2024 Top 7 Heat Pump Water Heaters Compared

the build show today we're talking heat pump water heaters I got some serious nerdy stats we're going to be going through y I've got s water heaters which I believe makes up every single heat pump water heater on the market today we're going to go through each individual one talk about the stats the pros and cons figure out which one is the best water heater for your next build remodel or replacement job today's build show no sponsors all nerdery let's get going okay y'all before we jump into all the nerdiness here if you haven't seen my other video that I made with energy star giving you the overview on these and the basic stats highly recommend you watch that video but before we jump into the first model let me point out that we've got three different types of heat pump water heaters here these three models here represent 220 240 volt models basically not a 110 circuit and so these would be kind of a normal direct replacement for a resistance electric tank you would be shocked how many resistance electric water heaters there are in America something like 40% of America's hot water comes from an electric resistant tank which is basically a glorified haird dryer it's just using electricity to heat an element in the tank and make hot water and if you've seen my other videos you know that if you look at the energy guide on those models they are darned expensive to op operate I mean we're talking like for an average family 500 bucks a year that could be like $40 a month in electricity strictly to make hot water all of these units behind me make the same amount of hot water will give you a hot shower but are going to use something like 75% less energy now the other three models right behind me here starting with the ream the AOS Smith and the GE Believe It or Not these are going to include a 120 volt plug and you can even plug these into several of these models a shared circuit meaning if you had a gas water heater in your garage and you wanted to change it out to a heat pump you could literally pull that gas unit out plug this into an available outlet and go and you'd be good to go it'd be a direct one toone replacement now we're going to get into the specifics about sizing up and some of that kind of stuff stay tuned for that and then lastly on this list we only have one model currently available I understand there are some manufacturers are going to be offering this this is what they call a split unit meaning this outdoor compressor that actually makes the hot water is outside but the tank that stores that hot water is inside the cool thing about these is there's no heat pump here so this could be like you know you might have a lowboy let's say in your current house that's tucked into a small closet or is underneath the stairs you could pull this out and put this in and you'd have a direct one toone replacement one thing to note about this though is is they're connected with a water line so you're going to have to get a/ inch or actually two half in PEX lines from this tank to the outside so I would say typically this may not be a replacement this is more like new construction or remodel this is actually the model I have in my house although I have a bigger tank size so that being said since there's no manufacturers represented here I have no allegiances let's just go straight down the list in alphabetical order let's go ahead and pull out the American Standard okay y'all first up American Standard again this is a 240 volt I actually don't know what the difference is between 208 220 and 240 ask your electrician about that reminds me of the funny scene in the movies where Michael Keaton's father-in-law says what are you wiring with here son 220 and then Michael Keaton goes I don't know 220 221 whatever it takes yeah you going to make it all 220 yeah 220 221 whatever it takes that's kind of how I feel about this but in other words this is not a 120 this is going to replace your Standard Electric resistance tank that's already wired for a probably 30 amp breaker with a 220 line so that does come in three different models though a 50 a 65 and an 80 and this is going to have a backup resistance element in it as well that probably is going to kick on in some type of high uh water output mode I'm assuming this has multiple modes one of the very first features on their feature sheet is IM memory where it self learns your output and says hey I'm using a lot of water from 700 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and it supposedly might change its mode I don't quite know how that works but that's a very intriguing feature of course it's got integrated Wi-Fi and some additional app that goes with it I'll be honest I'm not a huge fan of connected water heaters to an app I don't personally think that's a feature I would use unless it's a maybe a second home but I can see that if you own multiple properties another thing that's interesting about this unit though is they do call out its uef and it says up to 4.01 uef and if you look at the energy guide this one actually has the lowest number on an annual basis from any energy guide from all the units that were sent to me for this video 104 annual energy use that's crazy especially if you compare that like I showed earlier to that Standard Electric resistance model which might have almost $500 an annual cost this is holy cow quite a bit less at 104 that's a really big deal so if you have a standard resistance electric heater going to this could save you like $400 a year in electricity costs that's a lot of money and it's not going to take you long to pay this unit back even if you had to pay