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What the enthusiasts for heap pump water heaters miss is the source of the heat they are pumping. In the summer they are removing heat from a hot house, great
by pw262 5y ago
What the enthusiasts for heap pump water heaters miss is the source of the heat they are pumping.
In the summer they are removing heat from a hot house, great - free air conditioning.
In the winter they are removing heat from a warm house, which then needs to be replaced by some other heating source to keep the house warm, great - you get to pay twice.
I tried turning the heat pump element on my heater off during the winter. However, it is programmed to automatically turn on again after 5 days.
- jffry 5y ago> In the winter [...] you get to pay twice. That heat in the hot water is coming from somewhere, and you're paying for it regardless of where it came from. The question is _how much_ you're paying. The magic of heat pumps is that in many cases, they can move X joules of heat by expending less than X joules of electricity. As an extra bonus, in the winter, any "waste heat" from the heat pump doing its work is still inside your home and not wasted at all. So you could view a heat pump water heater as a way of converting one type of heating cost (the fuel/electricity used in a conventional tanked hot water heater) into another type of heating cost (the fuel/electricity used to heat your home). As long as the cost of the electricity used by the heat pump is not astronomically higher than the cost of whatever is heating your home, it should definitely be in the green. edit to add: Many state and local governments along with utilities are offering incentives/rebates/discounts to install heat-pump hot water heaters.