appreciate you going into the technological options, and the costs.
I'm glad that you are getting a lot efficiency.
I have the same Rheem. It’s in a 1200sqft unconditioned basement and works great. Can’t hear it running in the house. The floor between the basement and house is insulated. At $0.34 kWh it paid for itself it 3 years. Only issue I had was a failed evap temp sensor. Rheem sent me a new one for free and I swapped it myself. Took about an hour.
The other advantage is the low amp draw. Only around 2-3 amp. (Heat pump mode)
We need to quit having all these incentives, the only thing they do is increase prices. If a company sees that you will get $1000 off, they simply raise the price by $1000. If we didn't have an incentive, they would have to make their prices competitive, and then we wouldn't have tax payer money going to these large companies for no reason.
I agree there's so much government bloat
I have no data to support my installation. I bought the Richmond branded version of your Rheem, which is the same as Ruud. I installed it last March and am super happy that I did, I replaced a 23 year old gas water heater. I wanted to replace the old water heater because of its age and wanting to be proactive and not reactive, I didn't want to go down to a flooded basement. I could have just got a gas water heater for around $400 at the time and save myself $1000. I do hear the water heater running sometimes, probably because my basement is unfinished and my first floor is just solid wood flooring, but I do not really consider it a nuisance because it isn't that loud. I have no issues with running out of hot water or the heater not being able to keep up with demand, I also left it in the factory default of "energy saver" mode.
I realize this may sound a little crazy but my HPWH is ductable and I have it in an unconditioned storage room that is connected to the house (shares a wall with my kitchen). So behind my fridge I ran duct work to draw hot air from behind the fridge high up and then the exhaust it into an open cabinet above the fridge. Finished with a round central air vent during the summer to give some free AC. In the winter I swap the ducts to pool heat from that same open cabinet and exhausted into the storage room. Since it is around 50°, it's enough to keep pipes from freezing. I cut a rectangular central air register down near the floor that I open in winter to allow the room to depressurize and gradually release the cold air into the kitchen rather than blowing it directly on you.. in the summer I close at Central Air vent and seal it with a little HVAC foil tape.
Thanks Matt. I have a heat pump HWS here in Australia. Its summer here so my roof solar is making the hot water production zero cost. I'm also on bottled gas so dumping the gas HWS was a no brainer. My heat pump HWS has a setting to use solar to heat so, provided their is sun I won't pay a ting for hot water. So far very happy. Its also very trippy to stand next to the compressor on a hot day and feel cool air. Thanks for the vid. very interesting.
We just installed one of these Rheem Hybrid water heaters and love it. Recovery time is not an issue for us. When we first started it up with 60F supply water it took 15 hours to get to 132F. However after that it's only about 3 hours to go from 1/3 to full now. And this is during the winter. Our tank is in the garage. It's NOISY as hell, but it's in the garage so I don't really care. We were not doing well during Winter with our solar system. Bills where half of prev year for Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb. (The rest of the year we have a zero electric bill.) But adding the Hybrid water heater and hybrid washer/dryer helped alot. Before we could never fully charge the batteries. (Tesla Powerwall x3) Now we can as long as there are not clouds. I HATED getting rid of our old WasherDryer but the dryer was an energy hog. Anyways, these two changes really helped. One thing you want to do is buy the biggest one you can because it's like solar: You have a prime time and you have a weak time. For solar, you have the time between 10am and 2pm when you generate 80% of your energy. With the water heater your prime time is at night when everyone is sleeping. So you use the 6-10 hours of very low use to max out the water. We have it set at 140F and use a temp valve set at the max as well. This allows you to "bank" a lot of hot water for using during the day. Then during the day, IF you have to run it in high demand mode (which we never have had to do) you have the solar to supply the energy during that brief period. So we bought an 85 gal to replace a 65 gal conventional to "bank" as much hot water as we can. It's working very well and I'm looking forward to "air conditioning" the garage this summer.
I installed my GE heat pump HWH 10-15 years or so ago, by the time I was done with rebates my OOP was less than $300 and that included all my new fittings/piping, HWH pan, and an extended 10 year warranty (never needed it, but it was "new technology" back then).
The builder install of the old HWH looked like they just grabbed a scrap pipe bucket and used it all up. I ended up with over TEN fewer 90 degree bends in the piping!
It doesn't bother me much in winter, but the added cooling in summer is nice. The drying of the air is a DEFINITE benefit for humid FL.
We have ours in our washroom, which is only about 8 feet cubed, so ~512 cu ft, but the door to that room is ALWAYS open to the rest of the house.
Great content! Thanks! To save money I purchesed a smaller heater than the recommended to force the family to use less water and save energy at the same time. The heat pump needs 4-5 hours to heat up the 110 litres of water. The regular heating element needs 1-2 hours. Furtunatelly in the heater there are both and I can decide which one to use. The other thing I found to decrease the costs is to timecontrol the heater with a smart socket. Defenietly the heat pump generates noise, but since I let it switch on only before we need the hot water (MON-FRI 1100-2000, SAT-SUN 0900-2000) the night are quiet and the consumption went even further down.