a little bit more uh after rebates in that federal tax credit that's available for you underneath the inflation reduction Act check out my other video to learn more about that couple other things that I like about this model in particular it says it operates in temperatures as low as 36 degrees Fahrenheit so if you're like me in Texas where there's a lot of water heaters in garages this would be a good model CU it's always going to be up above 36 in your garage and the other thing I like about this unit in particular it calls out that it's got dual cathodic protection meaning that these tanks are going to rust over time if it doesn't have an ano rod and this one includes a powered ano Rod I'm not sure of any other tank in this group that has a powered rod and it's got a standard magnesium rod So in theory this one's going to provide a long long long time of rust protection on the tank two of the things I want to point out from the spec sheet this one points out its sound level is 49 Deb that's pretty low but we're going to find some a little bit lower here in a minute and the other thing that you really want to look at when you're comparing specs for any unit that you might consider for your house is that first hour rating now remember these ratings are a general rating because everywhere in the US is different we have different household sizes we have different amounts of hot air in the house or in the garage or wherever and most importantly we're also going to have different Inlet temperatures for instance where I am in Austin Texas we often have Inlet temperatures in the 60° Mark which means that a tank like this doesn't have to work very hard to get up to 120 whereas if we're in Minnesota we might have an inlet temp in the let's say 30s or 40s which means it's going to have to work pretty hard to get it up to that higher rise so anytime we're looking at the specs remember these are generic specs for all of the US you have to think about specifically where you are and what that performance might be but I think the reason why they're making these in such varying sizes 50 65 and 80 is because you might decide hey I'm only a family of two I've never run out of hot water before with my let's say 40 Gall gas model so it's no big deal for me to maybe use a 50 or a 65 I don't necessarily need to go to the 80 anecdotally I've heard from plumbers out there that whenever they're replacing a gas hot water heat heater with a heat pump water heater they're always going to the biggest size available and to be honest I kind of did that a little bit with my house I put an 80 in my house because I was worried about would I run out of hot water I haven't run out of hot water I'll tell you some more stories later when I get to my model that I put in but I think it's interesting that people are upselling so that they don't get callbacks I think that you should really decide for yourself what you think is right and almost all these models have the ability for you to turn up the heat level in the tank and almost all them have some type of thermostatic mixing valve so I don't think that's going to be an issue okay let's summarize this American Standard looks to me like this is a good unit it's got all the options available it's all it's got all the stuff that I like to see in a model this would be a really easy replacement if you have a Standard Electric tank remember though that you've got a filter up top here so you need to give plenty of room to get that filter out you got to look at all your clearances and you got to make sure that you're putting this into a space that's going to have plenty of hot air into it but remember this can't work in below 37° temperature so if you've got a garage mounted unit and you're in Maine this may not be the best choice for you this would be perfect in a basement in Maine but not in a garage not in a space that's going to get regularly below 37° with that being said the last thing I want to check on on all these units is where are they made where are they assembled I'm curious to see whether we've got any American brands here or if these are all made in China not always easy to find but this one I found it on the logo that has all the specs it says assembled in Mexico pretty interesting North American made I've kind of heard anecdotally that since the pandemic uh because shipping costs were so high and because uh there's been a little bit of a blowback on made in China kind of in general uh it's interesting to see that these units especially because they're so big they'd be heavy and they'd be more expensive they' take more of a shipping container I think we're going to find more of these are made in North America so now let's go to the next manufacturer in the alphabet next up AOS Smith voltex this happens to be their 80 gon model but they also make this in a 66 gallon which I'm assuming is probably just a little bit smaller but probably utilizes the same compressor on the top now unlike the last Model though this one comes with a standard plug check that out you're literally going to plug that right into the wall and it's going to work on a standard 110 circuit that is pretty wild they really are mark in this particular model as a hey I've got a gas water heater uh in an emergency I need to replace it so boom we can go right off the shelf and grab one of these but in general when you're thinking about switching from a gas to an electric heat pump you're going to want to think about upsizing your tank so this 80 right here is meant to be a replacement let's say for a 50 gallon gas it's going to about it's going to have about the same first hour rating and let's