Comment by jandrese

Comment by jandrese 5 hours ago

20 replies

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I've been keeping an eye on heat pump water heaters for awhile, but right now they mostly make sense in warm climates. The big problem is they're still specialty products and marked up like crazy, but also they tend to use cheap components which makes them loud and prone to failure. If you run A/C for the majority of the year then they pay themselves back reasonably quick, barring early failure, but in colder climates they make your house work that much harder to keep the space warm.

The most optimistic hope is that the government mandate will force enough demand that manufacturers can enjoy some economies of scale and actually try to compete on price. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.

newhotelowner 12 minutes ago

They marketing like it's an expensive tech, but it's pretty cheap.

We have been buying heat pump PTAC for the hotels for last 20 years, and price difference is usually 5% between with and without heat pump.

Seems like all companies are colluding with each other for marking up prices.

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matwood 4 hours ago

I think a heat pump only for water isn't the right way to go. In the EU, new systems I see use a single heat pump for all heating and cooling in the house including heating water.

I do miss my natural gas on-demand water heater from when I lived in the states though. Unlimited hot water was nice, and it took up almost zero space.

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  • luckystarr 4 hours ago

    While they are not as efficient or flexible, they are many times more efficient than resistive electric water heaters. I've installed one with in house air intake (due to construction reasons) in my house and it cooled down the basement by a few degrees (and removed air moisture as an added bonus). In summer the thermal capacity of the ground heats up the basement again, in winter it's a bit cooler, but it still works efficiently.

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  • spockz 4 hours ago

    Which models are you looking at? I was still quoted separate pumps for floor heating and a boiler with the pump built in taking the energy from the air two years ago.

    Is it something from nefit by any chance?

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    • toomuchtodo 4 hours ago

      This is promising.

      https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/29/samsung-releases-new-...

      > The South Korean giant [Samsung] said its new EHS All-in-One provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It can supply hot water up to 65 C in below-zero weather.

      > Dubbed EHS All-in-One, the system provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It is initially released for the European market, with a Korean rollout expected within a year. “It delivers stable performance across diverse weather conditions. It can supply hot water up to 65 C even in below-zero weather and is designed to operate heating even in severe cold down to -25 C,” the company said in a statement. “The system also uses the R32 refrigerant, which has a substantially lower impact on global warming compared with the older R410A refrigerant.”

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  • thunfischbrot 4 hours ago

    Afaik heat-pumps in the EU can provide unlimited hot water–what am I missing?

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    • Y-bar 4 hours ago

      Geothermal (and airbased) pumps theoretically do not have unlimited heating capacity. For example my pump (Daikin Altherma Geo 3) has a 180 litre water tank so it can ”only” supply 180 litres hot water at 65 degrees Celsius and takes about a minute to heat two additional lites.

      So if I want to quickly scald myself in a 400 litre pool at fifty degrees I can’t. But if I had a gas heater that would be possible!

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gwbas1c 4 hours ago

You're about 20 years behind.

My heat pump is working great at 0F. It's 7 years old.

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  • baggachipz 3 hours ago

    heat pump for house !== heat pump for hot water

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    • Youden 3 hours ago

      I don't know what it's like where you're living but here in Switzerland it's completely normal to have one heat pump that does both. Here there's a lot of floor heating, which also uses water, so you usually just run one loop to the "boiler" (a water tank with a copper loop for the water from the heat pump to circulate through) and one through the floor and have a valve to switch which is running through the heat pump.

      I have one of these: https://cta.ch/en/private/products/ah-i-eco-innen

      I got it in October so most of the time I've had it has been <10C. It's produced 806.3 kWh of heating for hot water and 6587.2 kWh for the floor heating. It consumed 302.7 kWh and 1801.4 kWh respectively, for a COP of 2.66 and 3.66.

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    • gwbas1c 2 hours ago

      There's a lot of different heating systems: If your heating system uses hot water at any point, (baseboards, hydro-air, underfloor, ect,) using a single heat pump makes a LOT of sense.

      Personally, I prefer an air-source heat pump hot water tank. It significantly dehumidifies my basement.

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Tor3 4 hours ago

I had a heat pump installed in 2010. In a cold climate. Only used for heating. It paid for itself extremely quickly - less than three years. It's still going strong, in 2026. It's important to maintain it regularly, i.e. deep cleaning every two years or so. The first time I got a company to do it for me, and the technician taught me how to do it all by myself, so that's what I do. In any case having a professional doing it wasn't expensive either. And I clean the dust filters (very easy) every second week or so.

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  • snuxoll 3 hours ago

    Installed mini-splits to replace the propane stove that heated my house, DIY job, so all it cost was the units themselves and some materials.

    Propane bill (no natural gas, town of 500) from Oct 24 to Feb 25 (installed the mini splits that month) was $1200, for just heating.

    My mini-splits are on a dedicated sub panel with an Emporia Vue 3 energy monitor. $604 in electricity consumption, and that includes air conditioning over the summer months.

    For what it’s worth, our winter weather averages 25-35F with the occasional few days dipping to tens, single digits, and the occasional -10 freak; but these units just BARELY have a HSPF4 rating to classify as “cold climate” models. Still going to pay for themselves in 6 years without any tax credits, and 4 or so since I still installed them when they were available.

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  • stuaxo 4 hours ago

    What did you heat with before?

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    • manmal 2 hours ago

      Certainly not gas or oil, which are still cheaper to heat with than heat pumps.

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stuaxo 4 hours ago

They use them a lot in Norway, it's hardly warm there.

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ortusdux 4 hours ago

I'm in the northern US and am very happy with mine. I self-installed with a county rebate, so the total cost was a Saturday and $700. My old electric unit was EPA rated for $450/year, and the new one has averaged $170/year over 4 years, so I've already broken even.

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themafia 3 hours ago

> government mandate will force enough demand that manufacturers can enjoy some economies of scale

So you want the government to pick winners and you want to do business with a monopoly? This is the opposite of what you would want.

If the product saves me money, and it's _actually_ better, I will buy it in a heartbeat. If you're involving the government it's because one of those things isn't true.

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