Our water heater and furnace are linked to a ground loop heat pump system. It's super quiet and been working well. We replaced the propane systems powered systems that came with the house. The electric bills increased a little, but the propane bill has been nil, and it had been extremely high before. The water isn't as hot (we used to have it very hot) but that's what we set it at for best efficiency and it works for us.
I live in the Netherlands. I have developed a setup with
- a 800 liter water tank
- 90 heat pipes
- an electric boiler
- a wood stove
- a self engineered heat exchanger (on that wood stove)
With this we use 0 electricity (and wood) for our family for hot water from about april to october. In winter the heatpipes do verry little, so the hot water gets done by electric boiler (still pre heated, which even in winter saves about 10 to 20%!) and heating our house is done by the wood stove (with the heat exchanger, to transport the warmth to all the parts in the house and pre heat the water for the electric boiler.
This whole setup has been running for several years now.. and I’m still tweaking a bit, but it works like a charm! I can’t post an image here, but I’ve created a diagram.. if you would like to see, drop me a line
Heat pumps are great. We use all kinds of heat pump systems on our commercial project design. So far the coolest type of equipment I've learned about is the 4-pipe heat pump chillers, which can provide simultaneous hot & chilled water for hydronic use. The largest one I've used on a project is 75-tons but AERMEC is set to make even larger ones by next year for the new refrigerant changeover.
What a great video, I’m so looking forward to sharing this with my extended family, including 2 of which I already convinced to go with heat pump water heaters about 3 years ago. Also, I greatly appreciate the TinkerTry shout-out about some of the noise issues I’ve encountered with two different brands, what a nice surprise that was. I’m optimistic that most of those issues are behind folks buying new today. Hopefully this video helps skeptical buyers go with these heat pump water heaters, especially when instant rebates are becoming available. Why? Your video has the stats to back it up. Great work!
Oh, by the way, Eversource here in Connecticut has gone from around 13 up to 24 last year and back down to 14.71 cents per kWh this year. So it’s fair to say viewers results will vary, even within their own home year-to-year.
Going solar helps reduce the $ impact for sure, and I love that you pointed out that piece is impossible with natural gas.
Thanks for the video. I have 3 of the rheems setup for a 57 unit building. Our ele cost is 10.3cents US /kwh and our therm price is $5.55 US (includes tax,storage,transport). So we pay 3x more than you for gas and 1/3 of your price for ele ! These are running in a mechanical room that houses a 1,000,000 btu 1969 boiler so they get to capture waste heat during heating season. They've been running since July in heat pump only mode but appear to be making a decent dent in our gas usage ( haven't bothered to track ele usage ). The previous setup was 2x 180,000 btu gas hwt and now it is 3x hybrid tanks preheating for a single 180k gas tank. We do employ a recirc pump though so a lot of the hot water may be coming from the gas tank as it is circulated through the building and back into the input for the hybrid tanks. The 3x proterras produce about 12.6k btu so obviously not quite a replacement for 180k btu gas tank which was obviously oversized. I'll run the data again in September. Tough to tell the exact savings as I don't have any separated metrics on how much the boiler / gas water tank are pulling and with the variations in yearly temperature I'll need to wait for more data. I do have 5 years of gas usage in GJs and those numbers are looking promising even though the majority of our gas is being used for the boiler ( next project ).
For 16 months, I have the same model installed in my home in North Florida on Eco mode set to 120 degrees. It’s located in my 2 car garage. Family of 3 and use on average 2KWh per day. I like that it uses the residual heat from our cars (1 gas and 1 electric). I do have to keep an eye on dust collecting on the coils ( it is a garage after all), but it has not been an issue thus far. It’s a winner for me, but I have great conditions for it and the ability to clean it myself if needed.
We have used a GE heat pump water heater since 2016.
Love it.
I would advise venting the utility room with a vent in the door. The room would equalize to your house, and the heat pump would have more heat to extract. I don't think you would need a fan, just a sizeable vent in the door.
Those were my thoughts for my tiny utility room, thanks for confirming
I've been using a heat pump water heater for more than fifteen years. I have never noticed any issue with hot water. The tank is about 30 gallons. The heat pump is an add on unit I put on a gas water heater, but I disconnected the gas because I had chimney issues (furnace does not use chimney). I see there may still be similar add on units, although I think I only paid $400-500 for mine. On the hand, I do not use much water as I live alone. I have never tracked usage, so I can only report on not being left without hot water. That and lifespan, but water heaters in this area last 30-40 years, based on anecdotal evidence.
I love these videos that take an in-depth look at the newest energy efficient technologies for the home - thank you! We are preparing to build our ICF, Long-term home and are looking for technology to help us reach our goals. I am glad to learn from your experience. One challenge I have had is to meet the standards our architect has suggested for our house with the windows. I want to review your videos about the construction of your house to see if you mentioned your window choice and the u factor and solar heat gain coefficient. I have only found one company so far that meets the standard (.21 u factor) and that means importing windows from Germany. I feel like I must be missing some companies that would also meet the standard but in my area of North Alabama the climate is mild enough that the lower standards are accepted.
Thank you for your inspiration and information!