look that up since I've got the spec sheet here the first hour rating on this 80 is 93 gallons that is a lot of hot water now this model along with the other two that are one0 plug-in models have some new stuff going on that some of the other models or what I've seen in the past didn't have these have an integrated mixing valve inside the unit which allows it to run at a hotter temperature in the tank in fact this one goes up to 145° if I read that correctly on the spec sheet but the water actually coming out in into your hot water system is tempered that allows you to store more heat basically so you'd have a greater amount of output with less of a tank size so this is a really cool little model couple of the things that really caught my attention on the spec sheet uh top water connections I really like that it's going to make it really easy to replace out and this one requires less space around it than some of the other units the manufacturer says 450 cubic feet of airspace around the hot water heater uh also pretty low noise is 45 DB compared to the last Model that we saw that was 49 and this one has a leak sensor with a water shut off valve included uh funny little story about AOS Smith uh as several manufacturers were sending me these units and asking hey do you want to get on with a tech person I said yeah I would love to talk to a tech uh at your company to make sure I understand all the cool specs and features especially these 120 models which are brand new to the market so my team set me up with a zoom call and I get on the call and the person on the call is a period Smith and I didn't know his name but I I made this funny joke oh isn't that funny you're with a Smith you probably have the same initials I wonder if your middle name's Oliver or something like that so you'd have the same initials and dead panty goes yeah AO Smith was my great-grandfather and I was like uh I I feel like an idiot I'm sorry I didn't realize uh I think he's heard that joke a few too many times he he didn't uh particularly think it was hilarious but but I thought it was crazy that the product manager for this unit the engineer uh was literally AOS Smith's great grandson who had the same exact name and he was like the you know AOS Smith the 7eventh or whatever I can't remember but super cool to be able to talk to him and get these specs the two things that really stood out to me was the internal leak sensor and also a shut off that goes along with that so hey I've got a leak and oh by the way we're also going to automatically shut off the water to it and again the fact that this is ready to go right on a 110 circuit very very cool now one thing I want to mention on these models that are 110 they're not going to include a resistance heat module inside there that's how they're able to operate their only heat pump only mode is what's happening here but I think with the specs on this unit and with it being able to go to a hotter temperature I'm really impressed I think this is a really big deal and certainly this would work as a gas replacement but no reason why you couldn't use this on new construction or a remodel as well okay before we move on let's check where it's made and let's see it's going to be on okay this label here is going to show where it's made so here it is made in Mexico so just like the last Model made uh in America just a little South of the Border next up an alphabetical order Bradford White they call this their aerm Series this happens to be the 65g model I'm going to affectionately call this say the R2D2 model but they also make this in a 50 and an 80 model now interesting when you look at their spec sheet the 50 model does not look like R2-D2 but the 65 and the 80 does so check this out the top mounted unit is the same in all three models the tank size varies and what's fascinating here is I heard from a friend of mine that if you have a problem it's made to pop this heat pump off and drop a new one off on worst case scenario so that you could keep the tank but if you needed service this whole thing could pop off and a new one could could actually come on that's pretty interesting I hadn't heard that I didn't see that in the spec sheet but a friend of mine that's a trusted source told me that so I do believe them now a couple interesting things about this model in particular they only sell this through a dealer Network through installers you can't find this at the Home Center that's kind of interesting I actually kind of like that not sold in retail uh couple of things that I found fascinating here this is a 220 240 volt model so it's also going to have resistance heat in there so if you were outside of that 35° meaning it's you know 25 de in your garage it's still going to work no problem you're just not going to get the benefit of the heat pump working same is supposedly true above 120 although I don't know why it wouldn't work above that it seems like hotter the better uh also really like that the filter on this is super easy to access this is just a washable filter and by the way kind of anecdotally I would say if uh some of the heat pump water heaters that I've had in crawl spaces or garages the filter doesn't need to be cleaned very often I found it pretty clean when I've looked at it every 6 months on the other hand I've got a unit that's outside of a laundry room that one does there's a enough lint that gets kicked up by that dryer that filter needs to be cleaned much more often so any manufacturer's recommendation on clean this filter every certain amount of months that goes out the window if you put these in a more dirty environment or more clean environment uh one thing