President Biden has proposed a new rule that would require all new electric water heaters to use heat pump technology by 2029.¹ The obvious reason for this is to reduce electricity consumption and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Energy estimates a reduction of 15 million tons per year, which is only about 0.2% of US greenhouse gas emissions, but I suppose every little bit adds up.
However, the big selling point of the proposal is lower costs. DOE estimates it would save the average household $1,868 across the life of the water heater, but over at National Review Philip Klein is skeptical:
Having recently purchased a new water heater for my home, I am well aware of the drawbacks that make it a less-than-optimal choice for many consumers.
Heat-pump water heaters are not only more expensive to purchase, but they are also significantly more expensive to install. When I looked into getting a new water heater, the heat-pump option was thousands of dollars more expensive. This checks out with national averages published on This Old House, which has heat-pump water heaters as up to $2,800 more expensive than standard electric models.
Klein is missing what everyone seems to miss about these things: the proposal itself will almost certainly reduce the price of heat pump water heaters considerably. Manufacturers will start building them at scale, and instead of only a few installers who know how to put them in, everyone will know. That's in addition to the normal price decline you'd see with any new technology after six additional years on the market.
Heat pumps will generally save you some money even now, but it's a close run thing. By 2029 it won't be. It will be a no-brainer.
¹The proposal also includes new standards for gas water heaters.
Heatpump hot water heaters are not new.
But its still a niche market in the US. Once it heats up, there will be more competition and efficiencies at scale and prices will drop a bit. Not as much as Kevin would like--it won't follow a laptop curve since the heat pump basics are known. Expect a flurry of designs, different sized, and I'd guess a price drop ca. 20%. The big question is, how long will they last?
I'm of the belief that what we need is decentralized water heating -- tankless water heaters -- for all new residential construction. With centralized systems, you have to pick a poison: recirculation of water in the hot line that requires constant heating, or waste of water while waiting for hot water to reach the end point.
Tankless requires a lot of current instantaneously--typically not very energy efficient. It has its uses, and may save water--but not really save much energy.
Tankless water heaters involve high power and dramatic temperature changes. As an engineer I don’t trust them to have the sort of 20 to 30 year lives that conventional water heaters have.
I recently installed a heat pump hot water heater. If the room the hot water heater is in is large enough, the difference in installation from a conventional hot water heater is negligible. An electrical connection and a drain pipe from the condenser to an existing drain in the floor and that was it.
I've never seen a conventional water tank heater last 30 years. At best, they may last 15. Heat pump water heaters are great, no question, but they really are extremely expensive.
As for energy use, I cite DOE:
By far the most common failure mode for an electric water heater is that it springs a leak and floods the area it's in, and this typically happens at between ten and fifteen years of age. (I've been through that a couple of times.) If your electric water heater is in a place where flooding would do a lot of damage, it's prudent to replace it after ten years.
Oh crap my current hot water heater is shoved next to my gas furnace in a small utility closet so any redesign would mean major construction as said closet is in a small den (1960s split level house).
I know of some folks with an tankless, "instantaneous" water heater. They noted that sure, it warms the water when you turn on the Hot faucet, all right ... but it still needs to push all that icy cold water that's in the pipes between the faucet and the heater before the hot stuff gets to you.
So as for saving water? No.
Those people are installing a centralized tankless water heater. I don't see the point of this design, frankly.
I think you are right about the general direction of the price of these things: It will go down. I think it's unlikely that the difference between them and traditional hot water heaters will ever be zero, though. It's more complex, in a way that's not reducible.
That doesn't mean I don't support it. I do. Though the way my house is set up, it probably won't work. I have an on-demand gas powered water heater installed near my bathrooms/showers. It isn't easily replaced.
It’s not just the water heaters that are more expensive - installation can be thousands since you generally need to run a dedicated electrical circuit for the heater and, in some cases, you may need to upgrade your electrical panel and service - also thousands of dollars.
Additionally, heat pump water heaters need a certain available mass of air to draw the heat from, which means they can’t be placed, for example, in a closet or other small enclosed space. So some homeowners may also have to move the water heater (potentially expensive).
Finally, heat pump water heaters generate condensation and will need access to a drain for condensate. Adding that or moving the unit to a code-complaint location adds more costs.
These expenses are not trivial and unless there is some kind of subsidy, poor Americans won’t be able to afford it.
Yeah, there are all kinds of practical reasons why heat pump water heater installation is more expensive. It's not just because of this weird made-up reason in Kevin's post about how it somehow requires newfangled specialized installation skills that aren't common enough for the prices to be lower.
The prices are higher because it's more work, not because there are only 2 installers in your town.
