The Biden administration is tightening efficiency rules for water heaters, stoves and other appliances, and conservative politicians are dialing up their criticisms.
Extreme energy use for pretty low deltas on temperature. Best possible efficiency is 100%, far less than the 2.5+ cop a heat pump unit will get you. If it’s at all manageable, get the heat pump.
Frankly, their inefficiency means the emissions they cause are still pretty bad unless you know your energy source is more renewable than most.
But they don’t need venting, which is nice. They do take a big fat electrical connection though - the one I installed was two 2 pole 40a breakers - hopefully you have at least 200A service. Mostly they work as intended.
Thanks. That makes sense. We installed a gas tankless after looking into electric tankless. The lack of venting looked really attractive until I blanched at the wiring we’d need to pull.
My experience with tanked electrics was that they take a long time to recover. Is this also true of heat-pump based tanked WHs?
Believe It or not there are electrical tankless heaters. I actually installed one not too long ago because it made sense in a very odd application.
Mostly they’re a terrible idea though.
Yeah, they’re pretty rare and almost never the best option. I don’t think I’ve actually encountered one.
We’ve considered switching to an electric tankless WH. What makes them a poor choice?
Extreme energy use for pretty low deltas on temperature. Best possible efficiency is 100%, far less than the 2.5+ cop a heat pump unit will get you. If it’s at all manageable, get the heat pump.
Frankly, their inefficiency means the emissions they cause are still pretty bad unless you know your energy source is more renewable than most.
But they don’t need venting, which is nice. They do take a big fat electrical connection though - the one I installed was two 2 pole 40a breakers - hopefully you have at least 200A service. Mostly they work as intended.
Thanks. That makes sense. We installed a gas tankless after looking into electric tankless. The lack of venting looked really attractive until I blanched at the wiring we’d need to pull. My experience with tanked electrics was that they take a long time to recover. Is this also true of heat-pump based tanked WHs?
Most of them are actually coal fired.