The downside to a heat pump water heater. It works great till it doesn't.

Well, hello everyone, how are you doing? Sean here Gentry solar about two years ago, actually this month. I think around this month next month somewhere out there we have this Rheem hybrid

heat

pump

water

heat

er. I have a couple of videos you can search on. the channel for that uh this is the Proterra model, it has 80 gallons and sometimes it's not frequent, but sometimes they ask me, hey, how is it? Do you know how he's doing? How is? Do you know we are looking to get one? a standard

water

heater

, whether gas or electric, so what's the deal?

Is it worth the extra price? Are you saving money? I'm not going to get into the money aspect, but it is cheaper to heat water, but will it really save you? money in the long run that depends on how long the compressor system will last. We also have a heat

pump

dryer that is very similar to this one when it comes to technology, essentially the compressor on top heats the water it extracts. heat, so to speak. It heats the surrounding air and basically blows it out, as cold air and heat pumps are like that. If you want to get into the technical details, there is a lot of information on how it does this, but essentially it is transferring warmer air from the surrounding area into the tank itself.

Air conditioners like this one that are sitting here on the floor don't actually cool the air, they just transfer heat from one place to another and this is what the same principle does here. but there are some things you need to know when you get into one of these things and it's not something the manual even talks about and there are some serious shortcomings in the technology in general, how it's set up in this app, which When heating water, There are some drawbacks that most won't even consider or will never be mentioned to them. You go to your local hardware store, Home Depot, Lowe's Menards, whatever and look at one of these, they'll never tell you.

Oh by the way this is a possible problem so the problem I'm talking about is of course clogged filters and actually clogged condensers so like I said it's a heat pump that sits On top, it obviously saves money on electricity because it uses heat. pump instead of the twin elements to heat the water which

works

great

, it is slower to heat the water but overall uses less energy to heat the same gallon of water compared to just using the elements so there is a big problem and I finally had to remove the cover, here's the cover here, I finally had to remove the cover because, uh, this area here that you see here, this is where the compressor fan is, so it actually pulls air out of the cover and lower it. the condenser and blows out the cold air here fine, the problem is that a filter alone is not capable of filtering everything that goes through the system and I will show you that even if you change the filters or clean them regularly. even if you do that inevitably what's going to happen I'm going to put my light here so you can see this a little better inevitably what's going to end up happening is that ice is going to form on this condenser and this is not due to lack of maintenance, Believe me about every three months I take out the filter and blow it out with the air compressor clean, I suck it up really well, so that's fine, the problem is that it

doesn

't filter everything. so on both sides of this compressor there is ice that is starting to build up now just to note the power is off it's not even connected the hot lines are not even connected but the power is off no matter what I did um, I closed the breaker or open the breaker, so to speak, but anyway there's no power getting to this thing, but you can see where ice is forming and what that does is cause problems where it will actually start to shut down the compressor with errors, uh and you'll get an error in your app that will say something like compressor performance or clogged drain or whatever you probably can't see very well down there, but I don't have any clogged drains down there, there's nothing trapped. down there, it's just the performance of what the system expects in terms of intake and exhaust temperatures isn't there, essentially it's not doing a very good job of heating the water, it just can't make that exchange very efficient. , then you start to wonder if it is working correctly.

Well, again the problem here and this is a completely different problem here, I only do this when putting in and taking out the filter, the filter is here, practically touching them, the filter is here and, if you don't have the filter perfectly lined up you're going to crash into this, it's actually a bit of a ridiculous design, why couldn't they move it back a bit because you're inevitably going to end up hitting these things, it's not my place to remove the lid. Because the lid comes off, this is because I took the filter out and put it back over and over again, if you don't line it up you're going to end up bumping into this so you can see I've done this a few times obviously , I have cleaned this filter, which I do again every three months and it reminds you from time to time to clean the filter and you just reset it, it will actually appear as an alarm and it is nothing more. so a reminder, but after a while the heat pump just

doesn

't work as well and again it comes down to filtering this filter here while it does a pretty good job of removing the big stuff, oh you can see all this, this it's all the dust, this is all dust buildup, this is ice, all the dust that has built up, so it clogs the condenser and eventually what happens is it starts to freeze and then when the ice runs out , It does not work well.

It is not very efficient so it takes much longer to heat a gallon of water than it does when it is cleaned and it can cause other problems like damage, it can overheat the compressor. Now there are security devices here that help prevent there from being a bunch of sensors in here. Well, there's an air intake sensor, there's an exhaust sensor that basically tells you how it's running. I have red with these water

heater

s. Those sensors can fail, but to be completely honest with you, I don't think they will go bad if this happens. It wasn't a problem and this is just a major drawback until they come up with a way because with the lid on top you can't get, I mean, yeah, technically you could get some kind of brush to get back and forth from the better way.

