expired Posted by Tnnyynn • Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 1:43 AM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expired Posted by Tnnyynn • Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 1:43 AM
Rheem ProTerra 50 Gal. Hybrid Heat Pump Smart Electric Water Heater
& More + Free Ship to Store$1,487
$1,859
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Federal requirements for resistance water heater production was changed several years ago making any water heater over 55 gallons required to be a hybrid. Some older units have not sold, we even found a couple of old marathons a couple years ago. Both failed after 3 years, rheem rep stated something to do with the units being over 10 years old with the plastic being submitted to freezing temperatures in the warehouse. Luckily for the customer we covered handled all the warranty, Rheem initially said warranty was off the manufacturer date, but when we pushed back they offered a standard tank and we ate the warranty. There was also an exception for light duty commercial units which some plumbers have put in residential settings.
Longevity and reliablity are interesting. There are multiple tiers of HPWHs, such as the tier 1 geosprings from back in the day, to the new tier 4 units like the ProTerra. Higher tier units have a lower sound rating while running, and a sealed compressor. The failure rate is so much lower on the sealed units they just swap out the whole heater if it fails within the 10 year warranty that HPWHs have. In the tier 1 days, the moving parts of the HPWHs with their brand new tech made them louder and fail fairly often. The new units have been alright, still some failures as mentioned in the thread.
A big but here, the standard resistance water heaters have changed alot lately. They have cheaped out on the elements. We continue to see the element corrode fairly quickly even with only mild water quality issues. When the element does this, it grounds out, and the water heater runs in a semi simultaneous mode, with the top element pulling its 240 volts when it calls for heat, and the bottom element constantly pulling 120 grounding through the heater. Best case scenario with these have been the high limit switch popping if the heater is not used much. If the heater is used, the water never gets to 150 degrees. Several heaters have caught on fire, due to the manufacturers cheaping out using 12 gauge wire in the water heater while most homes, at least in my area, have 10 gauge house wire with a 30-amp circuit. The current of both elements running exceeds the ampacity of the 12 gauge wire, and over time, the insulation cooks where the two legs are next to each other in the top connection junction box.
I've seen this multiple times, with multiple brands, I've used a clamp meter to show my guys, and the reps what is happening, because before they blamed it on the house electrical, and the electrician blamed it on poor connections in the box.
We've starting doing yearly inspections on water heaters and look for water being too hot, or see wear or black marks on the wires in the junction box. So far the fires have been contained inside these junction boxes.
Also on reliability, the new resistance water heaters are being required to have control panels now, to allow the future control of your heater by the power company. In the last month, 7 of our Bradford White heaters have failed due to the control panels. We've had to take panels out of new units as replacements are not available from BW yet. So problems with units are not isolated to HPWHs.
Cost savings on a hybrid HPWH is up to 70%. Depending on power cost, that adds up to a bit. Portland General Electric is charging 20.89 cents per KWH. Average family of 4 in our area will save over $7,000 after 10 years. This math takes into account the increased cost of the HPWH and installation, as well as local and federal rebates/credits. Savings will be less depending on where you live. But even our Washington folks with 8 cents per KWH save over $3,000.
Ducting and cold: In a properly sized room, it does cool it a bit. Your HVAC system works harder in the winter, and works less in the summer. You can set the units to run in resistance in the winter, if you like, but I agree your whole house heater is more efficient than a resistance water heater on average. For this reason we generally do not duct outside, as that takes away the customers option to get the free cooling in the summer. Also, a HPWH runs with resistance only below around 41 degrees, so it's not like they are saving by ducting to the outside anyway.
But if a room is to small, we will run 2x 5" ducts out. One to pull air in, and one to exhaust cold air back out. This makes the unit run similar to a direct vent gas water heater, and it does not affect the house thermal envelope at all. Again, with this no summer savings on house cooling, and the HPWH is running resistance all winter up here, even where it is colder, we like to pull from the inside.
Others will have different opinions, but i figured I'd give feedback from a plumber who actually deals with them. **Cue old school plumber who hates anything new like HPWHs, but installs CPVC pipe because it's cheap
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If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
Edit Feb 10, 2025: I did some math for my situation, and believe a HPWH might save in the ballpark of about ~$5/mo on your A/C bills during cooling months and add ~$5/mo to your heat bills (depending on your heat source). However, having the HPWH will save you about 200kWh/mo on electricity, which is about $25/mo (ranges from $12-$50+). Of course all of these things scale with your hot water usage and energy costs.