A heat pump water heater can be expected to draw less power than a standard resistance heated electric water heater. If you're wired for a resistance water heater, then you certainly won't need to upgrade the wiring for a heat pump water heater.
A high efficiency gas water heater requires a drain for condensation.
If you already have an electric hot water heater, the same circuits will run a heat pump hot water heater just fine.
Oh wow there's literally no place to put that in my house, right now the gas hot water tank is shoved into a closet next to the furnace, there's no basement and a tiny laundry room off the garage that does not have the space for that either. Wow my house is certainly not future proof.
This Old House on some of the details: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/plumbing/21015567/all-about-heat-pump-water-heaters
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So no more tankless?
"require all new electric water heaters to use heat pump technology by 2029"
What everyone has missed is that it isn't "all new water heaters have to use heat pumps". It's "all new *electric* water heaters have to use heat pumps". That completely takes out the cost of running a new electrical line to the water heater.
The heat pump doesn't require electricity? So what's its energy source?
"Heat pumps will generally save you some money even now, but it's a close run thing. By 2029 it won't be. It will be a no-brainer."
As a matter of economics, I find this problematic because it omits the issue of reliability. Heaters, whether gas or electric powered, are pretty simple and hard to break. A heat pump flowing coolant has more moving pieces. I agree that fridges are very reliable, but a fridge lives inside a kind environment; a heat pump lives in a harsher environment. To be convincing, the calculation needs to include breakdown rates and repair costs.
As a political matter (regardless of the reality of breakdown rates) I suspect Biden would do well to add some sort of insurance (either directly, or forced on the manufacturers via a fifteen year warranty or something) into the scheme. If these are reliable, it won't cost much; and if that is NOT done, then you just know that for the next twenty years every damn election cycle we'll be seeing pathetic ads about how some poor schlub lost their life savings because their FEDERALLY MANDATED heat pump water heater kept leaking, breaking down, and otherwise constantly causing trouble.
A refrigerator, like an air conditioner, IS a heat pump. There's no reason why a water heater would have to live in a harsher environment than a refrigerator.
Actually, there is, just a little.
A fridge moves heat from inside the fridge the external environment (generally a room, that likely leaks heat into other rooms)
A water ehater has to move heat from the environment into the water, which means that (a) you want the environment to be continually refreshed with air, otherwise you're basically just doing A/C on the containing space (b) not *too* cold, otherwise the heater is working harder than it needs to.
Okay, so you're suggesting that the water heater be placed in the hot exhaust zone of the refrigerator? Intriguing!
There is still the matter of the required volume of space and the condensation drain.
That said, during my recent renovations I was looking to have an electric, on-demand, hot water heater installed. It would have necessitated a service bump to even more than the 200 Amps* on which I am still waiting. So I ended-up replacing the tanked gas hot water heater with a tankless gas water heater.
* To go with the EV charger, the heat pump replacing the gas furnace, the induction cooktop, and of course the double ovens wanted by the Spouse Who Must Be Obeyed 🙂 which started the whole process 🙂
Heat pumps don't work well in northern MN winters
I think that's the point of the "new *electric* water heater" comment above; that for places like CA and AZ this will probably work well, and in a place like MN you should probably be using a gas heater anyway.
Apparently electric water heaters are around 40% of the market which strikes me as crazy high in a country where gas is so common. Perhaps, at the margin, the real effect of this will be to get more new construction using gas rather than electric water heaters, which is conceptually an efficiency improvement? (Not clear that it's actually a UTILITY improvement in 2029, if enough electricity is coming from solar and wind and even, one day, fusion...)
You are confusing a heat pump for heating your home with a heat pump for heating water. The former takes heat from the air OUTSIDE THE HOUSE and moves it inside the house. The second takes heat from the air IN THE ROOM WHERE THE HEAT PUMP WATER HEATER IS LOCATED and moves it inside the tank. Almost certainly that room is not at the outdoor temperature.
The room can certainly be at the outdoor temperature, and in some climates that would be sensible. In others, it may make the water heater work harder or less hard than it might do elsewhere.
Yes they do - new ones have fixed that issue, now they are very popular in Maine where oil heat was the norm and really, really expensive.
I installed a heat pump water heater in my basement in less than an hour in New Hampshire (simple plumbing tools/connectors from any box store). All of this money installation talk is nonsense. The rebates offered now drop the cost, that money is made up in a year or two (and this is just to get people switched, as Kevin said, the prices will naturally drop once the market picks up). They would work better in warm climates, but I am saving boat loads of money compared to other systems in the Northeast.
Good for Biden - this is actual action related to climate change.
