I’ve been recommending Heat Pump Water Heaters to all my clients without Natural Gas service to their houses. In the past, I’ve installed Rheem and AOSmith’s electric HPWH’s but I’ve not installed one inside the conditioned space of the house, until now!
I found this AirGenerate model ATI66 about a year ago and was immediately impressed by the stats on the unit, but the MOST important feature to me is the ability to duct air in/out of the heat pump on the top of this water heater!
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You are going to need a good space to utilize this large HPWH inside your house.This is not a small water heater at 69″ tall and 25″ in diameter.
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This model uses a 9000 Btu Panasonic heat pump to gather heat out of the air and moves that heat into the 66 gallon tank below. A standard electric water heater has an EF rating of 1.0, but this unit’s EF rating is 2.25. That means it’s using less than 1/2 the electricity to heat the water as a standard electric unit. If you are building in the hot/humid Southern US the byproducts of this efficient unit are cool & dehumidified air! That’s why most HPWH’s say you need a rather large 10×10 room to locate this heater. BUT, with a ducted unit we can use a smaller closet and direct that cool exhaust somewhere useful!
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| Input and Exhaust ports. Genius! |
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| This ATI66 is inside a foyer closet, you can see the Panasonic ERV directly above it dumping hot air into the intake. |
Couple last comments on HPWH’s in general:
- If you have more than 2 people in your house I’d recommend buying bigger than a 50 gallon tank
- Set yours to ECON mode so the electric resistance heater won’t fire up. That electric backup coil severely limits your savings with this heat pump water heater.
- Check and clean your filters every 60 days! These need air flow to be efficient.
- Don’t cheap out and get a standard electric unit, you WILL save big money in the long run with a heat pump water heater.
-Matt Risinger
Risinger Homes is a custom builder and whole house remodeling contractor that specializes in Architect driven and fine craftsmanship work. We utilize an in-house carpentry staff and the latest building science research to build dramatically more efficient, healthy and durable homes.
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