I installed a RUDD 12k heatpump to heat/cool a cottage in 2020. It broke - the coil had multiple leaks. Here's the rub, though under warranty, it took about 10 weeks to get the replacement parts (I have to pay shipping/labor & new refrigerant). I had no use of the unit for 10 weeks during the coldest part of the year: Nov-Feb. While heatpumps seem wonderful, just wait until you need parts and have to do without until the parts are available. With complexity, comes supply chain problems. Be prepared to find alternatives, just in case.
I have a glycol solar collector set up to heat my water. It works reasonably well about 350 days a year, but when it's cloudy during winter (shorter days) there are times when I don't get any hot water. On those days I heat pots of water on my wood stove for bathing purposes. You probably guessed that I'm fully off-grid and have no gas for the house.
The electrical efficiency of our 80 gallon heat pump hybrid water heater is more than 4 times better than our old 50 gallon standard model. We have plenty of square footage in our unfinished portion of the basement, and a welcome side-bonus is that the air stays dry for my microgreen farm! Love your videos! Keep 'em coming!
That is the same exact model of hot water heater I bought. With the instant rebate from my local PUD the cost was still higher than an electric water heater. I was able to install myself and upgrade the water lines while I was at it. The cost savings is amazing. The extra cost will be paid for in 3 years with the lower energy cost. Plus heat pump water heaters last much longer and have less maintenance demand than an electric or gas. Mine is in the garage so noise isn't an issue. It is less efficient in the winter due to how cold the garage gets but it does cool during the summer and even with the lowered efficiency during the winter it still has no problem keeping up for our house.
I have this exact water heater and was able to find a random Home Depot that had discounted it to $800 if i paid $100 in shipping. Then I got a rebate for $500 making it $400. It's been incredibly cheap to operate. It's great to turn on high demand when there are guests over and water doesn't seem to run out, otherwise the balanced works well for our family. Installing it myself wasn't very hard. It's been a winner.
Matt, I've been following the channel for years and always appreciate seeing your take on things.
I often consider energy saving solutions for a hypothetical future home, and the idea of integrating multiple systems to cancel out thermal losses/waste really interests me.
Personally, I would like to eventually design a system which rolls together a photovoltaic system, a solar water heater, and a heat pump water heater.
My idea is to build a water cooling system that keeps the PV panels cool, and thus more efficient, and then direct the hot runoff from the cooling system into a holding tank that either directly feeds the water heater, or acts as a thermal mass in contact with a heat exchanger through which the water heater contents can be pumped.
It's currently still an idea that I haven't given much more thought than a couple of napkin drawings, but any input you might have would be appreciated.
Thanks again for an informative video!
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you install something like that in a house that is heated by the electric grid, you would end up cooling the house that would then be heated by electricity again. So the use case and efficiency of the water heater is very dependant on the heating system of the house in a warmer climate.
I have also seen people with integrated setups but where both the inlet and the outlet airflow is vented to the outside. A friend of mine has a setup like that plus a secondary "pre-heat" tank that is warmed by solar thermal. I've investigated using waste heat from the A/C system compressor, but the problem is that the A/C just doesn't run much for most of the year so at least for me such a system would be fairly useless.
I ultimately got a SanCO2 heat pump water heater and I love it. No backup heating elements needed. Ultra-efficient. Separate tank (inside) and heat pump (outside), which makes maintenance a lot easier. And since the tank is only a steel tank it can be big... we got an 80 gallon tan, and not a whole lot can go wrong with it.
But probably the most interesting thing about the SanCO2 is that it heats the water to 155F in the tank and then a mixer valve reduces that to 125F going into the house piping. The water loop returning from the heat pump goes to the top of the tank very hot, in excess of 155F. The whole mess put together essentially equates to infinite hot water.
My system has a power consumption of roughly 2 kWh/day without the recirculator pump active, and 4 kWh/day with it on a timer scheduler (1-min-on/29-min-off/12-hours-a-day). I usually leave it turned on because we waste less water that way (no waiting for the water to get hot out of the faucet).
I'm very happy with this setup.
-Matt
It is amazing that you published this. I have a brand new home in Florida and I had a Stiebel Eltron Tankless Heater - Tempra 36 Plus electric installed. It has (3) 50 amp breakers. Now the electric company says I need a new transformer... I am looking at this exact Heat Pump water heater as a replacement.
The Stiebel Eltron is supposed to be super efficient, but I am afraid I will never know. On the plus side, installing the Heat Pump water heater in my garage will keep the garage cool as it will be a hang-out area with a pool table.
