Heat Pump Water Heaters
Intro/quick and dirty
I suspect most people probably don’t think about their hot water as much as I do. In fact most people don’t think about their hot water at all until they don’t have it anymore at which point the options are limited. If you have a garden-variety gas-powered tank water heater then you might consider replacing it BEFORE the tank fails and floods your house/basement. The good news is that now you can get a heat pump water heater that just plugs into the wall so no electrician needed. Rheem makes several options and I suggest getting the largest tank you can fit in your space and make sure the plumber installs a tempering valve so you can crank up the temperature to 140 degrees and then mix it back down to extend the amount of usable hot water.
What is a heat pump?
Your refrigerator is a heat pump! A heat pump just uses a law of physics that says that when a gas changes pressure, it must also change in temperature. This way you can “move” heat instead of creating it. If you also combine this phenomenon with variable speed DC inverter drive technology, you can create hot (or cold) air or water at efficiencies approaching 300 to 400% and higher.
Why get a heat pump?
Now that the world reached an agreement to phase out fossil fuels at COP28, house electrification will go from a fringe activity to mainstream to required. Heat pumps use electricity which can be generated with renewable means that help us achieve our critical climate goals. They also should save on utility bills since they use 1/3 to 1/4 or less as much energy as their gas counterparts.
Planning Ahead
If you have the luxury of planning ahead you can think more carefully about what you want and not be forced into a corner.
If you have a hydronic system now or you want one, it makes sense to get a heat pump system that can do BOTH space heating and domestic water heating
If you just want to heat domestic water then you might want to get a hybrid heat pump water heater that has a 30 Amp, 240 Volt circuit that can kick in if you need it (think teenagers back from college taking back to back showers!). These tend to come in 40, 50, 65, and 80 gallon versions and they require a general contractor or at least a plumber and an electrician.
Heat pumps make noise and cold air! An attached garage is a perfect place to put one but most older houses don’t have one. A basement could be a good location as long as it isn’t under a bedroom. A laundry porch could also work and worse case if you have to put it inside the house you can get your contractor to vent it into the attic so that it pulls hot air from the attic instead of from the living space.
If you really don’t want any noise or cold air problems, you can get a “split” model that has a tank that can go anywhere and an outdoor unit that goes outdoor and solves both noise and cold air problems.
Rebates/Tax Credits
As the Inflation Reduction Act rolls out it should be more clear what is available but because these rebates are income-dependent it is harder to say what is or isn’t available
Anyone should be able to take the 30% (max. $2,000) federal tax credit for a heat pump
Check for other available rebates (and contractors) here: https://switchison.org/
Contractors
Make sure you find a contractor with experience installing these as they take a bit more expertise than just a plumber typically has
In order to get some of the rebates, you have to use a contractor who is enrolled in the rebate program. Check here to see: https://switchison.org/
Brands
The three big names in American water heaters are Rheem, AO Smith, and Bradford White. I think Bradford White has higher quality standards but they don’t seem to offer plug-in units yet and are typically more expensive.
Tankless
Many people switched to tankless gas heaters for the obvious reasons of infinite hot water and space saving. If you really don’t have room for a tank you could consider getting an electric tankless water heater but they draw a TON of electricity and likely require you to upgrade your main panel to 200 Amps. If you have a small space like an ADU or you live alone and/or are careful about your water use, you could get away with a smaller on-demand electric water heater like the EcoSmart ECO 11 that only pulls 60 Amps and can handle a shower in our temperate climate. If you make sure not to shower when you run laundry then you’ll be fine
Optimizing
You don’t just have to settle for a single source of hot water. If you have a large house and/or the water heater is located far from where you use it, there a lot of other options you can employ to get a better experience and save water
Many companies make small tanks in 1, 2, 4, and 7 gallon sizes that mostly just plug into a normal outlet. We have a 4 gallon electric water heater under our kitchen sink and we all really love it because the hot water comes almost instantly. The 4 gallon tank is mostly right-sized for a dishwashing session especially if we use a dish pan. It does run out sometimes but then it only takes 20 minutes to refill.
