Just a tip for anyone that goes this route – the leak detection can be added separately from the shutoff valve and is only a $12 part. The Rheem part number is AP19134.
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Thanks. Where does the rope water sensor plug into the unit?
I’ve started to reconsider my thinking on moving from my natural gas solution…
My total installed cost of a hybrid water heater will run me $2,250.00. This includes the water heater itself, as well as electrical work to run a 240V line to the installation location and repiping for the different sized tank. This pricing includes the federal tax credit and utility incentives…
On the other hand, doing a like-for-like gas water heater swap will run me a total of $1,100.00 installed. This is a $1,150 difference…
I only spend about $10/mo (or $120/year) for the natural gas for water heating…
The breakeven is nearly 10 years if I assume my electric water heating is free of monthly charges…
Of course, this breakeven assumes natural gas prices remain stable (which we know will not be the case)… But even so, this is not an overwhelming ROI… Thats my current thinking… I am sure the saved kWh production from my solar can be used for something more valuable (like maybe charging a future EV automobile)…
Anyway…that’s my current thinking at the moment… 
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Your thinking is spot on, unless the price of nat gas soars, you will almost always be better off with it when you factor in both the capital on operating cost. I wish I had natural gas, but our only option other than electric is Propane which is Northern Florida is crazy expensive at about $4.00 a gallon.
Maybe a dumb question, but - if the initial thought behind this was shifting the load to Solar - rather than a hybrid hot water heater, could you just get a regular electric?
General run of the mill electric hot water heaters are cheap. You can get a 50 gallon no frills electric for less than $400 or some basic frills for around $500
If you have the solar capacity to over produce and cover the electric, that may be an alternate option.
The hybrids are more expensive up front, but in concept, more efficient and less expensive to run in the long term as they use less electric, but as you have pointed out, for your use case, the increased cost isn’t worth it.
Of course, of your over produced electric is purchased back at a 1:1 as your consumption, then it may not be worth it. But if your over produced electric is purchased back at a crappy rate, and or is only “bankable” for a year, then adding more electric use to your home may make sense.
Just a thought.
Good thought…
The problem is that a regular, run of the mill electric water heater that heats water with electric elements is cheap to purchase, but the annual kWh burn rate is humungous… The yellow energy tag on the electric element water heater I was looking at showed an annual burn of ~4,600 kWh per year. My solar panels are only forecast to produce an annual total of 5,500 kWhs.
I am looking to utilize my excess over production… But I don’t have THAT much excess production! Having my water heater forecast to burn 84% of my total solar production is a non-starter…
A heat-pump or hybrid (in heat-pump only mode) only burns as much as a 100W light bulb. And as a result, the annual forecast burn is only ~850kWh…a mere fraction of what a standard electric water heater would consume…
Just for your reference, here are the energy tags that I am looking at:
This one if for the hybrid one that I was looking at (Cost of WH: $1,299):
This one is for a basic electric-element based water heater (Cost of WH $379):
Interesting that the electric water heater above is less than the one that I was looking at in the past (~3,500kWh/year, not the 4,600kWh/year model I was looking at)… But still significantly higher than what my excess production is…
Yep… Totally understood. I just wasn’t sure how much extra you may or may not have available. But in your case, totally not worth it.
OK… Here’s a question for those of you “in the know”… Now that I have decided to go with a natural gas solution…
I am thinking about going with a 50 gallon Bradford White natural gas water heater… My plumber recommends it… It’s not available for purchase at the big box stores… Apparently it is only available to contractors…
I have done a little research, and the water heater gets good reviews by plumbers… But I need to question their motivations… After all, these are the water heaters that are only available to them, and perhaps they have some incentive to move Bradford White units… I don’t know…
There is one YouTube video that compares the two and calls Rheem the best, and Bradford White complete garbage… He was so biased, that it sounded like he was getting paid by Rheem to do a PSA!!!
The Bradford White has brass threaded fittings for when you flush the tank (and I think most premium tanks have this, instead of the cheap plastic fittings)… So that’s a plus…
Plumbers seem to state that they can get to BW parts from their local contractor store same-day because they always have this stuff in stock since they specialize in BW… AND that the warranty claim process is almost instantaneous…
In comparison, the claim is that Rheem warranty is not a full warranty, it is limited pro-rated warranty… And that the call centers sometimes take 1-3 weeks to ship parts (at which point you have to deal with cold water for that time period)… Sounds like scare tactics to me…
Anyway, I like my plumber, and I want to trust him… but I also recognize that there could be some back-office motivations for his recommendation…
Any experience here???
