Rheem Hybrid Heat-Pump Water Heater, Thoughts after the First Month

I installed the 80 gal version of this same water heater 6 months ago. It's working flawlessly in our basement pantry area and keeps the area at about 60 degrees. I special ordered the 80 gal 15 amp unit specifically to use on our off grid Solar system for emergency or long term power outages. It replaced 12 year old unit that used 78% more electricity than the hybrid unit. We're operating the new water heater in the Heat Pump mode only. With a family of 4 we have never ran out of hot water. It only draws 360 watts in heat pump mode and has lowered our Electric bill by 35%. I'm still in the process of installing the new solar system which is only a 6 KW system with a 4kw solar array and about 9 kw Battery storage. I expect to lower my power bill another 30% with the solar system. My average monthly use is about 3.2 kw per month for this amazing hot water heater. Our initial investment was $2,000 dollars. With sale pricing and rebates our end cost was $900. Payback is about 16 months. This is a great choice for a cost effective high efficiency hybrid water heater. We can't even hear this unit run with our installation. It's under our utility room and is in a insulated pantry in the basement. I will probably install ductwork to the utility room for warmer air intake. The cold air exhaust into the pantry is perfect for our setup. It's still l preserving our winter squash from last years garden. The Bluetooth app is a great addition to this unit and I check it's performance regularly. It removes the humidity from our basement and I have yet to run my dehumidifier since the install. I'm extremely impressed with this amazing hot water heater. With a 10 year warranty and it's low cost operating expenses, I highly recommend everyone should be using these units. Just hoping it will last at least 8 to 10 years. It's was nice to see someone else who is using this unit and posting it on YouTube. Great video! Thanks for sharing!

Excellent presentation and superior analysis. You covered all the questions I had about this type of system. Thank you so much.

I have had one of these Rheem hybrid since 2017. I use it to heat the incoming city water, it is then fed into a Rheem Marathon. The theory is the hybrid does the bulk of the heating and the Marathon then only has to maintain. These two water heaters together are used to provide hot water for a 4 unit apartment building. No one has ever run out of hot water since they were installed. I vent the exhaust out of the hybrid up through the floor to cool an electronics room, which is a nice benefit. When I originally purchased I estimated my payback time was about 4 years, if my calculations were correct the extra costs involved should be paid back by now. The only problem I have had was the amount of dust being sucked into the hybrid from the room it is in. I ended up building a little pipe with a furnace air filter on the end, to filter the incoming air. That has taken care of my dust buildup issues, just changing the filter every 6 months or so and the hybrid is clean and happy.

Love my heat pump water heater here in GA! It cools my basement and dehumidifies as well. In the winter when I occasionally use my basement wood furnace, it uses the wood heat to transfer into the water heater. Bought a GE 10 yrs ago and it developed a crack in the basin that collects condensate off of the condenser unit and since I did NOT have a leak pan, it caused a small flood. Switched to totally electric mode and will replace it with the 80 gal RHEEM from HD. The GE had to be serviced under warranty and now a defect in the plastic resulted in a crack that now causes it to leak condensate. Make sure you have a pan under the unit and/or leak detection monitors.

I have had the Rheem 60 gallon water heater for seven months, with just my wife and I, we use on average less than 2 kW-hours of electricity per day which is about 20 cents. Our monthly usage is less than 60 kW-hours which is about $6-7. It definitely is saving energy compared to the traditional electric heater.

That's an awesome review. I love hearing the details on objects most people take for granted.

I have a previous version of the Rheem unit - 80 gallon version from Home Depot. Installed it in Jan 2020 and have it set to 125F on heat pump only mode in a new build home in Florida (the unit is in a garage) - aside from a few times of high demand with deep cleaning a large shower and doing multiple loads of laundry, it has stayed on heat-pump mode. Last year, the unit consumed 684.94 kWh of electricity. So far this year, we are at 377.88 kWh. We are entering the summer months which drives down the energy usage since the garage is so much warmer and we tend to take cooler, shorter showers during these months. Plus, laundry is shorts, t-shirts and bathing suits which cuts down on the amount of water usage as well. All in all, I spent less than $90 on electricity for the water heater in 2020. The old version was a 50-gallon, dual element electric unit that was rated at nearly $400 annual cost to operate - and 30 gallons less capacity.