Can you where they make brushed cleaning brushes for these? You could do that, but who does them? The manual says to replace or sorry, clean your filter. It doesn't say, by the way, get a cleaning brush and go up and down these. this coil here and it cleans out all the stuff that the filter doesn't catch, so after a couple of years, which has been two years, you start to have these problems and unless you have some kind of extended service on this or you can really uh have someone come fix it, or you'll deal with it, you'll go back to electric mode and you'll never use the compressor, you know, there's all kinds of stuff and it's like a waste of money that they're looking for now we have an extended service plan. for this, it's five years for ours, however after the first year they only send you parts and if you need someone to come fix it then it's not covered, that's just covered. within the first year, but clearly this doesn't become a problem until after about two years, so you have this water heater here that you think is working fine and it turns out that it's actually not, it's slowly losing efficiency.

Little by little I am running into this problem, now part of this could be a drain problem which again I have checked and this drain is clean but it is mainly because the condenser is clogged due to all the dust that accumulates in the Things that the standard dust filter can't pick up. stuck here and you have to pull the lid or remove the top and then you have the air compressor or a brush or whatever. I would recommend an air compressor, make sure you wear a mask or something because this is I'm going to go everywhere, um, but you have to wait for the condenser to obviously defrost and turn everything off and leave everything nice and clean and then you will be ready and while you are at it, you can reach this fan. here it is covered in dust now I have tried it.

I have a long reach air compressor attachment. I don't have it on hand right now, but it's small enough that I can reach in here and blow all this out and that's fine, but you'll never be able to really clean the condenser unless you have physical access to it and again you can pull the filter out, but look how small this little dot is, look at this, no one especially in the 80 gallons, these 80 gallons are tall, they're about me. I'd say maybe six feet five inches tall is tall. I'm standing on a toolbox right now just to do this.

Yeah, I could get a little extension ladder or whatever, I mean one of those Fallout ladders, what are the colors anyway? But nobody goes. standing with a light on top of this, especially if you have it in a closet or you know whatever, and looking down to see what the problem is, very, very few people are going to do, so this is a problem, not a The problem with the technology is a problem with the design, the filters just can't keep up and it all depends on where you are, of course what if you are in a dusty area?

Dusty weather. I'm in the basement. I burn wood. heat, so there is a lot of dust down here, um, but just cleaning the filter is not enough, the dust will pass through that filter and eventually clog the condenser, so this is something that all of you should keep in mind if you are interested. One of these things, keep in mind that you will probably have to get your hands dirty when you clean them, unless you don't mind paying, which negates the savings; They're not going to go out and do it for 100 bucks, trust me, they're not, um, that negates the savings, if you really have to call someone to open the top and then clean it all out, you're probably going to pay three four hundred dollars just to do that, only for it to be repaired and you start wasting those savings and if you have to do it every two years for the supposed 20 year lifespan of these things, you're not saving that much money by going with a heat pump water heater. now if not you don't mind getting your hands dirty, you understand what it entails and you can open the top yourself, obviously now you will know, okay so this is what I can say: it will prevent a warranty, but according to the forums I have been reading.

On these particular water heaters, Ream actually has you open the phone and look at some of these things, if you need service, they have a programming mode where they put this and they read that programming mode to see if a sensor it went wrong and If it is, then they literally tell you to take the cover off, you know, they tell you to turn off the power and all that, but you know. I s

till

have to say that you could possibly void your warranty, but they actually recommend, uh, pulling the o pop. at the top to see what's going on, but again you wouldn't see that in the instruction manual you wouldn't see that no one is going to say that in the store where you bought it, by the way, in two years you could If you have to open the lid and clean the condenser, no one will say that and those who are technical experts or very familiar with condenser compressors, etc., will already know that this is a possibility, will already be aware of this as a possibility, but for the average consumer, why They are marketed, they are marketed to save energy.

For the average consumer, you won't know and expect to have replaced a 20 year old water heater with this thing. I expect to get 20 years and in two years the compressor stops working not because it is a failure of the compressor but because of the build up that occurs so basically what I am going to do here is buy my big compressor. and my air compressor, I'll bring it here and blow out all this dust and clean everything out, defrost it and, you know, then I'll be fine for probably another year. and a half and then I have to do it all over again so more maintenance is required, it's not something they tell you about so keep in mind that it's a possibility now that we have an 80 gallon water heater and we went through a lot of hot water because there are a total of up to nine people in this house so we use a lot of hot water so this always

works

but s

till

if we had a standard water heater that didn't have the compressor on top We wouldn't have to worry about this, so it's something to consider to evaluate the pros and cons of one of these things.

