Our water heater was due for replacement and I installed a heat-pump water heater on Saturday. As a result, I think we just changed from being net consumers of electricity to net producers. I'm thinking we reduced our electricity consumption by over 5 MWh/year with this change since our old heater was in bad shape and likely was leaking a lot of heat into the environment.kovalb wrote:The next time our hot water heater goes out I am going to strongly consider replacing it with a heat pump type - they are very efficient, especially when the garage they are in has an ambient temperature almost equal to the hot water.
Assuming the compressor unit survives, this unit should pay for itself within two years given the tax credits and since we are running it in heat-pump-only mode. Unfortunately, that may be a big assumption. I see quite a few stories about failed compressors within the first year. But it's difficult to guess at a failure rate based on those types of anecdotes, particularly since some of those units may have been improperly installed or placed in inappropriate locations. It comes with a 10-year warranty on parts with one year including labor. We'll see how things go.