I looked at them, and they (kind of) make sense for us because of a combination
of factors:
1) No natural gas where I live. You can get propane, but itbs expensive.
2) Fairly steep electric rates.
3) The water heater is in the garage. I live in Florida. Ibve gotten fairly
far along in the bhow do I economically put a/c in the garageb process. This
would help somewhat.
But so far I can only get them for something like $1200, and therebs noting
wrong with my old water heater (yet, knock on wood). The water heater in the
old house died, and I looked at solar first, just because it wasnbt too much
more expensive and the payback is better.
I think theybd make more sense if you lived in Arizona or south Florida--where
I live wanting to a/c the garage is only a nine-month-per-year thing. The other
three months it can get chilly and then itbd make no sense at all. If you live
somewhere where you never use a heater at all, you could stick it in the house
and itbd be great. But Ibm not excited about having the water heater ever
work against the house heater, and itbd be less efficient in the garage in
winter, and thatbs exactly when you want a water heater to get better, not
worse.
But during the summer, when the garage will get to 95 degrees and stay there
for months at a time, yeah, it should do well.
Ibm still up on the fence about how to do this right. Ibm leaning towards a
hybrid solar/tankless or solar/heat pump now.
Scott
From: Dave C
Sent: bNovemberb b24b, b2012 b1b:b47b bAM
To: Shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: [Shop-talk] Heat pump water heaters?
I must not get out enough. I saw an ad for these in tonight's paper. I
never knew they existed. I understand how they work, and I guess if
natural gas was unavailable and your electricity was really, really
expensive, they might pencil outr, but it looks to me like a (very
complicated) solution looking for a problem.
When my (12 year old) propane heater craps out we'll be getting another
propane heater...
Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.
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