Household hot water heater question

[JU5T1N]

Question time....(hot water heaters)...which type or brand to buy?


I live in an area where I cant get GAS (Camden South)

Are Heat Pump's any good

Also what brand heater would you recommend?

So far I've been offered a Rheem HDi-310 Heat Pump for $600 used for less then a year or a brand new Quantum Commercial Solar Heat Pump Model 340-17ACW-134 for $1600 after rebate + del from Melbourne

[markg66]

I've heard from a mate that has a heat pump type (not sure of brand) that the fan motor running all the time annoys his neighbors (who whinge constantly about it) as where it is situated is across the fence from their bedroom window.
 

[rags]

  With my plumbing experience [although not involved the hot water field] I would not recommend a heat pump unit,they can be noisy,expensive to repair ,as they have an attached motor that needs to be serviced by a fridgy/aircond trade.The energy savings only were only approx 30% over electric heaters depending on your tarrifs on the old and wired method on the heat pump.They became popular a couple of years ago when our cash was being splashed around  by various govts,and every person who wasn't installing pink batts where installing these heaters. The dooms dayers where saying that storage heaters would be phased out and  you needed to look at your alternatives. Then in recent times govts have realised that this would have been impossible to implement and create unrealistic practicable and financial burdens on some house holds .If you are just replacing a off peak storage unit then it is still a good idea to consider a straight swap with a similar heater,as the exchange price is your cheapest option,the running cost are still ok at approx 10-15% of my power bill ,and only have 2 things to go wrong  in heating water 1=Element,2=thermostat and both cost less than $70  . If your idea was to save energy,cost was not an issue ,an you have an ideal north facing roof elevation that is structually sound to take a 300kg weight than a closecoupled solar system is a good way to go, if the roof won't take a heavy load than a split system is ok but then these rely on a circulation pump . All the solar systems rely on an alternative heat source for backup, and the units with an  gas  instant unit attach are the pic ,but you would then require a LPGas  connection that would add additional cost.As for brands then i would suggest that you stick with the larger brands, Rheem, Dux  Rinnai, Edwards etc. Hope this helps.

[austastar]

Hi,
  We run a wet back on a fuel stove, burning about 3 or 4 tons of wood a year at around $100/tonne.
For that we get all our heating, 90% of our cooking (other things like microwave use electricity) and all our hot water.
Electricity comes in at around 4,000kWh/year, costing about $800.


Don't know how that scenario would translate to your location, but may be worth considering.


cheers

[Muckinhell]

As a sparky we have installed heat pumps in the housing units/houses when the electric heaters need replacing. theres a nice little tussle when the heat pumps go wrong as to who to call A sparky or an ac bloke or a plumber....we have already replaced a few of the heat pumps we installed only couple of years ago in these places already. Word is to just stick to a regular electric system as mentioned before, only 2 things to go wrong in imediate future. rust and degradation of the whole tank is same as all others pretty much. otherwise a roof mounted solar system to save some dollars.

[Robbo]

  With my plumbing experience [although not involved the hot water field] I would not recommend a heat pump unit,they can be noisy,expensive to repair ,as they have an attached motor that needs to be serviced by a fridgy/aircond trade.The energy savings only were only approx 30% over electric heaters depending on your tarrifs on the old and wired method on the heat pump.They became popular a couple of years ago when our cash was being splashed around  by various govts,and every person who wasn't installing pink batts where installing these heaters. The dooms dayers where saying that storage heaters would be phased out and  you needed to look at your alternatives. Then in recent times govts have realised that this would have been impossible to implement and create unrealistic practicable and financial burdens on some house holds .If you are just replacing a off peak storage unit then it is still a good idea to consider a straight swap with a similar heater,as the exchange price is your cheapest option,the running cost are still ok at approx 10-15% of my power bill ,and only have 2 things to go wrong  in heating water 1=Element,2=thermostat and both cost less than $70  . If your idea was to save energy,cost was not an issue ,an you have an ideal north facing roof elevation that is structually sound to take a 300kg weight than a closecoupled solar system is a good way to go, if the roof won't take a heavy load than a split system is ok but then these rely on a circulation pump . All the solar systems rely on an alternative heat source for backup, and the units with an  gas  instant unit attach are the pic ,but you would then require a LPGas  connection that would add additional cost.As for brands then i would suggest that you stick with the larger brands, Rheem, Dux  Rinnai, Edwards etc. Hope this helps.