They don't tell you that your condenser is going to clog, they just don't tell you. Yes eventually you will get an error code the compressor will stop working and they will tell you to call service but that is only if you have the app the econet app will tell you and I have mine connected of course but if you do not have it. If I don't have the app it's not like an alarm will go off, the compressor will just turn off and go into pure electric mode, the heating elements will take control from there, you might not even notice for years, it's possible not even if you are awarethat your water heater isn't efficient, you're looking at your electric bill thinking what the hell am I doing.

I thought this was supposed to be better, not everyone is going to use the app, so unless you physically walk to the water heater water, which most people don't do, I mean, I walk by it every day because I'm loading the wood oven, but most people don't. They don't look at the display on their water heater and say, "Oh, I'm going to check the status of my water heater." Most people don't, unless you really pay attention to this screen if you don't. If you don't have the app or have it installed, you won't realize that there is actually a problem with the water heater, so keep that in mind.

I'm not saying don't buy one of these, but I'm telling you. that is, unless you have a house with ultrafiltration, I mean, some people do, um, my grandparents had this oven with ultrafiltration and they had filters everywhere, but that was because my grandmother was very sensitive to dust, so they had All those things. so you will hardly see dust around your house um so unless you are in that situation then you know you are going to deal with this problem and it will be frustrating for you especially when you start noticing that you are getting a lot of bugs or you're not saving much money on electricity now it's an easy fix, it was four simple screws that are on top, also excuse me, it was eight screws total plus the two screws that held this in place and then you have to move this a bit to get through that hole right there and then you take the lid off, it's no big deal, so to me it's no big deal, but I can tinker with this kind of stuff that some of you might not even want to touch.

I mean, the point is to have a water heater that works for the next 20 years. That's the point after 20 years, you replace it on average in 15-20 years and that's it. If you have a Gasser, sometimes you have to relight the pilot. You know that can happen when it comes to electricity. They have practically very little or no maintenance. Problems that are common are the heating elements. it actually gets damaged because of buildup in the tank, uh, all kinds of buildup depending on whether you have hard water or not, things like that, we have a water softener here to try to negate that and I try not to use the elements as much as may be possible. and you know, cleaning this, something that most people don't do, I do it once a year, it's actually about time to do it because I did it the first year, which was in January and here we are in January again, so It's time to do it for a total. rinse, so once I can announce to everyone that they're not going to have hot water for a while, I can easily attach my hose, which I still have back there, I can easily attach my hose and throw it away. the drain drains the entire tank to rinse it hits the water lets the water flow through it to rinse it and then i'm good to go for another year and again the goal is to prevent build up inside the tank you don't want it to build up in tank gasagers, it's a little different because the buildup will start at the bottom because of the heat at the bottom and that can reduce your efficiency because the flame comes from the bottom with these, it's just a slow buildup and it starts to work, it will calcify the elements and then the chunks will start to fall off and start piling up at the bottom.

Things like that, basically it's not that efficient. Some people I've talked to actually pull out their items once a year and clean them, which is another possibility you could do, but again, that requires draining the tank. um you know there's all kinds of things if you really love doing these things then that's fine it'll save you money if you just want to set it up. and forget it, you're not going to like this technology, this type of water heater, what they call heat pump or hybrid water heaters, you're not going to like it, trust me, you're just not going to like it, so, that's it. . you know, hopefully, you know you're fully aware of what's going on, it's a completely different beast and that's just kind of a fair assessment of the situation that I'm in.

I can easily clean this up, get it back up and running and it will work. almost like new again, but now if it were a pure electric water heater I wouldn't even be having this conversation right now so it's something to keep in mind, they are considerably more expensive for one of these things and again, the goal is you know over 20 years you're saving money in the long run because you know you're basically paying it back with the savings and eventually it's cheaper to operate in the long run, but again if you have to call a service technician Spend 250,300 to have everything cleaned twice a year.

Are you really saving money? They definitely require more work than a standard water heater. That's right, I hope this video was helpful if you have any questions. I know, of course, and this is the Rheem Performance Platinum. I don't even know if they make them anymore. This little bit of rust here is because we had a little bit of water dripping from one of ours, right there, you can see. a little bit of a leak, so it got to the side here and that's why it's a little rusty, but these things are pretty good, you know, you don't have to worry too much about it because it's a water heater, so anyway , uh, if you have any questions, let me know, I hope this video was helpful and take care.