Water Heater Buying Guide 2022 - Energy Star rating, price, fuel, rebates, etc.

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[ZombieLinux]

I've got a walkout basement with a southern exposure outside of Atlanta. My 80 gal rheem has replaced the basement dehumidifier AND the window AC unit I had for the summers, while also replacing the electric hot water heater.

I've replaced three pieces of equipment with one, and the unit has paid for itself in about 8 months. Without any rebates at all.

Your video from 10 years ago was the inspiration to switch, which we did in 2020 (didn't hurt the old tank was 17 years old...)

[robbarchard]

Matt this is pretty great, but you've missed some absolutely crucial points. For example with your heat pump it matters dramatically whether you are heating or cooling your house. In your hot climate, the tankless actually outperforms what you're saying because it will decrease your cooling load on the house. Heat pumps are amazing. But in my cold climate, I need to heat the air in that space the water-heater is discharging to. So you might have a COP of 3-4, but your furnace for the house is what is actually heating your water and you need run it at the furnace's efficiency somewhere around 90% ( unless you heat your house with a heat pump too, or you had a heat pump water-heater with a evaporator outside of the house. ) Also, when you talked about a dollar of electric in or a dollar of gas in, you're missing that the BTUs a dollar of gas and a dollar of electric can provide are wildly different. In some areas they are comparable, but in my area where I know the rates, a dollar of gas will get you 4X the BTUs as a dollar of electric.

[dryii]

The instant I installed my Rheem heat pump I noticed a _significant_ difference in my electric usage. I don't think you could make any other change to your home which would produce results like that. I highly recommend it to all my friends.

[triaxe-mmb]

Wow, EPA as the sponsor...proof positive that this channel has moved up a into the real big leagues now. Great job @Matt and Team

[studegator]

We had a tankless water heater for almost 20 years before installing a new one because the original manufacturer sold out and I could not find a pilot light part I needed. Great water heater that always provided almost instant hot water for as long as you wanted. After watching youtube videos about servicing the water line due to calcium or mineral buildup, I actually cut apart the water coil inside the uninstalled unit during replacement and found the lines as clean as a whistle, very surprised as we had never cleaned it!! We have a cheap whole house sediment filter installed on the water line going into the house and I suppose this filtered out any of the mineral products.
Due to our experience with the first unit, I purchased a new Navien tankless over a year ago and installed it myself. During the install I added valves to the water lines for easy cleaning if needed. We love our tankless water heater and highly recommend them due to our experience.

[wmstone]

Great video. I have a 65 gallon Raheem hybrid which I mounted high in a garage. This thing is crazy efficient. I use only 3-4kWh per day for a fam of 4 in a 2500sqft house in MD. I run it in pure heat pump mode only. It cools and dehumidifies my garage which is a bonus too. One day I decided to switch to pure electric resistance mode all day to track usage and we used 12kWh vs 4 kWh. This blew my mind… I had no idea. These things crush and besides running a condensate line, it’s easy to set up

[jasonbroom]

My wife and I wound up replacing our water heater with a model that includes a heat pump, based largely on the information provided in this video. We have been very happy with our reduced energy costs and it's nice having a little A/C ducted out to our garage in the summer. After local and Federal rebates, the model we bought cost us no more than a normal electric water heater would have, but we're looking at saving over $200/yr on our electric bills. This means it will pay for itself in about 3 years and be a bonus every year after that. Complete no-brainer to install one of these, provided you can duct the output so that it's not competing with your heating in the winter.

[mattbrew]

My family owns the largest pool & hot water solar company in florida. We install a ton of roof top collectors now backed up by a heat pump water heater and the results have been phenomenal. If they have gas sometimes we back up with on demand gas

[douggibson]

Excellent video Matt. Casey on the "Conscientious Builder" was talking about mini splits for heating. Electric heat or electric hot water is the only fuel source we as home owners can subsidize (solar/wind). Where oil or gas will keep increasing in cost. Thanks again Matt.

[pudellvr]

This is our first winter w a Rheem 50 gal Heat Pump Water Heater. Have been watching you for years and chose it because of your prior videos. We live in SC and the heater is in a closet off of garage where our IT equipment is. We leave the door to the garage open because the heater chills the room down to meat locker conditions! We love the amount of hot water! Previously had an 80 gallon standard electric and it couldn’t keep up with our use.