It is really nice in the depth of winter to wash hands with warm water. Consider a small point of use electric on demand heater like an EcoSmart Eco 6. It is very small and can sit under a bathroom sink but it is powerful enough to make instant hot water for hand-washing. Alternatively you could do a smaller 1 or 2 gallon tank but these need to have pressure and temperature relief valves so not a great option for a bathroom on the 2nd floor.
If you are doing a major remodel or have a one story house and you are replacing old galvanized water pipes anyway, consider installing a hot water return line from the farthest water fixture from the water heater. Your plumber can throw a pump on top of the water heater with an adjustable timer so that you can recirculate the hot water in the morning and evening when most of the hot water is being used. This vastly reduces the wait time for hot water at all fixtures which saves water and time.
Induction Range Buyer Guide
It all begins with an idea.
Intro
If you are teetering on the fence let me push you over the other side. When I first read about induction I had a beefy, recently purchased Blue Star gas range that I loved so I was very reluctant to let go of it. The burners were powerful, you could shove pots around on the uniform cooking surface, and it worked well for my kind of throw it all in the pan kind of cooking. I think what ultimately convinced me to take the plunge was several instances of my daughter almost losing her eyebrows when a gas burner took a few extra seconds to light and in retrospect, the oil and gas industry must have had some brilliant people on their advertising team to convince the bulk of Americans that having explosive gas plumbed into their kitchen was a good idea. It was a little bit awkward to make a running swap from gas to electric so we had to do take out for a few days but the new Bertazzoni range was so sexy we soon forgot about our transition troubles.
We definitely fell for the looks of the Bertazzoni immediately but I’ll be honest…it took a good 6 months of daily cooking to fall in love with how it works. Induction cooking requires cookware that is purpose-built but we didn’t mind replacing our ragtag cookware with a new set of All-Clad induction compatible pots and pans. The hardest thing to get used to was what level (1 to 9) was appropriate for a given desired result and the fact that the delivery of heat is very precisely placed at the pan and doesn’t radiate up much at all. Once I realized this I quickly developed a new sauté technique in which I remove ingredients from the pan and put them aside rather than piling them all together. This is probably the superior cooking technique anyway but the induction format forces you to do it lest you burn dinner. I was initially bummed to realize that there really are only the 9 levels for cooktop temperatures. Gas burners have infinite levels which is very beguiling but when I met an accomplished chef who cooked on an Aga stove with only two always-on burners (a hot and a simmer element) I realized that it all comes down to technique. Induction ranges are very precise such that once you know that eggs cook at level 5, then you can very consistently deliver your eggs over easy every time and 9 levels is plenty for this.
Now that we have been cooking on our induction range for several years I’m completely committed to it on many levels. Here are the main points I’d like to make:
Safety: Induction is inherently safer than gas or electric resistance as the glass surface does not get nearly as hot as the pan does. Also no open flames means fewer fires. This often means that I don’t need to use an oven mit for my pan handles anymore.
Health: Gas ranges emit methane and smog precursors into your kitchen—kids who grow up with gas cooktops have a 40% higher chance of developing asthma.
Environment: Induction uses electricity and is 70 to 80% efficient (compared to 30 to 40% for gas) and can be offset with solar panels on your roof or grid renewable energy.
Power: The power burner on most induction ranges can boil a large pot of water in just a few minutes—MUCH more powerful than the average gas range and still more powerful than most if not all “commercial style” residential gas ranges.
Control: Induction elements have precise power delivery for consistent results. Electric ovens offer much more flexibility with up to 4 different heating elements.
Before You Switch
An electric/induction range represents the single largest dedicated load in a typical single family home (40 to 50 out of 100 amps) which can lead to capacity and cost issues down the road. If you already have a newer 200 Amp main panel then you don’t have capacity issues, but if you…
have an older electrical panel and/or it is 100 Amps or less
it is located within 3 feet of the gas meter
the distance between the closest electrical panel is large
running a 40 Amp circuit would be disruptive (and expensive)
…then you might want to get a plug-in hybrid range (like the Charlie from Channing Street Copper Co) since it lets you just swap the ranges out (after capping the gas line) and you can plug the stove into the shared 120 Volt outlet. The Charlie has a battery that lets it deal with instantaneous demand issues. See more below.