that I found fascinating about this unit too I'm kind of skipping forward I've left this at the end on the others this is the only unit in the bunch here that's actually made in America this is actually a maiden Michigan product very cool to see every other manufacturer is going to be somewhere else besides the states this one's actually made in America and the last thing I want to point out on this model I really like how Bradford White uh put this $1 sticker on the top that's the quick start guide I mean why haven't other manufacturers if you're watching this from other manufacturers do this on yours too this is fantastic for a homeowner a nice big bold uh I don't need to get my glasses out to read the F and print it's all right there that's fantastic oh and another thing I forgot to mention too Bradford White has this connect kit which allows you to connect to this to Wi-Fi but this is a detached model rather than a built-in model because if this water heater was in your garage or basement you didn't have a good Wi-Fi signal this could be mounted up to it sounds like 100 ft from this unit would talk back to the unit and grab your Wi-Fi signal again I said it earlier I'm not a huge fan of Wi-Fi connection on water heaters I don't want to update my Bradford White app if I've got a new iOS on my iPhone but I get it if it's a vacation home or you own multiple properties that might be why you do it that being said uh love the ma America let's keep moving okay next up is the G geospring this is their fourth generation model GE is actually was out of the market for some period of time and they're back with this model but they were one of the very first models to the marketplace in 2008 with a heat pump water heater I suspect that their embedded long-term knowledge is going to go along ways with this brand new model but this is not actually a working model all the other models we've been looking at I could uh plug in and hook up water today this is a trade show kind of demo model so I don't know all the specifics on this but what I understand is that they're going to offer this in a 240 and a 120 uh option so you can get this either on either side uh they're probably going to have different tank sizes I don't know that yet as of publish date this is not on the market but my understanding is in 2024 this is going to be available uh I'm hearing that this model has Leak Detection with an automatic shut off that's a pretty cool feature it also has a sensing anode rod to let your homeowner know hey that anode rod is getting depleted we got to actually change that out so that's that's a big deal um beyond that the other thing I liked about this unit without even being able to plug it in was I really like this easy controller they've got a uh uh kind of a turtle and a hair on here that says reheat speed and a couple Leafs on the right and I suspect that you'll be able to hit this mode select and change it from let's say heat pump only mode which is going to be your slowest and your most Energy savings to some type of hybrid mode in the middle and maybe the rabbit mode which is probably all electric mode um but is going to save you the least amount of money and then you can also set it to Vacation mode that's a really nice very intuitive mode selector so big props to GE for that I suspect that's going to be good and this probably is going to tell you hey the anode needs to be replaced probably something will light up there or hey it's time to change the not change but clean it's got two filters on the side and one on the top clean the filter so this is going to be a cool model uh I don't know the rest of the details so you're going to have to stay tuned for what what's its uniform energy Factor what's the annual energy cost that sort of thing coming in 2024 the other thing I'm not 100% certain of but I'm hearing is that this is going to actually be made in South Carolina so this might uh also be a made in America model again I'm not 100% at this moment the only one that I know for sure is that Bradford White uh but that being said let's keep going on the list okay next up LG and you can see right away this is a sexy beast big props to the South Koreans this is pretty nice looking if you've got a water heater that's in your living room or in your master bedroom exposed definitely this is the winner on the looks category Now LG has a couple things on their spec sheet that I'll be honest I don't totally understand I wasn't able to get on with an engineer but in their sh but they're saying on their spec sheet that this is the first dual inverter technology on a heat pump water heater in the US which their dual inverter compressor allows the maximization maximization that is a really hard word to say of the power of the heat pump and can provide up to 20% more hot water in turbo mode what that means I'm not totally sure but if you look at the output on this model it's pretty high so for instance this happens to be their 58 gallon model remember this is a 240 volt and the first hour rating on kind of standard mode is 65 gallons but turbo mode allows this relatively standard size water heater to get up to 80 gallons in turbo mode now they also make this in an 80 gallon model which I'm assuming looks the same it's just bigger uh and again I'm not quite sure what that means but I'm impressed with the uh amount of hot water output that's pretty high up there but what really caught my attention on this nerdy spec sheet was this sound pressure level so on auto mode on kind of standard mode 40 Deb and if you bump it into turbo mode it adds a whopping 2 DB the 42 DB so so not only is this probably the best