About 2 years ago I replaced my 38 year old State brand gas water heater with another of the same brand. There was nothing wrong with it, was not leaking, heated fine, I just figured I’d do it on my schedule before it became a problem. In the meantime, my sister is on her third heat pump water heater in 8 years (the second one was furnished under warranty but she had to pay for installation, the third one was entirely on her nickel). We live in Texas where we have access to natural gas at affordable rates. I have gas heat, gas water heater, gas clothing dryer, and a natural gas fired Weber gas grill on my back porch. In summer my monthly gas bill is $15-$20, in winter maybe $125 if we have cold temps. If the electricity goes out in January and the blower on my furnace won’t run to heat the house, at least we can take hot showers and cook. I’m not against reducing my carbon footprint, I love my battery electric lawnmower and blower and I may install solar panels in the future. The other economic factor many people fail to consider in moving to complex high efficiency equipment is the medical cost for the stroke you are likely to have keeping up with all the repairs and replacements you may incur
I got an A.O.Smith a couple of years ago. It payed for itself in about a year and a half. You may want to cut a small hole in your hot air supply or add a short section of finned tube if you have hydronic to add a little heat to your little room. Heat pumps work more efficiently at warmer temperatures. You may also want to insulate your pipes. The engineers made a big deal about pipe insulation on the geothermal project I worked on. A big advantage of a hybrid over the more popular on demand water heaters is that they don’t have to be descaled all the time which gets expensive if you have a plumber do it. Cleaning the filter takes 5 minutes in the kitchen sink and draining some water out of the bottom of the tank is a do it yourself maintenance once a year. Descaling is very involved.
Descaling, if done every year, takes about 20 minutes. You isolate the water heater, hook up a small circulating pump, run chemicals through the water heater for 15 minutes, drain and refill. A kit cost about $150 on Amazon. Here in California, electricity costs anywhere from $0.40 to $0.80 per kWh while natural gas is around $2 per therm. Natural gas is far and away less cost compared to even a very efficient heat pump system.
@@kgsails7102it all depends nat gas has always been cheap esp,in socal, electricity is getting expensive . In Maryland electricity is below national average, and gas costs above national average. Lost in all this discussion are two points- will nat gas prices rise more than electricity jntot he future > or vice versa? Hard to say, but in tree hugging states states will step in and encourage e;ctrical/heat pump usage, even if they have to raise use taxes. Also there is an inevitably declining user base to spread the costs of maintaining nat gas infrastructure whcih is more xpensieb to maintain long run than electricity. And of course if you are in good solar sitiaion location, electric heat pumps make evn more sense
At our home in Asheville NC we needed to replace the water heater. I opted for a Rheem heat pump, their top-of-the-line model. After installation we began to have problems with the unit, the controller was misfunctioning. Rheem sent me a new circuit board to replace the faulty one. This cured the control problems, but shortly thereafter the heat pump itself began to struggle to create enough hot water. Apparently an internal coolant line had sprung a leak, allowing the precious gas to escape. In short, the unit was nothing but trouble. Rheem to their credit allowed us a full refund which we used to purchase a conventional electric water heater. We never looked back. What often goes unspoken is that a heat pump is essentially an air conditioner in reverse, with all of the inherent reliability issues. There's no way I want that in my house again.
Our builder builds with heat pump water heaters so I now have one, and it is terrific. In fact, after we moved in, I installed a mini split to cool the shop (live in south). Turns out that I rarely run the mini split for cooling as the water heater generates enough cool air to keep me comfortable while I work on my projects..
As someone who works in Germany in Energy consultation, heat pumps are amazing in their nice. Eventhough here in Germany it makes more sense to get a heatpump due to higher Energy prices and subsidies by the government and cities which sometimes cover over 50% of the total cost associated with the installation. However we oftentimes use one unit to heat the home and the water. Many of the units can also cool the home in the summer which saves a lot of money for an ac, given the rise of popularity due to our now much hotter summers.
I'm in Maine and had hot water off of an oil burner furance. I installed a heatpump water heater (80 gal) and it paid for itself within 3 yrs. I've since installed a quality heatpump mini split unit in my home ofr heat and cooling. In the Winter I normally have the heatpump on along with the oil furnace to heat the home and only use a tank of oil (275 gal) a year. It was a good buy.
Great review of the subject with NO bias! In my case, I have a geothermal HVAC, a de-superheater to pre-warm the incoming city water. This then goes into a Marathon super insulated electric water heater. Lifetime warranty on the composite water tank. Works great. I doubt that I will have to replace the water heater in my lifetime. If I ever should, my biggest concern with heat pump water heaters would the big chill it would put in my basement. Plenty of square footage, but cold is cold…..
I had a heat pump water heater fed off my geothermal system desuperheater about 20 years ago. Great concept, and it worked great for about 5 years.
I worked for an electric utility at the time, and we found 5 years was about how long they lasted.
I’m hoping that failure rate has improved.
The other problem was a very cold 1,600’ basement in winter.
In New Jersey I would recommend using it only in warmer months!
It seems one should definitely vent the HW heat pump if you live with a heating season like much of the country. If not your having to "make up" for the heat that is going into your water heater with your house heating system. I don't see how that can be efficient. Of course it's beneficial during the cooling season.
I have an air to water heat pump that heats the house via radiant floor heating as well as domestic hot water (DHW) via a heat exchanger tank. System cycles between the two functions with DHW being primary. Similar to your preheat tank I'm also preheating with a solar collector. After some startup issues the system is very efficient - particularly here with our 10c /KWHr power. System easily handles all the DHW needs as well as house load. Major challenge is getting the programming set for handling defrost cycles for the humid conditions in this area around freezing.
Love your videos… specially about Heat Pumps… I’m starting a new HVAC company in California and heat pumps & efficient systems will be our main focus…
I preferred to watch & learn from your videos compared to talking & learning from typical sales engineer of HVAC manufacturers…
Also, since I commented, want to mention that another extra cost to upgrade from Gas Water heater to HP Water heater is the electrical upgrades…
Most of them requires 208/230V - 40amps dedicated circuit.
