I put one in last year, and according to my kill-a-watt meter, we're paying less than $10 a month for hot water even at our summer electricity pricing, which is 22 cents/kw.

That said, the heart of the technology is basically the same as a $99 window air-conditioner, and the new units are made in China - so who knows what the durability will be.

I paid $699 shipped, but apparently, these units were selling for $499 before the tax credit was announced, and it looks like the price was recently jacked to $799...

The quality seems decent, but it does have a "buzzy" sound when it's running that would be really annoying if you had it near a sleeping or living area.

The install was super-easy for me - I used a new AOSmith 50-gallon electric water heater as the tank (I hooked up the power supply to the standard heater, but turned off the breaker, so I can use the standard elements if the Airtap fails)

Would I do it again? - MEH..I dunno - playing around with the pricing to steal the tax credit seems kind of sleazy, the warranty is really ambiguous - to qualify for the tax credit they had to offer a five-year warranty I believe, but their website now says two years - the new integrated units from GE and Rheem have ten years of coverage, and they have the benefit of being able to use both the heat pump and standard electric elements to give you super-fast recovery if you have guests over, or a huge garden tub to fill.

A quick Ebay search shows the competitors are around $1500~ish, but if you haven't taken the tax credit yet, you could snag $500 in government cheese and nullify the cost difference with a better warranty.

The technology is an excellent idea, and when the competition drives pricing to where it really belongs - (Until then... meh... Certainly it can pencil out, but the energy-saving payoff exceeds the warranty which makes me nervous. Solar really isn't any better, and tankless seems to be snake-oil when you look for real savings data, but to each his own...

Keep in mind that if this heat pump is taking its heat from your indoor air, then the question must be asked, 'how are you heating your home in the winter?'

Geothermal heat pumps with desuperheaters use a buffer tank for maximum efficiencies. This is a single tank system. This also raises questions regarding efficiency...

SR

"questions regarding efficiency?" How many people stuff any water heater in their living space? Mine's in the garage, at my old house it was in a basement utility room. I could care less how much heat is removed from those areas, although in my experience it hasn't been much at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think Airtap is missing the mark by a long shot in their marketing and in their pricing strategy - instead of going after tree-huggers, they need to appeal to ordinary run-of-the-mill cheapskates like myself by chopping the price to about $350, and getting the product into the big-box stores like Sam's and Costco. It's pretty easy to pencil-out the energy savings if the price was lowered, and with chinese manufacturing and enough volume they could do it and still make a very nice profit.

You can't argue with the savings though - if you can find me a cheaper way to heat water, without investing thousands of dollars into a solar or Geo-system - I'm all ears.

If your garage or mechanical room is a heated space youÂre extracting heat from it to heat your DHW with this device in winter.

WhatÂs its life cycle cost like?

Gut feeling; sounds like a gimmick!

SR