The tech costs more than conventional options upfront, but federal tax credits, new 120V models and strong savings have made them more appealing than ever.
They almost always have two high wattage resistive elements installed like a traditional electric water heater which require the 220v/30a circuit. The compressor runs on 220v but sips almost no real current while running.
We have two main models here, one with a sizable compressor enough to heat a whole home (7-20 kW heat) and a water tank on the side which doesn’t need resistive backup, or smaller, hybrid models that have a few hundred W compressor and maybe 1-3 kW heat output. The latter are almost all backed up by a gas boiler in a hybrid setup, usually uses zero gas until you run it dry - then the 25ish kW gas powered furnace can provide enough power to quickly fill a bath or send tons of hot water to a rain shower.
They almost always have two high wattage resistive elements installed like a traditional electric water heater which require the 220v/30a circuit. The compressor runs on 220v but sips almost no real current while running.
We have two main models here, one with a sizable compressor enough to heat a whole home (7-20 kW heat) and a water tank on the side which doesn’t need resistive backup, or smaller, hybrid models that have a few hundred W compressor and maybe 1-3 kW heat output. The latter are almost all backed up by a gas boiler in a hybrid setup, usually uses zero gas until you run it dry - then the 25ish kW gas powered furnace can provide enough power to quickly fill a bath or send tons of hot water to a rain shower.