Heat Pump Hot Water Heater — reliability and longevity
Curious if any heat pump hot water heater owners can comment on the reliability and longevity of their units?
I’m building an all electric house, and my mechanical contractor is recommending I swap my heat pump hot water heater for a more traditional electric hot water tank instead. He claims they’ve run into a lot of issues with installed HPHWH (which homeowners installed due to generous government incentives) and have had to take these out and replace them with either gas or electric resistance heaters instead. He says while HPHWH would have lower operating costs, these are mostly offset by higher ongoing maintenance and repair costs as compared to a traditional electric resistance hot water heater.
Any real-life commentary on how well these HPHWH are working in the field? (I’m aware of all of the compaints about noise from the Rheem units in particular, but am curious about broader longevity and reliability concerns).
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Replies
Mine has been running for 5 - ish years now. It has been mostly flawless if you don’t count the 2 temp sensor failures- easy to troubleshoot and Rheem sends you free ones next day.
Regarding maintenance, it's a good idea to check the coil every six months or so to be sure there's no build-up of dust, and to vacuum off the dust if present. The Stiebel-Eltron Accelera unit I have installed (just nearing the one-year mark) isn't terribly difficult to clean: there's a removable lid on top of the unit which comes off after removing a single screw, and the coil is easy to access with the lid off. It took a bit of effort to pop the lid the first time, but the folks at Stiebel tech support were helpful and offered a few approaches that did the trick. (I ran a plastic blade putty knife around the lip of the lid and the body of the unit and that helped break the lid free of some stickiness of the paint on the body to the lid.)
I've been wondering if an external pre-filter might not be a good idea ...
Contractors tend to be resistant to change. Yes, newfangled things do tend to fail more than well established products. HPWHs have been on the market for 15 years now.
If the most important thing to you is low maintenance and simple reliability pick the electric tank.
If the most important thing to you is cut the electric usage by 75% then get the HPWH.
If the most important thing to you is the cost to operate the water heater and you are on city gas then the gas heater may well be the low cost option.
If I am not mistaken the RHEEM heater has a 7-year warranty and they tend to swap out the unit if it has a refrigeration problem.
Walta