Making the Switch
If you are lucky enough to already have a 40 Amp/240 Volt plug behind your gas range or you have determined that you can easily add that circuit then you just need to find a contractor who will make the switch for you. Based upon experience best results are obtained if you have your electrician run the circuit and then put the gas range back. Then you can order the new range and have the delivery guys take away the old one. Take a picture of the capped gas line and you might get a rebate from BayRen.
Considerations
I suspect that most of the components that go into the induction ranges available today are all made in the same handfull of factories in China, so the differences are going to be more about the features, the design, and the size.
Size
If you are designing a new kitchen then you might have the option to consider a larger range. Most ranges are 30” wide but several manufacturers make sizes up to 48” wide with more “burners” and two ovens.
At 36” the number of inductors goes up to 5 or 6 and the oven gets larger but you end up paying almost twice as much to make this size jump
If you have a 36” gas range and no exhaust hood you might consider dropping down to a 30” range and adding a 6” oven tray cabinet
When you go to 36” or larger the circuit size needed might jump from 40 Amps to 50 Amps
Features
most induction ranges fall either into the retro category with knobs and no buttons or the full tilt techy ones with touch screens and wifi. I’m not a fan of a lot of tech at least not on something that gets hot and banged around but some people might appreciate some of the automation.
Ilve seems to be an exception in that they have very traditional knobs for the inductors but a digital display for the oven
Controls
again there are essentially two categories here: front controls and rear controls. I can see that rear controls could be a good kid-friendly feature but reaching over your pots to adjust the temperature seems to be a bit of a pain and wouldn’t be my preference. Most induction ranges have a kid lock feature anyway and one of the selling points for me on induction is that it is kid-friendly when your older kid starts to get interested in cooking.
Cooktop
The layout of the cooktop may end up being the most important consideration as some people might prefer larger inductors in both of the front positions yet many of the available ranges place a small simmer burner in front. I hardly ever use small sauce pans so I would prefer the small burner to be in the back.
Think about how you typically cook and check out the models in the showroom or download the spec sheet so you know what you are getting. Larger inductors should be able to adjust to smaller pans but trying to use a large pan on a small inductor is going to be frustrating and likely lead to burning.
Design
The more main stream brands like GE, LG, and Samsung tend to offer very staid contemporary minimalist designs
The American and Italian brands tend to offer several design approaches with both modern and antique looks availble sometimes in quite a dazzling array of colors (and you can get a matching exhaust hood, dishwasher, and maybe refrigerator)
Some Options
Frigidaire 30”
Good budget/entry level for rental
LG 30”
Most reasonably priced full-featured front control induction range
uses knobs for control
has a large skillet induction element at right front
GE Profile 30”
Relatively affordable for the quality and available features
Lots of features
Large elements are in the front, smaller ones in the rear
Bertazzoni 30”, 36”, 48”
Elegant, classic design with minimal tech
All mechanical interface (no push buttons, touch screens, wifi, etc)
Bridge mode for griddle cooking
Oven has 4 elements and 9 modes with triple pane glass door
multiple elements have a 3700W power/boost mode
36” size has 5th element centered left to right and front to back
48” model has 6 elements and a 2nd oven
Big Chill 30”
available in Retro or Pro in a dazzling array of colors
can order matching hood, refrigerator, dish washer
All mechanical interface (no push buttons, touch screens, wifi, etc)
Channing Copper Co. Charlie Hybrid (120 Volt plug-in/battery)
this is the one to get if you don’t have a 240 Volt circuit
plugs into the shared circuit 120V outlet behind your old gas range
4 kilowatt-hour battery (qualifies for 30% federal tax credit)
Can cook during power outages and can plug your fridge in too
all 4 inductors are full size and automatically adjust to pan size
inductors run off of DC current so there is no harmonic buzz
programmed to not use grid power during peak hours 4 pm to 9 pm
currently only available in 30”
Ilve
high end designer brand handmade in Italy
multiple design series available
sizes 30”, 36”, 40”, and 48”
manual induction controls with digital oven control
VIking
available in 30” only
available in about 15 different colors
All mechanical interface (no push buttons, touch screens, wifi, etc)
Smeg
available in stainless in 30” and 36”
minimal tech
Cafe
Kitchenaid
Smeg
Bosch
Beko