Heat pump water heaters

A heat pump water heater looks like an electric tank-type water heater, but is designed to work in a different way. The small air-source heat pump mounted on top of the hot water storage tank moves or "pumps" heat from the surrounding air to a condenser that heats the water. On some heat pump water heaters, the condenser (which acts like a heat exchanger) is located inside the tank; on other models, the condenser's coils encircle the tank's exterior.

To understand how a heat pump water heater works, think about a refrigerator working in reverse. Instead of removing heat from an insulated box and transfering it to the surrounding air, a heat pump water heater removes heat from the air and transfers this heat to water in an insulated tank.

Heat pump water heaters can be at least twice as efficient as standard electric tank-type water heaters, which means that you can expect to cut your water heating costs in half if you upgrade to a new HPWH. But there's a catch or two. First of all, you can expect to pay at least twice as much for a heat pump water heater as you'd pay to install a similarly sized electric, tank-type water heater. Secondly, heat pump water heaters lose efficiency in cold climates, since the air surrounding the heat pump has less heat. The colored map below reveals that in northern parts of the U.S., a HPWH would need to rely on inefficient electric resistance heat during the coldest months of the year.

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