I've had a GE Geospring heat pump water heater since 2016. I live in south Texas and it's been great having it cooling my garage. I can count on one hand the number of times my family of 5 has run out of hot water, basically no different than when we had a standard electric water heater. I paid $1,080 in 2016 and got a 30% rebate bringing the out of pocket cost to $756 and installed it myself.
Thank you for your detailed view of heat pump water heater costs of operation. with my maintenance background I was looking to see comments regarding repair cost, as with any mechanical device that has this many moving parts there will be some. I understand that the length of time that these have been on the market it may be difficult to get that because most of them would be under warranty repairs but, this will have an effect on operational cost overtime and depending on these repair cost. The cost of ownership will change. Gas hot water heaters virtually are free of maintenance cost for the most part until they are in need of replacement. All electric hot water heaters have the occasional heating element that needs to be replaced, but they are typically not that expensive. I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that the maintenance repair cost for heat pump water heaters will be significantly higher compared to gas or electric type water heaters. Once this information is being published by reputable repair companies, then we can get a true cost comparison, gas, and electric water heaters.
I've had a heart pump water heater in the south for just under a year now. Had gas before but it was in an upstairs closet (a recipe for eventual water damage). The install of hybrid in a new location was far cheaper especially in case where we could install very close to electric panel in garage. Moving gas lines in house was gonna cost the difference in water heater price (even before federal rebates). In many jurisdictions, you can do your own plumbing and electrical work (with proper permits) but you can rarely do your own gas work so even an install requiring movement of heater could still be way cheaper (install costs) to go electric vs. gas. Plus, in the South, cooling the garage is often a bonus (as others have pointed out).
Also worth noting, many brands offer models that can run off of a standard 120v plug so install could be only plumbing and near zero electrical work making install/replacement cost very cheap/free. Of course, these types of models will have longer recovery times as their hearing elements are about 1/4 the wattage of 30amp 240v models. Heat pump is the same size on these models so if you don't need high demand, a 120v model might be a good fit. One advantage of these 120v models is that they can be powered off of small portable single pole generators as well so if you want hot water during emergency situations, you don't need to invest in a large, high watt output 240v generator.
You can always help mitigate higher demand issues by increasing tank size and/or installing hot/cold regulated mixing valve.
I have worked through this scenario, Option 1 Heat Pump no solar panels versus Option 2 Stainless Steel Water Domestic Hot Water Unit with 3.6kW Electric Element and 10kW Roof Top Solar Panels. Although Option 2 was much more expensive it had the benefit of powering the whole House and still provided me with an upload credit. Option 2 payed back in 5 Years and Domestic Hot Water was as new. But I had to change the 3.6kW Element once due to electrolysis, new element was tin plated and service life was another 7 years. So I guess depending where you live Heat Pump Water Heater may not be the best solution. Thanks for this video it is very well done and thanks to the Plumber who installed it it looks very professional.
I love my RHEEM heat pump hot water heater, HERES A KICKER!!!!!! In the summer time I duct the cold air into my main living space!!!! LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have the same unit as you but mine is the older one where it has the collar built in where you can adapt ducting to it! I think they make an adapter for your system. I program my unit to kick on in high demand mode from 6 to 9 each night BUT i lower that setpoint so that it may not kick on the electric element unless it is absoutley necessary. before it goes into high demand my setpoint on 'HEAT PUMP ONLY" is at max 140 I think then after at 6 pm my high demand setpoint changes to 120 so if the water is above that the "HIGH DEMAND" wont kick on, one more thing on the ducting.....you can pull air from another room and duct it I also do that only in the winter I grab air from my basement kitchen in the ceiling this way Im pulling warmer air (heated by a mitsubishi hyper heat pump mini split). All this is a little work but its WORTH IT!!!! I keep editing and adding to this comment, to save energy try "HEAT PUMP ONLY" and if you find you need more hot water at times change the program to hybrid or high demand during the times you find yourself needing more hot water. Im also net 0 we installed 49 LG Neon 365 watt panels in 2018 and it has been unbelievable, We bought the system, so we pay $285 on our loan and we also pay Eversource minimal connection fee and usually I make about 1500 KWH over our usage so my bill goes negative from April through the Summer, This year was a bit less solar production from weather patterns but it is what it is. Cheers!!!!!
Matt, I have the same 50 gal Rheem heat pump water heater as you. Our water heater installation seems to be quite unique. The air intake is connected to the heat duct from our whole house heat pump and the water heater's cold air exhaust is connected to the heat pump cold air return duct. Presumably, this means the water heater has a good supply of warm air from which to extract heat and the cold air exhaust air doesn't cool the surrounding area. Because it's not dependent upon the volume of surrounding air it can be in a small, enclosed area. We've had it for seven months and it seems to work like a charm.
The only negative related to the Rheem heat pump water heater is a high-pitched whine that comes on every so often. The installer has been here to check it and says it's normal, which is annoying. Fortunately, it's not near our living area so it's not a huge issue. I'll check out Paul Braren's experience.
