Posted by PaulHoule 1 day ago
The most optimistic hope is that the government mandate will force enough demand that manufacturers can enjoy some economies of scale and actually try to compete on price. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.
My heat pump is working great at 0F. It's 7 years old.
I do miss my natural gas on-demand water heater from when I lived in the states though. Unlimited hot water was nice, and it took up almost zero space.
Is it something from nefit by any chance?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/29/samsung-releases-new-...
> The South Korean giant [Samsung] said its new EHS All-in-One provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It can supply hot water up to 65 C in below-zero weather.
> Dubbed EHS All-in-One, the system provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It is initially released for the European market, with a Korean rollout expected within a year. “It delivers stable performance across diverse weather conditions. It can supply hot water up to 65 C even in below-zero weather and is designed to operate heating even in severe cold down to -25 C,” the company said in a statement. “The system also uses the R32 refrigerant, which has a substantially lower impact on global warming compared with the older R410A refrigerant.”
So if I want to quickly scald myself in a 400 litre pool at fifty degrees I can’t. But if I had a gas heater that would be possible!
Propane bill (no natural gas, town of 500) from Oct 24 to Feb 25 (installed the mini splits that month) was $1200, for just heating.
My mini-splits are on a dedicated sub panel with an Emporia Vue 3 energy monitor. $604 in electricity consumption, and that includes air conditioning over the summer months.
For what it’s worth, our winter weather averages 25-35F with the occasional few days dipping to tens, single digits, and the occasional -10 freak; but these units just BARELY have a HSPF4 rating to classify as “cold climate” models. Still going to pay for themselves in 6 years without any tax credits, and 4 or so since I still installed them when they were available.
https://sunamp.com/en-gb/hot-water-solutions-thermino-range/
The phase change stuff has positives like taking up less physical space but it's also a much less mature tech than storing hot water.
There's heat storage as discussed here.
Or you can store cold water in a reservoir as a giant battery, pumping it up high when you've got excess power, and letting it back down to generate hydroelectricity from it later.
Or you can boil water to make steam that spins a turbine and use it to convert anything that can heat water (coal, oil, nuclear...) to electricity.
In the UK there was a unfortunate trend of ripping out these energy storage devices and replacing hot water tanks with on demand electric hot water heating ( only heat the water you need ). And new builds often have no tanks ( as it saves space in the new tiny homes ).
Very short sighted in my view - a very simple way to store energy and everyone uses hot water directly.
Hot water tank was in the basement, which was not insulated. So the mass of hot water contributed very little as a heat reserve for the house.
House was in a northern clime.
Earth's oceans and seas act as giant heat sinks.
And that means more trouble as global climate change impacts..
https://www.earth.com/news/ocean-warming-broke-records-for-4...
Sometimes, in the winter, we get too much solar forcing, so if we don’t heat all, it can be 85F in the day in the house, but 60-65 at night. (We open the windows during the day, and don’t always close them at exactly the right time at night.)
Similarly, in mild weather, it is more efficient to burn hydrocarbons and turn it into electricity to run a heat pump than use that hydrocarbon for it's heat energy directly.
Pumping heat is more efficient than making it.
What's all this fuzz about ?
It's a double edged sword. In my country everyone bought pellet stoves because of the subsidies, hundreds of companies popped up, now that the subsidies have been phased out, 90% of the companies went down, with their support and warranties of course. The 10% that managed to survive increased their prices, which is easy to do once 90% of your competitors went bust
People who thought they'd save money by having the government (their taxes really) pay the bill are waking up 5 years later with expensive maintenance, the first units are starting to fail and need to be replaced but they can't afford it without the 50%+ subsidies. Not to mention that the prices pellets goes up and down faster than your average shitcoin.
Energy property - Heat pumps and biomass stoves and boilers
Heat pumps that meet or exceed the CEE highest efficiency tier, not including any advanced tier, in effect at the beginning of the year when the property is installed, and biomass stoves and boilers with a thermal efficiency rating of at least 75% qualify for a credit up to $2,000 per year. Costs may include labor for installation.
Qualified property includes new:
Electric or natural gas heat pumps
Electric or natural gas heat pump water heaters
Biomass stoves and boilers
https://www.tn.gov/environment/program-areas/energy/state-en...
(I don't understand the implications, it was just surprising when I heard that.)
This kind of thing is why I don't like bans like this. The specifics matter a lot.
What an exceptionally moronic thing to ban, the market solves this naturally. Resistance heaters are 100% efficient whatever fraction of the year is heating days. So if that's 1/2 the year and the water heater can't last 16yr because of water quality the heat pump heater will never pay you back.
This reminds me a lot of the time some jerks in west coast desert states convinced the feds to regulate plumbing fixtures so that eastern "we take from the river and put back in the river" municipalities that have more water than they know what to do with have to suffer through low flow everything.
A 6kW 240V EWH uses 25A, it’ll need #8 wire and a 35A or 40A breaker.
An equivalent HPHW would use 1.5kW at 240V, or 6.25A. You can use #14s and a 15A breaker.
Running cost of heat pumps for heating is much much lower than resistive heating.