Rheem ProTerra 50 Gal. 10-Year Hybrid Heat Pump Smart Electric Water Heater Expired

We installed ours Nov. 2022.
Our unit is the 65 gallon, 240v ProTerra model. (replaced a standard 50gal, 240v electric model)
Location: Garage (3 car, non-insulated, Texas)
House of 5 (2 Adults, 3 children)
Since installation, I've compared our equivalent month energy usage against the last 3-4 years of energy bills (comparing kWh used).

So far, from November 2022, we've set new personal bests every month for lowest energy use per same billing cycle. Minimum savings of 13.5%!! The average monthly savings is closer to 18.5%!!

I've also been recording the daily water heater usage and will provide our average daily usage below:

Month Avg Daily kWh used.
Nov 10.23
Dec 12.34
Jan 14.28
Feb 13.63
Mar 11.94
Apr 10.64
May 9.32
Jun 6.54
Jul 4.87

I'll eventually connect up some duct work to have it use the interior airspace as supplement air conditioning and dehumidifier. But that project will have to wait until the attic cools off.

Speaking of dehumidifying, the manual indicates the unit can produce up to 2 gallons a day of condensate. This is true as I've measured the daily output back in spring when the humidity was high on a regular basis.

Now, it's not without its defects. In late July, I started getting error codes indicating temperature issues with the heat pump sensors. When this happens, the heat pump shuts down and the unit defaults to the traditional electric heating elements. That's fine as it does this per design. But 2 days later, the lower element failed as well. I called Rheem and I was speaking with a tech in ~5min. They walked me through some diagnostics on the front panel and determined that the thermistors for detecting various temps in the heat pump system were faulty. They shipped me the thermistors (3 of them), but they were out of stock of the lower heating elements and wouldn't have any for about a month. BUT, they will reimburse you if you source one locally and submit a claim, which is what I did. I found one at Lowes (the elements are not anything special, just standard 4500W Low Watt Density). Once the thermistors arrived, I followed the directions (PDF manual and YouTube video) they emailed to me and replaced them myself. You need to be reasonably comfortable with DIY tasks and working with electrical systems. Since the top must be removed, you'll be working in areas 240V would be present, so ALWAYS TURN OFF THE BREAKER before performing any work. Now, I could have waited for someone to do this under labor warranty, but I couldn't find anyone that could come out in a reasonable time frame (not Rheem's fault). It really wasn't too bad for the average DIY'er. This is not a guarantee that yours will fail. I fully understand that with most mass produced products, there are some that experience issues within the first year. Mine happened to be one, but I'm sure there are many other owners that have had these longer than me without issue.

Overall, the savings are well worth it for our household and I hope this information helps you with your decision making process.

EDIT:

This is not financial advice. This is simply information I'm sharing from our experience for how we worked the cashback/bonus offers and tax credit to offset the cost of the tank.

Our 65gal unit was about $2,100 before tax. My wife and I each opened new Chase credit cards (they offered $200 cash back on $500 purchase so we split the payment of the tank to hit the spend minimum for each card) so there's $400 cash back, then Chase was offering $600 bonus for opening Checking & Savings accts, so we both did that for $1200 combined, we also claimed our $300 home efficiency tax credit (2022 tax year), and we sold the old 50gal tank (it was in working condition when removed) for $150. These cashback/bonus offers/tax credit take time to pay out, but we essentially got most of our money back over 6 months from purchase.

$2,099.99 tank + $173.25 tax - $400CB - $1,200bonus - $300Taxcredit - $150 sale of old tank = $223.24 out of pocket cost for tank.

As the saying goes, "Work the system, the system works."

Don't count on the savings being what they advertise unless you are going from an electric only water heater.
We use between 80-90kw per month.
The app is terrible.
Most people say "energy saving" mode uses more electricity than heat pump only mode.

I installed this 50 gallon hybrid Rheem over 2 years ago and can say it really does cut energy usage by over 75% in Houston. In 2021 and 2022 the app says I used about 800 kWh in each year. While I didn't have an app monitoring my old electric 40 gallon, some simple math pegs that number at about 3500kwh for 2 adults.

Given my southern Texas climate, energy usage spikes in January at 90 kWh and nosedives in summer to under 30kwh per month. The compressor is a little noisy and I can hear it in the bedroom across from the garage where it's installed, but I don't think it's noticeably loud.

A secondary benefit is that it essentially acts as an AC for the garage (or wherever you install it). So if you're working in the garage, you can temporarily turn the water temp up to "turn on the AC" by running the compressor.