Thanks for another informative video.
Ducted versions of these are so much better. Kronotherm make one where you can duct the intake and exhaust air out through the wall or roof and another company experimented with attic-sited heatpumps that drew in the air from the attic, warmed by heat escaping from the house, and exhausted cold air out through a roof vent.
I've had one for 5 years. One of the best purchases ever. Can't believe the efficiency. Two or three times, I've had to "reboot" it - power off and power on because it stopped heating the water. Very minor inconvenience. Recovery time not a problem for us. Remember, it moves heat from the surrounding area so it will cool the area around it. It also removes moisture in the summer, like a dehumidifier. Mine is next to my furnace, so cooling the surrounding area is only a slight problem in the late spring.
Thanks Matt for bringing up this topic. As a swede I find it funny that americans thinks geothermal and heatpumps is somekind of new invention. We've had geothermal sinces the 70s.
In sweden pretty much everybody has heatpumps and geothermal as we dont have access to gas. And our electrical bills is typically higher than you have.
The heatpumps we use combine here in sweden combines hvac and a heatpump to an all-in-one-system. It typically gives the heatpump a COP-factor of 4,5 to 6.
The heatpump regulates the airflow in the house, it draws fresh air from the outside and pump it around the house than it take the preheated warm air from the house and brings it to the compressor and it uses that energy from the warm air to heat up the house again with floorheating and gives warm water for use and it also preheats the incoming air.
Some heatpumps also include geothermal and with that you cloud also cool the houses in the summer by pumping down the heat into the ground. And the combined hvac-geothermal heatpumps are also much more efficent when its really cold outside compared to "regular" swedish heatpumps beacuse they do not depend that much on the cold air from the outside.
I live in northen Sweden and everyone has these but slightly different. They look very smart (like a smart fridge) and the hot water is also used for the heating via radiators and floor heating, its the only heat source. And it expels the cold air outside of the house and collects the energy from the house ventilation.
I bought one of these last year. I LOVE it. There is no natural gas service in my area. Only options are propane, fuel oil, and electric. Alaska has high energy prices all around. At our propane prices it's over $3 per therm. And our electricity is currently at $0.14 per kWH
I live in Japan and have a Daikin EcoCute (Heat Pump) water heater that uses an AC split unit. I also have solar power in my house with a 10kWh battery. I only allow the EcoCute to heat water during the day for three hours with electricity from my solar panels, so it costs nothing to run. During typhoons to conserve battery power, I have used the water from the EcoCute for three days without having to heat the water, so the system is very efficient at keeping the water temperature.
We live in Massachusetts and we have an A.O. Smith Hybrid Water Heater. It is located next to our air mover (heat pump to heat our home) in the basement making it an ideal condition for the water heater heat pump. But, when in Heat Pump only mode, it started showing an error code HPO (which means that ambient conditions are not appropriate for the heat pump to work). It was only using electric heat to heat water. It is an 80 gallon water heater. I was paying $5 a day to heat water this winter. A.O smith sent a whole new control unit for me to replace it. But, still the error continued. An HVAC professional diagnosed that it may be sensors that are not working. Somehow we convinced A.O. Smith and asked them to send the sensors. After replacing the sensors, the electricity cost is just $1 to $1.5 a day! This is my biggest win so far to save my electric bills. My next project is saving cost on my home heating. It is a brand new Carrier Heat Pump - but I am paying around $700 a month for heating my 1900 sq ft home. Any pointers are welcome!
I think something's wrong/broken/defective with your heat pump. I live in Western MA and have a ten-year-old York heat pump, heating and cooling a 2050 SF structure built in the late 1980s. In the winter months, my heat pump adds app. $100 a month to the total electric bill. (My total elec. bill for the entire house runs $1,800 a year, or an average of $150/mo. - but that's for everything, i.e., microwave, stove, dryer, tv, lights, A/C, heat, etc. I've never isolated the heat pump, but my guess is my monthly average for heating and cooling is $75 or so.) My first guess would be that your heat pump may be stuck in a permanent/too frequent defrost cycle. But something is absolutely wrong. Your HP is consuming massive amounts of power for some reason.
I installed the exact same Rheem 50g HPWH in our under-the-stairs pantry closet a year ago. That is where the previous electric WH was. This was done during a remodeling process and without a door on that closet that heat pump was loud. I ducted the intake air from the attic where it's very warm in the summer, and gets heat from rising warmth inside the house (wood stove) in the winter. I let the cool dry output air go direct into the pantry (best air for most food storage) then through a register into a duct with backdraft protecting which dumps into the crawl space. All good, but do wish it was quieter.
I have the same model as you as well that I purchased when I bought my house in 2020. In the same room as the water heater was my crypto mining equipment, which has now just been replaced with some server racks for a tech playground. The mining rig kept the room pretty warm and gave the water heater plenty of heat to put into the water.
I have one of these and a 80 gallon aosmith . For 2 separate buildings Bother are set on heat pump only with a water temp set to heat water to 150 degrees with a 105 degree maximum out put mixing valve. We never run out of hot water we love them
I am loving my heat pump water heater. My basement was always stuffy and humid but the HPWH has significantly helped that. I can now store stuff down there AND I'm saving a bunch on power. Win/win. It'll pay for itself and dehumidify my basement at the same time. Plus it's a smart device so you can schedule it to not run during peak periods on time-of-use power plans saving even more money/energy.