Oh yeah, I also heat my entire 3600 square foot home with a heat pump - even when people tell me I can't in these cold climates. The science/tech is ready, now it is just convincing the people.
And another thank you. Setting up these water heaters are doable, and my need a 220V line (not the standard 120)--almost like setting up a second (high end) refrigerator that's running in reverse. IF you could set one up next to a refrigerator, both would run better.
It's a policy that ignores some realities. First, thanks to others for pointing many out. Also consider, some water heaters are in heated spaces and some are not, which complicates everything.
When I built my house 30 years ago the rural co-op offered some cash and a $10/month bill discount if you put in a 80 gallon water heater and let them install a system to turn it off during peak demand. Go and install wind and solar for base load with a system like this and forget the hassle of everyone installing a complicated water heater.
When President Obama kindly offered to help me install a geothermal heat pump, the 80 gal water heater got plumbed in. If it's cold outside water is heated with a 4.0 COP heat pump and if I'm air conditioning, heating water is free. The proposed expensive water heater would only run for a few weeks per year in my case. Seems like a bad solution.
One central problem is that the placement of a heat pump heater in the space where a resistance or gas powered heater used to be is not going to be optimal.
Heat pump heaters need a continual flow of fresh, preferably not too cold air. Otherwise you're just doing A/C on the containing space.
If your existing heater is e.g. in an enclosed garage, things can go quite easily (assuming it's not totally uninsulated if you're in northern MN). If it's in a utility closet, installation will likely need to include an air intake ventilation component,and that can be tricky for a number of reasons.
If your heat pump heater is replacing a gas heater, the necessary vent lines (air intake AND exhaust) are already there. If you're replacing a resistance heater, air lines will need to be installed, but installing two four-inch air lines (I don't know if they need to be that big; my high efficiency gas heater uses two inch lines) is usually not a matter of serious difficulty.
Not so. A gas heater will have a exhaust system to get rid of combustion products, but may simply draw air from the rest of the living space it is installed in , or the outside, it makes no real difference.
A heat pump does not require an exhaust system (no combustion), but generally does need a much slower turnover of its ambient air environment. Where that supply comes from depends a lot on the climate you're in.
Your heat pump water heater needs to draw in air that it can pump the heat out of so it can pump that heat into the water. The resulting cooled air needs to go somewhere. If outside temperatures are high enough that you are running air conditioning then the cooled air from the water heater can be dumped in the house. If you're heating the house, you want the cooled air from the heat pump to be vented outside.
A modern well-insulated house is close enough to air tight that it's a bad idea to have a gas furnace or water heater drawing combustion air from inside the building. There should be a combustion air feed from outside, and an exhaust vent leading outside.
OK. But what are the code specs? I don't want to modify my house to install a new water heater.
And, do the regulations require heat pumps for tankless water heaters to use a heat pump?
A heat pump wouldn’t work for a tankless water heater. It would be too slow.
We had some electrical work done on the house a few years ago and while the electrician was there, I had him run a 220 line to the wall next to the heater. This year we replaced the gas heater with an electric hybrid and while it's slightly larger, there was no other change. We had over-spec'd our solar panels so we were selling extra power back to SDGE. We're still selling extra power back. I need to get an EV to get that power used up.
OMG! The Democrats are coming for your gas water heater! It's just like slavery, or The Holocaust!
AMSTERDAM, July 26 (Reuters) - One person died and several others were hurt when a fire broke out on a cargo ship carrying cars off the northern tip of Netherlands, forcing several crew members to jump overboard, the Dutch coastguard said on Wednesday. The Panama-registered Fremantle Highway was transporting 2,857 cars from Germany to Egypt, 25 of them electric. An electric car was the suspected source of the blaze, a coastguard spokesperson said, adding that the ship was still burning.
One person died yesterday for your poorly designed EV? Oops.
Poor people who can barely afford rent are happy to have it increased to get these new water heaters. Just another example of how hard it is to reengineer the infrastructure and the economic incentives of the whole world. Not gonna happen in time.
There was (at least one) report on NPR regarding the many e-bike battery fires that have been breaking out in NYC. Seems as if those very energy dense batteries need more maintenance and scrutiny than they've been getting.
NYC couriers and other deliverers may very well fall on the low end as far as "maintenance" of the equipment goes. My only source for this is a book on dirty jobs, wherein the author worked in various low-level, immigrant-dominated fields (often literal fields), including delivering for NYC flower shops and eateries.
This was before e-bikes took over the City streets, but the company's bicycles were in such bad repair, they were all but unrideable. So the hazard posed by batteries is less due to "librul wokeism" than plain old capitalist greed.
Now tell me how many people died in the fossil fuel industry yesterday.