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

Livin' the d'Rheem.

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

in Phoenix they are nice to have in the garage, they keep the garage cool

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!

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

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

The fact that it air conditions while heating water, is perfect for southern states that Rarely need heaters in the house and do need AC Cooling most of the year.

We originally installed an AO Smith heat pump 50 gallon (the largest Lowes had at the time) water heater two years ago. We wanted to replace a 75gallon propane unit. The hybrid (heat pump with elements) seemed like a sensible and thrifty solution. I was very happy with the unit once installed. That lasted about 2 week. My wife complained mightily about how noisy it was. She was right. In our living room in the floor above it was quite loud. I returned it to Lowes withing the satisfaction period (with a little trouble). I then ordered an 82gallon Rheem from Home Despot. Other than delivery (they stopped delivering themselves and started contracting it out. It took weeks to get it delivered and installed. The Rheem is 18db quieter. I am very happy about that. I am NOT happy about the constant problems. The unit goes through periods when it trips a reset switch on the top element. When it does, the whole thing shuts down. This requires a breaker reset, reset button reset or both. This can occur as frequently as every other week or not for two months, and then every other week. Tech support told me how to push the red button, but that's about it. I have not put an amp meter on the leads to record energy usage, but I assume the unit is saving money. I think it is saving less money because we have to run "high demand" mode. I'll keep you posted. I am less than satisfied because, as you may imagine, my wife gets a little irritated when the thing stops working. The 10-year warrantee is no comfort if it's going to be 10 years of complaining from my better half.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

One word of advise for those planning on buying one of these and installing it yourself - be prepared to do troubleshooting and even repairs yourself. Maybe call Rheems and find out WHO in your area would be providing service if needed. I had the extended warranty - but the shop that Rheems had contracted with to provide service dropped out - and I was told to contact someone local to come out. How many local plumbers or heat pump techs are going to be interested in that? Every phone call to Rheems was at least a 90 minute to 2 hour wait (though you could leave your number and they would call you back). How many local techs are going to waiting at your house for 90 minutes waiting to talk to Rheems? I found the Rheems tech line knowledgeable and helpful - and the item they wanted to replace was something I decided to tackle - but for the less technical that would not have been an option. There something to be said to having someone in your area sell and install the unit - and they are the ones to call. I had the unit not quite a year and it had to be replaced (per Rheems). Took it back to Home Depot to swap. They had one left that was identical to mine - if not - and I had to get a newer model I would have had to pay the difference between the original one and the new one. And one last thing in this story. I called the folks that provided the "extended" warrenty - so they could update their records with the new serial number. They said I would have to cancel the existing contract and reapply for a new one. At that point I said just cancel it and reimburse me. Almost 6 weeks later I finally got a check back - something like 70% of what I originally paid.

Thanks, learning more everyday

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

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.

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.

Used to live in San Diego, can't believe how much electricity has gone up there. Now in Ontario, Canada and pay about US$0.05/kWh off peak. Enjoying our new heat pump HVAC and heating the house for C$1/day in the winter! 👍

Great review! Thank you!