I installed a Rheem ProTerra HP water heater to replace a gas unit. The total cost to self install was just under 2900, with the changes needed to plumb the unit into the home. No electrical costs, as the unit is the newer 110v model, and I have the benefit of living in the southwest where I would rarely ever need the boost element.
I replaced the 40 gallon gas with a 50 gallon HP, which also has a mixing valve to set the outlet temp to 120, allowing the tank to be 130, and provide a little extra hot water use.
The HP uses about 700w Max to heat the water, and takes about 4 hours from cold and empty to heat, with source water temp being 50 and air temp of 72. This changes, but that was the time it took when installed in winter.
Operational costs.... The old gas system used an average of 7 therms each month to heat the water needs of my home. The HP system uses 28 kwh of electricity to do the same. Now my electric rates are time of day based, but range between .03 and .41 dollars per kwh, with the cheapest being between 11pm and 6 am. I've set the HP to "super heat" during that time, making sure its full of heated water by 6 am. While Rheem doesn't allow a programing option to keep the unit from running during peak use times, I'm hopeful this will be an option going forward.
Now cost comparison... Gas is/would be still cheaper to use on a per gallon cost basis. Gas is relatively cheap in the southwest, and has less "overhead" costs than my electric service. That said, from an efficiency standpoint, HP wins hands down! As I plan to build a solar + battery system to complete my TOU savings plans, HP will win the cost competition in the long run, even when factoring in the capital costs. Add in the clean energy "warm and fuzzies" and it was a no brainer to go with a HP water heater.
I installed a Heat Pump water heater built by DEQ back in the 80's which solved the cold room problem and provided the ventilation needed for a tight home at the same time. It took air from the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms as the heat source then ducted that cooled air outside. Make up air called for fresh air "air ports" that allowed cold fresh air into the bedroom closets. Ventilation and efficient hot water heater. with half the ducting of a HRV unit.
My hot water heater died recently, i replaced it with the same you you have (just the 80 gallon version) So far I have been very happy with it. The rebates made it almost the same price as a replacement gas one. (Granted i did the electrical install myself)
As for my running expences, I didn't and don't have tracking on the gas to my devices, so I can only use my bills. That said we seem to be paying about $10 less total (gas + electric combind) then we did the year prior. However I would like to point out I run servers out of my howe, and I have the waist heat from them dumping onto the water heater, and the cooler air being recyled into the server coloset. It works very well for me.
There are multiple issues related to this energy analysis.
As some have pointed out, the biggest issue is this heat pump water heater "steals" heat from the house to provide the efficiency gained over electric resistance water heaters. This works very well in homes that are in warmer climates, but not so well, especially in the winter, in colder climates.
Also, natural gas prices have declined in the last 2 years because of the issues associated with war, so the economics associated with natural gas have become much more favorable in recent months. The other issue associated with natural gas, is the way many natural gas rates are structured. Many of the rates have a fairly hefty service charge, with a transportation and commodity charge added for actual consumption. What does this mean? The actual cost per therm of natural gas is even lower than the average, whether using more or less. That means if you use natural gas for anything else in the house, the incremental expense for the additional fuel consumed can be actually quite a bit less, than simply dividing the cost by the number of therms used.
There are several other aspects not considered in this analysis, but too lengthy to go into detail here, (something you learn/exposed to after almost 4 decades in the energy industry).
Anyway, the point I'm attempting to make, whether this heat pump is appropriate for you, there are many other things to consider. As a general rule, if you live in a warm climate, this water heater may be appropriate for you, especially if you have a smaller family and already need to replace your water heater or have a new build. If you live in northern climate and/or have a larger family, this water heater application needs to be analyzed in more detail than presented here, and preferably by someone not selling the water heater, but buy someone who will independently make a complete energy analysis.
Common sense is becoming extremely rare these days with little hope of a turnaround on the radar. Having read all the comments so far, this is the most thoughtful and comprehensive discussion on a topic with many variables that I have seen. As the ultimate useful life of most "durable" products has decreased substantially in recent years, I plan to do further research on whether a stainless steel or carbon fiber tank is an option as well as a reasonable life expectancy on the sealed refrigeration system.
I see that several have commented on venting the cold air out in winter. I haven’t installed one in my house be solar panels are so cheap. I have two tanks in series similar to what you are doing so I could turn off the power during low solar generation times. Later I got a grid plan with 8pm to 6am free electricity so it is just a matter of setting the timer to avoid the morning and evening dips.
I am considering other mediums to store heat such as bigger water tanks and also sand batteries, but the cheap solar panels and LFP batteries are killing the urgency.
Thanks for the analysis on your system to help us count the costs.
One alternative to combat the space issue is to have a split system approach. We have a BDT Hydrobox which is connected to a regular electric hot water cylinder. The Heatpump system is inside our home, and the external condensor is outside. Then the heatpump hydrobox then pumps hot water into the cylinder
I have the Rheem 50 gal Heat pump tank. I got the tax credit and the rebate. I installed myself. The noise level is like a dehumidifier. In the last year my water heating went down to half and more. In the summer it helps cool the home. In the winter I can shut it off at night (programmable) or switch it to electric if needed. I like how you can set it to use electric with the heat pump for high demand times.