Hey Justin, if you follow this advice from Rags you won't go wrong. He is spot on with his assesment.

Cheers 

[dazzler]

We have one of these

http://www.bosch-climate.com.au/products-bosch-hot-water/gas-hot-water/domestic/electronic-highflow/bosch-26e.html

Bosch Hiflow 26e.

You can run it on bottled gas which is what we do and are super super happy joy joy people.

Even if I needed to use 'swap and go' I would keep it rather than electric hot water.

[Rumpig]

  With my plumbing experience [although not involved the hot water field] I would not recommend a heat pump unit,they can be noisy....

i've noticed the same with some of the ones installed in the unit blocks we build, i wondered what the hell the noise  i could hear was in the carpark area the first time i heard it....lol
for my place i got a new electric one, couldn't see any real benifits for myself in replacing it with something else.

[db]

Here's the contrary view on a heat pump :-)  we've had a quantum unit for about 7 years, and apart from a relay or something failing in the first couple of months (replaced under warranty) its been solid. We run it on off peak power, and that part of our bill runs around $30 -$40 a quarter. It sits right outside our kitchen window, and with the window closed you can hardly hear it. Can certainly hear it with the window open, but it's no different to any air conditioner.
We went with one of these because we don't have gas and solar panel hot water want viable due to roof orientation and probably not strong enough. We are happy with it and based on our experience to date we'd get another.

[Rumpig]

It sits right outside our kitchen window, and with the window closed you can hardly hear it. Can certainly hear it with the window open, but it's no different to any air conditioner.

many people don't realize they are like an aircon unit noise wise db, hence why we mention the noise (i certainly didn't know that until i heard one running one day at work). there's no noise from an electric hot water system and many people would assume a heat pump might be the same. so long as the buyer is aware of the noise they make, then they can't be disappointed with that issue when they install them is all.

[Roo]

Here's the contrary view on a heat pump :-)  we've had a quantum unit for about 7 years, and apart from a relay or something failing in the first couple of months (replaced under warranty) its been solid. We run it on off peak power, and that part of our bill runs around $30 -$40 a quarter. It sits right outside our kitchen window, and with the window closed you can hardly hear it. Can certainly hear it with the window open, but it's no different to any air conditioner.
We went with one of these because we don't have gas and solar panel hot water want viable due to roof orientation and probably not strong enough. We are happy with it and based on our experience to date we'd get another.

x2. I'm less than 1 km from an open surf beach so we deal with plenty of salt spray. 10 years this year and our quantum is still pumping all the hot water we can manage to use. We have a little rust on the outer skin but as the skin is a colorbond product it manifests more like peeling of the finish on the exposed edges with a bloom like galvanized steel. We have ours connected to controlled load 1 which is the cheapest off peak rate and we have never struggled for hot water. We have a 270l system but only 2 regular occupants. Could possibly require the next tariff up if more bodies to wash on a regular basis. 159 kwh for the 91 days in the last quarter, = just under $30 including the service charges. Neighbor has instant gas HWS, uses a 45kg bottle every 8 weeks at a cost of $135 each. that does include gas cooktop and for comparison we have gas cooktop too, same size bottle lasts us about 18 months. Gas prices have continued to rise rapidly and with the latest news of CSG being crippled by more kneejerk regulations in NSW, we can expect to be paying a lot more for gas in the immediate future. I would limit Gas and electicity usage as much as possible, so I reckon the hot pick would be solar. then heatpump***, then bottled gas last as it has always been the dearest option.

*** heatpumps have some specific siting requirements due to noise but also due to how they work. They convert heat energy, just like a reverse cycle air conditioner, to heat the water. if you live in a spot that is particularly cold, like at the bottom of a valley,  you can have issues with not getting enough heat load to harvest. more so when you select the cheaper tariffs as these are usually at night although you will get some hours during the day. I am near the QLD border, Coastal and at near enough to sea level so no problems but some installations in the early years were problematic until some bugs were sorted. I worked for a building co. and one particular install had constant drop outs. Once it was realized the lack of warm air was causing the unit to overload and trip its internal, manually re settable breaker. Quantum retro fitted an update to the unit which comprised of an auto reset breaker so the unit could try to heat and if it failed, would trip but reset once cooled down. we also got the client to switch to off peak 2 so they had some extra hours during the day to heat water and reduce load on the system at night.