The installers called Rheem and apparently there were a lot of units sent out with poorly programmed control panels. So a new one was on the way.
I asked and the installer said there would be another charge if I wanted them to install it. I work electronics, so I was confident that I could install whatever came in. Around two weeks later the control panel arrived. No instructions, but a YouTube video later and it didn't look complicated.
Long story short. You may get a faulty unit. Call and get a new control panel shipped to you (no way to flash them apparently). The install of the new board is just connectors and blade contacts. Take a picture before and plug everything in where it needs to go. This wouldn't prevent me from buying again.
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If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
Edit Feb 10, 2025: I did some math for my situation, and believe a HPWH might save in the ballpark of about ~$5/mo on your A/C bills during cooling months and add ~$5/mo to your heat bills (depending on your heat source). However, having the HPWH will save you about 200kWh/mo on electricity, which is about $25/mo (ranges from $12-$50+). Of course all of these things scale with your hot water usage and energy costs.
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If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
What's your square footage? Heating with natural gas forced air furnace?
If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
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If you have a heat pump clothes dryer that's not ducted to the outside, it will certainly warm up the room. Its compressor is taking heat from room and transferring it to the inside of the dryer, and in theory this would cool the room. However, this heat isn't stored inside the dryer or removed by ducting to the outside, so the heat pump mechanism would give you net 0 heat transfer within the room. But on top of this, any power the compressor uses (500~750W?) is ends up as heat into the room as well. So running an un-ducted heat pump dryer is like running a space heater on low in the room.
It should be noted this is still much more efficient than a traditional ducted dryer, which has a much larger power draw through its heater and it blasts air out of your house, drawing the outside air in at whatever temperature and humidity level it is at.
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The installers called Rheem and apparently there were a lot of units sent out with poorly programmed control panels. So a new one was on the way.
I asked and the installer said there would be another charge if I wanted them to install it. I work electronics, so I was confident that I could install whatever came in. Around two weeks later the control panel arrived. No instructions, but a YouTube video later and it didn't look complicated.
Long story short. You may get a faulty unit. Call and get a new control panel shipped to you (no way to flash them apparently). The install of the new board is just connectors and blade contacts. Take a picture before and plug everything in where it needs to go. This wouldn't prevent me from buying again.
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If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
It's also good for anyone with solar that is on an NEM program that is not 1:1 and/or has batteries. Program it to primarily run when the sun is out and the heat pump is less stressful on the batteries.
In the case of the hot water heater, you're heating up water that eventually goes down the drain. Very little of that heat makes it into the house unless it's sitting in your sink or bathtub until it reaches ambient temperature.
In the case of the dryer, the cold side coil is being used as a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air. That dehumidified and cold air is passed over the hot side coil to warm it up before it gets sent into the drum to pick up moisture from the clothes, which is then passed back to the cold side coil, repeating the process. This closed loop means no heat is removed from the system. And as said, the compressor that makes this all work adds heat, so the overall effect is heat being added to the room.
If you're in a cooling climate where your A/C runs for 8+ months, a HPWH like this starts to make a lot of sense.
Go look at all the reviews and comments for hybrids.
I have multiple, on multiple properties.
I installed them myself.
50g
80g
One of them is over 13y old. GE Geospring.
Just to be clear, you want one in humid climates, not cold.
FL, TX, yes.
MN, NB, no.
Checkout some heat pump videos on YouTube.
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I live in the north western part of Virginia, so we don't have winters like Iowa, but we do have a winter with about a month worth of days where the highs stay below freezing. When I installed the 80 gallon version of this in our home about 30 months ago our electric use plummeted, both in the Summer and Winter.
While it's true that the heat drawn from the heat pump typically comes from inside, what was missed in the earlier post is that the heat that's in the house is, in most cases, generated through far more energy efficient means. Resistance heating, used by most water heaters, is one of the least efficient methods of generating heat. Most homes are heated by heat pump, gas, geothermal, etc. All of which are far, far more efficient than resistance heating. So, yes, if you heat your home solely with resistance heating, then the benefits of the heat pump water heater are largely negated in the winter, but if you use any other method to heat your house, the energy savings will be significant year round.