I installed the 50 gal Rheem in Dec in my all electric PNW home. It is located in my below ground garage.. Due to the 70db noise level I felt the unit was defective since they advertised 49dBL. Currently on my third unit and realized it was not going to be any quieter. It is only two of us in the household and have not had any issues with not having hot water. I initially set mine for 120 degrees. We quickly realized the water was hotter than what my legacy 50 gal was set ( legacy 50gal heater was10 yrs old and rated $500 a year in energy). Lowered it to 118 and then from 10:30pm to 6:00am it is scheduled at 112 degrees. A couple of days ago changed the schedule to 116 day and 110 at night. Also run in energy saver mode with geofencing active as well. We are retired so mostly home throughout the day. As a comparison my MAY usage 72.01kWh. A significant saving over your unit. I would suggest stepping through lowering your set point to determine your actual need to meet your family’s usage. Set at 130 you are heating the water and then using cold water to bring it down to a temperature that is safe for skin contact. In our RV with an instant hot water heater we found setting it to 110 with no cold water was perfect for our showers. I should noted I have 6.03kWh of solar, a smart Nest thermostat and now the Rheem. In May I had a $10 electric bill and my most recent we supplied electricity to the grid. Thanks for posting and please do some playing around with your settings.

Just ordered the 65 gallon version and so excited to run this off my LG solar panels! Free hot water!

i have had mine 7 years, love it. I installed in Garage, no flue needed.

This was an exact replacement for the old one that lasted about 10 years. youtube.com/post/Ugkx7yWIKcrbA9KMHkGSfcgxW2lsjHT6B… The top of my mitigation tube by my roofline was just a 90 elbow which allowed too much debris to fall down into the fan, eventually ruining it. Without this issue, I bet it would have kept running another 10 years. When I replaced this fan, I added an extra elbow joint so the top tube now it does a 180, which should solve that problem. The radon guys around here wanted to charge me a $300 diagnostic fee, then parts/labor (probably close to $600 total). I installed this all by myself in about an hour for the cost of the fan; it would probably be even easier/faster with two people. FYI the manufacturer's warranty greatly differs depending on whether you install it yourself (1 yr warranty) or have a licensed installer do it (10 yrs).

Livin' the d'Rheem.

Great honest review and comment video. I just installed this unit in my 2 car garage here in North Florida. I’m one of those rare people that actually use my garage to keep my wife’s and my car in daily. So my idea was to use the waste heat from those cars to assist in heating my water in the evening, and also cooling down my garage. I did have one glitch over the first night. When I started the unit I put it in high use mode to force it to run the elements and the compressor to rapidly bring the water to temperature. Afterwards, I put it back in Eco mode just before bedtime. Woke up the next morning to no hot water. Called Rheem, they walked me through some troubleshooting. As soon as I touched the keypad, the compressor started and the unit has worked normally ever since. At lest for the last 4 days. So far with my family of three, it has only used the compressor to heat the water.

We installed a Rheem 50 gal Hybrid water heater 12 years ago and have never regretted it. We immediately saved $20 - $30 per month. We were able to buy it on sale and after electric company rebate and federal tax credit the unit cost us $0.00 (I installed the unit). There are only the two of us but we have had as many as 7 in the house and never ran out of water or had the electric coils kick in. Rheem exceeded my expectations with this unit.

Thanks for the info,looking for a new system,and I'm vacuuming all I can find.

To reduce noise transferring to the living space you may consider adding some studio sound absorbing foam in your garage or wherever your tank is located

Thanks, learning more everyday

We installed a 50 gallon version and it uses about 3 kWh per day as well… three people in the house too. Instead of a second tank, we have a thermostatic mixing valve installed with Rheem set at 140. Using it in a basement that’s always 65 degrees and don’t notice much a temp drop in the basement; We’ll see for sure in the winter!

We've had this water heater since November 2019 and bought it for the same price as a standard 50 gallon water heater after an instant rebate from our electric company. Our electric bill has gone down substantially since installing the Rheem.

I also have one of these and I concur with your assessment of it. I’m off grid and it is amazing how efficient this is compared to a standard electric water heater.