looking I think this likely is the quietest in the group I wasn't able to see the actual uh most of the other ones had the energy guide label slapped on there so I don't quite know where this lands but the uniform energy Factor on this is 3.75 and I believe the bigger model is closer to 4.0 so this is among the most efficient models uh according to the energy St labels pretty impressive uh in terms of where where it's made this is the only model that I saw that was actually made in China interesting huh next up re proterra my very first heat pump water heater I installed 2009 is was a re still going to this day so I have good feelings for Ream I also like that they've been in the business for a long time continuously so I don't know what model number they're on now or what generation number but I suspect we're on the maybe sixth or seventh generation they've been iterating and doing better now remakes 120 and 240 volt models this happens to be 120 and they were the first in the market with a 120 so like some of those other ones you notice uh this one has a regular 120 plug this is meant to be plugged into any old circuit that you've got that's really really cool now this model in particular though does not have a resistance backup element heat pump only what does that mean for you well it means it's going to have really good savings cuz we're not going to be making heat in hairdryer mode right it's only going to be using the heat pump to make heat but you need to be cautious where you put this I actually did not see it in their specs uh but I suspect that this oh I did see it here this one won't work below 37° and as a result ream actually has a uh page dedicated on their spec sheet to show where we would typically install one of these units and they're generally selling these in the South anywhere from kind of the left Left Coast all the way down through pretty much all of Texas all of Florida and the gulf coast states this is intended for those kind of warmer climates your garage in Texas at least for me is never going to go below 37 except maybe once every 5 years so this shouldn't be a problem the other thing that we get in these lower States higher Inlet temperatures so heat pump only makes a lot of sense they sent me talking points on this from ream and I didn't see this in their specs but one of their talking points is that the compressor on on this is actually a onton compressor so 12,000 BTUs it's interesting manufacturers aren't really forthcoming with what their BTU ratings are or what their compressor size is I have the sense that most of these are around 8,000 BTUs so this compressor a little bit bigger that's probably how they're eliminating the resistance heating on there and going with heat pump only mode on this couple things that I liked about this one too this one has an integration for demand response ready it's it's got a CT 245 Port which basically looks like an HDMI connection right on this side right here so you could plug this into utility so they could say hey we're going to experience a brown out today at 5:00 if we don't reduce our energy costs and they could connect to this unit potentially and shut it down or say hey don't fire up until night time I suspect a lot of these 120 models also are probably going to have some type of control that says hey my power is really cheap from Midnight to 5:00 a.m. so I want you to make me really hot water during that time and don't make a lot of hot water when power is really expensive I suspect some of these models have that already and I'm just not aware of that on the spec sheet now re also I like that they make them in a various size ranges they go down to 40 and most manufacturers kind of start it seems like at 50 they go down to 40 and then they've got 40 50 65 and 80 and again they make them in 120s like this or they make them in 240 volt models so great job as always uh from ream uh the one downside though I would say of this unit um this one kind of looks the most uh what am I trying to say standard I don't know it's not dorky so much as it's just like this is what they've always looked like uh so I'd like to see ream do a little better on the looks Department of the future but uh in terms of performance and Longevity and reliability I think this is a great unit uh I think I forgot to mention this it looks like it's got a leak guard control I may I may have missed that on the specs sure does it's got a leak Guard water shut off valve uh already on here so there must be some type of a sensor that says hey I'm sensing a leak in the pan and let's shot off the water to this unit that's pretty cool all right that being said let's figure out where this one is made Let's see if I can find it on the specs in here okay here we go assembled in Mexico we got another uh North American model um but made in Mexico okay y'all last but not least the only unit that's a split model this is senko I've actually I think I've been mispronouncing it as sand CO2 but this is a split model meaning the outdoor unit that actually makes the hot water is outside this looks like a standard you know one or one and 1/2 ton heat pump that was going to heat and cool your house but its sole purpose is to make hot water and then it's going to be connected to an indoor unit the connection is just two PEX pipes I actually have this model at my house and I've got a Pex line going to it and then a Pex line returning you got to insulate those really well and you also got to put a heat tape on them like I did at my house but the indoor unit is simply just storage there's nothing being made here there's no electricity in this it's just the storage tank