I had the same thing with a fairly large plumbing company in Chicago. They had no clue about hybrid water heaters when they came out, but to their credit, called BW and was educated about them. The BW plus all the work would’ve been double or triple what a straight nat gas replacement ended up costing. They had the same arguments about parts in stock and east warranty, plus higher quality than the mass produced Rheems. We ended up with a Rheem Professional 50 gallon.
PLOT TWIST!
Ugh… I thought I had this decision behind me… My electric generation supplier, Silicon Valley Clean Energy or SVCE (they pass through my generation costs through my PG&E bill) is offering a $2,000.00 rebate towards the purchase and installation of an electric water heater (which includes the hybrid heat-pump Rheem I was looking at)…
I’ll give them a call tomorrow to learn more about the rebate, and how easy it would be to collect… Along with the Federal Tax Credit of $300, that gives me a $2,300.00 reason to go with this option… The PG&E rebate is only $300, and according to SVCE any piggybacking of similar incentives from other utility companies would reduce my SVCE rebate by $1,000.00.
So the drama continues…
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I am going to install a Rheem hybrid water heater in my Florida garage. My current heater is original in 2003
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I have a friend or two in the plumbing business and they like Bradford, but I think it is not because it saves the customer money, rather it saves them money. As you say the parts are well stocked and the support to the plumbers is great. In my previous home I installed a commercial AOSmith 100 gallon hot water heater. Never had any issues with it except for having to replace a thermocouple once. which I did myself. When I sold the house two years ago the unit was 25 years old and looked and ran like new. The inspector told the buyer not to worry about it as it had lots of life left in it.
BTW @32259fl, any update you have to report on your Rheem Hybrid energy usage so far? Curious to know if it is delivering the efficiency as advertised… I know you just got it, but you probably have some partial and imperfect idea of how it’s performing, no?
If you do, I would love to hear about what you are finding…
It is working quite well and using about 3kwh per day based on the roughly three weeks that I have had it. It is in my North FL garage and we have had some fairly cold weather with it down in the low 40’s at night for part of that time. I know it will be doing much better in the warmer weather, but even if it ran at 3kwh a day all year that would equate to only $120 in electricity, or just slightly above the name plate on the yellow and black sticker of $104.
I have it running in heat pump mode only, so recovery takes a while, like several hours. It you needed faster recovery you would have to run it in hybrid mode but obviously that will eat some more energy. I have not set it to drop temperature at night, so I could probably eek out a little move savings if I tried that. I would say with this 50 gallon unit it might run into issues with warm rather than hot showers after the third one in a very short period. But for just the two of us in the house that will not be an issue. There is always plenty of hot water for us and we really like it. I replaced an electric unit that was 55 gallons that the energy sticker was for $565 a year in electricity. I went with this one rather than the 60 gallon unit due to size concerns. This unit is the same diameter as my 55 gallon one whereas the 60 gallon is larger and would not have fit in the stupid space where the unit is located. As I mentioned it is also located right near the garage door which is stupid, would be better at the back of the garage as it would stay warmer at night and also do a better job cooling the garage in the summer. Great unit, you should enjoy it.
Sense picked it up in only two or three days, but I don’t think it is fully showing the usage. Sense claims it is only pulling about 197 watts when it runs, but I think actual is closer to double that. Perhaps it has no found all the components yet. My info all comes from the Rheem app.
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Yuba Duba Doo!
I got a hybrid hot water heater for $699 + $70 (s&h) + 6.5% tax in south Florida…
I suppose I lucked onto that afore mentioned deal while it was available again last week.
Again, now, the deal is only available if purchased in the Oregon store and is part of a local utility rebate program.
I suggest anyone interested to keep trying as esteemed member 32259FL reported this here on around 26NOV20 but in a later post said that the “SlickDeal” was no longer working…
Myself, I hadn’t read down that far and last week, I did what was directed and my Rheem hybrid HWH order was placed. Now again, today the 21st of December, the Home Depot website is saying that the $500 off of $1300 is only good ‘in store’ purchase.
The program ends December 31st, so keep trying… it worked for me on the 15th of December. Anything is possible.
If anyone is interested in the Hybrid hot water heater deal ($500 discounted off $1299) at home depot… It is currently available again. Home Depot:
See the details up near the top of this post 8 and 10 by @32259fl
You basically change the “My Store” to Eugene Oregon and purchase ship to home for about $70 s&h
Post here if you take advantage of this deal (…Or should I call it a steal)
UPDATE 13JAN21:
Oh, I just read the trick to it still available is to use the Microsoft Edge browser.
Read the details:
LINK: clic
Rheem Performance Platinum 50 Gal. 10-Year Hybrid High Efficiency Smart Tank Electric Water Heater- $699+ 75shipping $775 (slickdeals.net)