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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

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.

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.

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 UKposts 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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

@@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.

Those were my thoughts for my tiny utility room, thanks for confirming

What state do you live in?

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.

What state?

@@PatrickKQ4HBD You're not thinking of reporting him to the plumbing inspectors, are you now?

The IRA allows $2000 rebate.

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

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 converted our appliances and vehicles off of gas four years ago and have no regrets. Replaced the old gas furnace with a heat pump. Replaced the old gas dryer with a heat pump combo washer/dryer. Replaced the vehicles with BEV’s. Home’s circuits are backed up with 14.4kWh of batteries, which are replenished daily from 24 roof solar panels. Because of the reduced energy needed, and combined lowered usage, our electric company now cuts a check each year for the excess energy sent back to the grid, and am gratefully grandfathered into NEM 2.0 for the next twenty years. No gas bill. No electric bill. No trips to the gas station, and no more loud generators. I create my own energy and store it silently and power my home and vehicles with that same energy. And the overage checks from the utility company have amounted to a little over $2200 so far since installing our system 4 years ago, which has already earned back around 20% of our battery storage investment. Combined with the savings our solar creates, our solar and battery back up are on track to have fully paid for themselves between the 16th-19th year, depending on changes in energy usage and solar generation fluctuations due to varying weather conditions. Having done the math, and factoring the monthly payment for the solar (batteries are paid off) and backing out the average utility bill credits, it only costs an average of $71 a mo to power the home and fuel the family’s vehicles, which is crazy cheap if one really puts it into perspective. I financed the panels at a low interest rate back in early 2020 and love the peace of mind knowing one day it will all be net positive after it’s paid off. I’ve got the battery back up programmed to take over from the grid each day from 4pm till 8am, then gets refilled each day from the roof panels, with excess going back to the grid generating bill credits. And so far, no outages when the grid goes down. Back up power is so seamless, I only occasionally find out there was an outage in the area afterwards. In all, it’s been nothing but a great experience so far and feels great to have taken control over our household’s energy costs. I’d have to say the two biggest savings so far were switching out the old dryer to the heat pump combo and switching out the old gas furnace for the heat pump. Far fewer amps drawn, quieter, and of course much less expensive. Before switching to heat pumps, we’d have a $700+ gas bill in one month alone (February). Fast forward to today and having no gas bill is financially freeing. And having the battery back up to offset peak energy usage has also been a huge savings. Tesla’s PowerWall 2 and 3 have a very competitive kWh/$ ratio for a commercially available app controlled battery backup, plus have dedicated solar modes if powering a BEV and also can benefit from their VPP program if available for your state/utility. A great alternative that I went with was Delta Pro(they now have an even larger Delta Pro Ultra option) modular batteries from EcoFlow. Has a slightly higher KWh/$ ratio compared to a PowerWall, but if you want to build your back up as you go, or want to tailor the kWh’s to your needs, it’s a well designed system, and can be taken with you if you move to a new home, or just want to detach a module for camping or off grid use, which I’ve done. Bluetti and a few others also offer similar modular systems.

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.

Dude, if a 65gal WH can't do a 20min shower, you have serious problems. Even if it's only set to 110-120f from factory (which needs to be turned up), you should get 35+minutes of ONLY Hot water from a full charge. Yeah, they're terrible at recovery but so are Gas/Electric for practical purposes and it doesn't affect the first-hour rating that much, the gallon capacity and temp are by far the most important for determining shower runtimes like this. Our 38gal gas WH can supply 30+ minutes min to our high-flow shower head during the coldest part of Winter even half broken and set at 125-130f. 65 Gal for your

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.

For extra capacity you could use a heaterless tank and a small circulator pump. The circulator would make sure both tanks stay at the same temperature while the HP would do all the heating.