What's awesome is the electrical savings going from a resistance heater to heat pump is enough for most people to charge and ev with. It's crazy how much energy is used in heating water. I had to vent my mechanical room. I also put a small hole in my return duct to move the air in my mech room
I have a similar geothermal setup with a dump tank. That only occurs in Summer when the unit is extracting heat from the home. In winter the dump tank is essentially a passthrough of the cold water.
I installed a Proterra for a client today up in Canada. The recovery rate is really only about 5000 BTUs from the heat pump vs 40,000 BTUs from a typical power vented natural gas water heater.
It needs to run all night to heat up a tank to 140 f.
In summer it’s great since it cools and dehumidifies the basement, however in the winter it puts additional load on your home heating system. Kind of a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario.
One client did however have us duct the cool discharge air under his refrigerator improving its efficiency overall.
I live in San Francisco, I've had the same Rheem hybrid heat pump hot water heater for two years, I also have solar, but I do NOT have geothermally-preheated water (nice side benefit!) which doubtless meaningfully reduces the heater's work. Here is my experience: 1. Run it just on heat pump -- Rheem now has essentially the same model but without the 240v heating elements, and I'd recommend that model as it's a little cheaper but also because it is wired for 120v and doesn't require an electrical contractor (or another circuit breaker in a busy circuit box). 2. It is loud like a large refrigerator (not a coincidence): I've installed sound-absorbing dense rubber on the walls and ceiling around the heater in my garage. 3. Given the moist air here, it produces a small stream of condensate -- I have channeled that into a 3/8" plastic pipe that drip-drips into a garage drain. 4. It produces cold air, and I've channeled that into the former gas-heater's exhaust vent. 5. Rheem's app was hard to connect, it will NOT hold my programmed schedule(!), and my efforts with Rheem haven't helped.
I collect the condensate and use it for the garden or laundry. I am in Oakland ca.
That cold air might be useful. I thought of running through a broken refrigerator with venting going in and out. An outdoor California cooler.
I have this same unit (going on a year) and agree with all the comments. Definitely less operating cost than a traditional electric heater (which I was replacing). But concerned with the not-uncommon component failure that required replacement with your own labor or cost.
In terms of this video, if you're able to preheat your inlet water to 110', then almost any hot water will have low operating costs. I also noticed he's superheating his water to 140', and then using I assume a mixing valve. That's also probably non-standard for most users.
Thanks for bringing up the cost of electricity being a factor. Most people talking about electrification of homes stop at efficiency as if that answers all questions on whether the heat pump benefits the consumer in the long run.
The way you tied yours into other heat sources was smart. It's something I've been trying to tell others that they should do to make their heat pump systems more efficient. But, and here's where that starts to fail... the contractor costs. Up here in Canada, it's not uncommon for contractors to flip the script on the labor and parts costs to get away with charging more for their labor than it is actually worth. Get receipts, always, with these folk. Some good ones out there, can't forget them, but too often I hear about people paying nearly 3x the amount they should have for a water heater as the part cost when I've seen the same or similar makes and models go for 3x less. The only explanation for that, is they are flipping their costs. And wouldn't ya know it, the receipt somehow never appears. Do they fight it? Nope. Not worth their time usually. Just glad to have it done and over with. But with the twist that they don't want to have to go through it all again, which makes it hard to convince people to get the extra work done that would make their bills much lower in the long run. All because they know they are paying an exorbitant amount upfront. A cost that should be lower. How much lower, hard to say, but lower.
I bought one (different manufacturer) and it has been great, saved about $50/mo. I wish it had a ducting attachment for the cold exhaust. I put mine in a closet but the doors aren't tight so it can get plenty of incoming air and built a frame around the back side so that the cold air could escape under the house (In Hawaii, house on posts) through some vents I put in the wall but there still seems to be cold air in the closet and being is a place of high humidity and the heater running mostly in the evening we got condensation in the closet.
I'm going to moove it outside, build a small shed with plenty of air gap (around the bittom and the back side). The plumbing changes are actually good. Two bathrooms will get hot water much faste and the other just slightly slower.
In Japan we use outdoor hp waterheaters with an hp the size of a large hp air conditioner unit for increased efficience. Our standard 3-4 person unit is also 370L or about 100gal. For our family it reheats every few days and only takes 2 kWh so solar completely covers hot water costs. Our area is generally hot but we haven't seen much efficiency loss at freezing temps this winter.
Very interesting video as they all are. I'm in Australia and I am paying 55c/kWh for power. I had a heat pump HWS, but found the circulation pump often failed due to the high calcium content of the water. Similarly there was a lot of calcium in the tank. In the end, I replaced the heat pump with a normal HWS due to the high cost of the replacement pumps. The normal HWS of course gets a lot of calcium around the element and in the tank, but a new element (3.6kw) is cheap. Down the track I may consider another heat pump, but I would install a water softener first.
Anyway keep up the informative videos.