and they make this in three different sizes and if I understand this correctly the outdoor unit is always the same size the only thing that's going to change is the indoor tank size so check this out pretty interesting this is the 43 gallon which would be a really easy uh direct replacement if you had like a lowboy electric tank at your house they also make an 83 gon that's what I have at my house and they make a really big 119 gallon now this one though has some features that are totally different from the rest of the group in in my estimation first off the outdoor temperature this works in is minus 25 F to over 100° that's crazy meaning even in Austin Texas last winter when it was 17° out I had no problem this unit was making my hot water no problem it would literally work to minus 25 now I suspect that you you get below zero it's not going to be as efficient as it is when it's 95 degrees out but you're still going to have plenty of hot water and honestly when I got my unit I was a little worried about how much hot water I needed I'd had a gas tankless in my old house and I was switching over to this heat pump so I went with the 83 gallon model and one of the the reasons why I like this unit is this was the one that would go the hottest this one actually will make water up to 150° now I have mine set at a lower temperature I think when I installed it I checked it and it's it's giving me water out of the tank at 125 it also gives you a thermostatic mixing valve to make sure that you don't scald your occupants but I figured oh I could turn it up if I ran out of hot water but I've got three teenagers in the house an 11-year-old that seems to not have any care in the world when he's in the shower and I've yet to run out of hot water so I've been really impressed with the output on this unit and if you read the specs on this unit one of the things that I think is interesting about this is the refrigerant is actually CO2 that's right carbon dioxide so if we had a refrigerant leak we're not worried about ruining the atmosphere from this it's carbon dioxide as the refrigerant but they say that that allows them to make hotter water so that you can store more energy in the tank I don't understand the engineering on that but uh I'll let you comment on that in the comments uh this one also uses an inverter compressor and it's got a DC fan motor and water pump which I'm assuming just means that that's some of the other ways that they make it very very efficient one thing I wanted to mention about this particular unit is there's no backup element it literally is only using the heat pump and sending that to a storage tank now a couple things that are really interesting about this one this is the only unit that's made in Japan the compressor the outdoor unit on the box says Made in Japan and then the box for the tank says made in Australia that's kind of interesting the other thing about this tank though which is totally different from the autom modelos here this is a stainless steel tank so corrosion not an issue you're not going to have a leak on this tank from corrosion when it's stainless steel and as a result from all these different things we talked about this is also probably the most expensive model in the group now that tax credit that I mentioned earlier in the video in the video with the uh inflation reduction Act is going to be pretty nice though it's going to give you up to a $2,000 tax credit for the price of the unit plus the install 30% of that that is so this unit being pretty expensive you might want to take advantage of whatever local rebates are available to you and that tax credit but all these units are are going to be available for both rebates and tax credits I did another video earlier this year with the EPA talking about that but I'll put a link in the description so you can find those rebates and in general if you're going to heat pump a couple things I want to mention there are some crusty uh people out there that don't love this tech for whatever reason or just they're not used to installing it don't get talked out of one of these units because it's going to lower the temperature of your house by 15 degrees or some other weird uh kind of myth that's being uh put out there by somebody go to the EPA website I'll put a link for a finder for a plumber and for a retail finder so you can find someone who is used to and familiar with installing these I really think this is the way of the future I've got this unit at my house I absolutely love it don't be freaked out by the price as I said earlier there's some amazing rebates and tax credits available no matter which manufacturer you choose it's really interesting to see that these manufacturers have taken great strides to make sure that you don't run out of hot water some of these units today can go up to very hot temperatures in the tank most of them include a thermostatic mixing valve uh I got to tell you I've never run out of hot water at my house even though I've got an 80-gallon heat pump water heater and I think if you've got a smaller family you should consider a smaller unit the Energy savings is definitely there and the reliability is there as well these have been on the market for just shy of 20 years now so this is not new technology this is very old Tech this seems to be working really well guys if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every Tuesday and every Friday follow us on Tik Tok or Instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 47,598

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: 9pBarDSaGKE

Length: 33min 5sec (1985 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024