[davidbraverman]

I've got the smaller version of that exact unit and it's been great. It's in a small utility closet next to the garage and directly under the attic. I plummed the air intake directly into the attic, so it's pulling in air that is 120-130 degrees already. Then I plummed the cold air out into my garage and added a small fan. Helps to keep the garage cooler in the summer. Also, tracking energy usage and its coming in at 10% of the original electric resistance heater. Crazy energy savings!

[explorenaked]

Not sure if someone already commented on this but one thing that must be considered is electrical requirements. Our previous home was in the mountains of Colorado. NG was not served to our home so when built it had two 50 gallon electric water heaters which ran off 240v. I replaced them with one GE heat pump water heater. Huge savings on our electrical bill and no electrical changes required. Great investment. Our current home however uses a NG water heater. Therefore, if I wanted to replace it with a heat pump water heater I would have to have an electrician come in and run 240v to the location which in my case would involve a sub panel as well. I live in the PNW and in my area this would probably cost upwards of $2000 which really puts a dent in the ROI. IMHO heat pump WH are the way to go if you are replacing an existing electric WH but if it is NG it probably isn't cost affective (unless you already have unused 240v at the location).

[amyfroehler]

My 46 year old gas powered tank just quit. I was looking at tankless until I learned about hybrid heat pump technology, seems like a no brainer. Great video. Hello from North Austin.

[keithsanders]

Matt, long time follower, doing an addition in NC. I just installed a climate master geothermal QE series heat pump that has built in “dedicated” water heater. (Not to be confused with a desuperheater). I think a geothermal heat pump water heater beats all your options for efficiency. The water heating is almost free during summer when A/C is on. It has backup elements but I leave the breaker turned off so I only use the heat pump to heat the water.

[bradkolb]

We love our Rheem heat pump water heater! Here in VA I put ours in a utility closet and it's ducted to pull the warm, moist air from above the kitchen and dump cool, dehumidified air on the back of the refrigerator via a wall vent in the utility room behind the refrigerator. I like to think that the fridge and the water heater are working together to save me money! :)

[charliepeterson]

Matt: WARNING - We purchased a hybrid water heater for our new house last year. It was by one of the manufacturers you reviewed. The problem is the noise. I researched the brand and two different people at the manufacturer stated it would be 49 decibel, similar to a refrigerator. I can state it is 75 decibel which is really loud, like vacuum cleaner load. Imagine having a vacuum cleaner start up at 3:00 am in the middle of your house!!! Currently the water heater is located in our utility in the center of our house next to the two bathrooms to minimize wasting water at the showers and faucets. However at 75 decibel I run the water heater in the electric mode only which is not a cost savings. It will be relocated to our unheated garage in the near future, about 45 feet away but at least I will be able to hear the TV without having to turn up the volume over the water heater. I would warn everyone considering a hybrid to research how loud they are before purchasing and installing one.

[kennethmburke]

recently did this exact project. Older gas tank failed, replaced with a 50 gal. Richmond (Rheem off-brand) heat pump hybrid. It sits next to my furnaces, so has a ton of waste heat from them to pull from in the winter.

One suggestion to Matt - when talking about heat pumps, use a sponge analogy to describe the movement of energy, not 'heat', in the refrigerant cycle. The compressor loop is moving an energy sponge (refrigerant) from a source (geo/air) and then squeezing that energy out into whatever your trying to heat. It runs the same for cooling, just backward where the sponge is soaking up energy from the house (or freezer, refrigerator) and squeezing that energy outside.

[GregsWorkshopOregon]

We went with the Rheem heat pump water heater 2 1/2 years ago and don't regret it in the least. Keeps the basement cool in the summer too.

[truckercop]

I went from a high efficiency power vent 50 gal gas water heater to a Rinnai 199000 btu tankless. I have a family of 5 and my monthly gas usage went from 15‐18 ccf to 8-11 ccf. I set the Rinnai to commercial mode to get 140° max temp. I was shocked how much the gas usage was reduced.

[tc]

Great session, Omer of your best ever. Would love to see you do lots more like this with hard data and comparisons.