We have had a Rheem unit for a few years now and I am quite confident that it has paid for itself by now. We installed the Rheem and a heat pump at the same time moving away from a fireplace. Our power bill was similar that year to the previous year so basically the heatpump covered the power for heating the house. It does have to switch to the element when it is very cold so some mornings in winter it will use the element rather then the heatpump although I think that it heats half the tank then switches of until it is warmer and then the heatpump tops it off. I will say it is worth having a roof over it. Our one was exposed to the weather and the bottom outer colour steel cap started to show some signs of rust where the coating had been knocked off during installation. I put a small clearlight roof over that and the aircon's outside unit and that has stopped the rust from getting any worse. It has also helped to cut back the noise a bit. You can hear it when you are out side on that side of the house. Inside you have to strain to hear it.
Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64
It is more focussing on whether subsidizing solar hot water is good use of public money than whether it is environmentally friendly or not.
Yes, that was the report I was referring to. You are right about the main conclusions of the report. I was only referring to a small part of it.
If only they do a report on all possible types of water heaters, Including from a whole of network perspective. Now that would be interesting. Although I think the Govt doesn't want to do that since it would probably show that instant gas to be the best system taking into account whole of life running and install / maintenance costs.
In Australia as far as I know the govt pays a subsidy for electric cylinders to be replaced with instant gas water heaters. And they also have a regulation that prohibits electric only cylinders being used in new housing.
Disclaimer: I am a Certifing Plumber and Gasfitter.
I have solar and electric. The electric I have boosting only at night and controlled by a Monotron timer. Being on day/night meters means heating at night is about 11cents /kWh vs 20 or so for day.
I located the solars next to the flue from the woodburner and then put a section of flue with a copper coil wrapped around it and attached to the solars using thermosyphon. Whole system works great and power bills in winter (couple of heat pumps in other areas of the house that are usually only used in the mornings) are constantly around $180 through winter.
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