Heat Pump Water Heaters in Smithville, ON — The Only Water Heater With an Ontario Rebate

If your hot water is already electric, or you have not yet decided between electric and gas, a heat pump water heater is worth looking at. A heat pump water heater installation in Smithville is not the same job as swapping one tank for another. Instead of a gas line, it needs air around it, somewhere to drain, and room in the electrical panel. Ontario pays a rebate on it as well, though a unit fitted on its own does not earn one.

How a Heat Pump Water Heater Works, and What It Costs to Run

An electric tank heats the water with a heating element, the same way a kettle does. It turns electricity straight into heat, so you pay full price for the electricity in every tank of hot water.

A heat pump water heater does not make heat at all. It takes heat that is already in your basement air and pumps it into the water, the way a fridge takes the heat out of your food and dumps it out the back.

Most models are hybrids. They have a heating element inside as well, and it switches on for the days when the house uses hot water faster than the heat pump can heat it.

Natural Resources Canada has put numbers on that. Against a standard electric water heater, an ENERGY STAR certified heat pump model uses up to 70 percent less energy on average, and runs up to four times more efficiently. (1)

The four-times figure is the one worth understanding. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity it draws, roughly four kilowatt-hours of heat reach the tank. Three of those four were already sitting in your basement air, and the electricity only paid to move them.

All of that is measured against an electric tank. If your tank runs on gas today, the saving is much smaller, because you would be giving up a fuel you already have connected and adding electrical capacity to replace it.

Where to Install a Heat Pump Water Heater in a Smithville House

These units need three things from the space they stand in, and a basement corner that suited a tank does not automatically suit one of these.

• A room with enough air in it. The heat it uses comes out of the air around it, so a sealed closet the size of the tank will not give it enough air.
• Somewhere for water to drain. It produces condensate the way an air conditioner does, and that has to go somewhere.
• Somewhere the cold exhaust does not matter. It blows cooled air back into the space it stands in.

Natural Resources Canada is blunt about that cold exhaust: these units are less beneficial in the winter when space heating is required. (2) In January the heat it pulls out of your basement came from your furnace in the first place, so for part of the year the two appliances are working against each other.

So the spot matters more in Niagara than it would in a milder place. An unheated crawl space sits close to freezing in February, and cold air has very little heat in it for the unit to take. An attached garage fails for the same reason.

So put it in a room you are not heating anyway. An unfinished basement corner, or a utility room nobody keeps warm, gives it air to work with and leaves the furnace out of it.

The Electrical Work, and Who Is Allowed to Do It in Ontario

The regulator here is not TSSA. Nothing in one of these burns fuel, so the authority is the Electrical Safety Authority.

ESA’s rule is that only Licensed Electrical Contractors, with some exemptions such as HVAC installers, are legally authorized to do electrical work in your home. (3) The Ontario Electrical Safety Code also requires almost all electrical work to be reported: the contractor files a notification of work before starting, and ESA issues a Certificate of Acceptance once the work passes inspection. (4)

Ask any contractor whether they are a Licensed Electrical Contractor or working under the HVAC exemption, and ask whether they are filing that notification. Mike Peddle holds a Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Mechanic 313A, and Environmental Heating & Cooling has been family-owned in Smithville since 2014.

There is a simpler problem underneath the legal one. An older Smithville panel may have no room for the breaker a heat pump water heater needs, and you should find that out on the first visit rather than on installation day.

The Ontario Rebate, and How to Apply

Ontario’s Home Renovation Savings program pays on a heat pump water heater, and it is the only kind of water heater the program pays on. (5) Two conditions come with it, and the second one surprises people.

First, the unit has to be an ENERGY STAR certified model. (5)

Second, the rebate does not pay for a heat pump water heater fitted on its own. You start with a home energy assessment, and the money comes once you have finished two or more upgrades. (5) The program rebates the assessment too. (5)

The program sets the amounts and changes them, so read the current figure on the program’s own page rather than on ours. Environmental Heating & Cooling has claimed over $2 million in rebates for customers, and a good part of that is knowing which number is live on the day you apply.

What Affects Heat Pump Water Heater Installation Cost in Smithville

The quote turns on five things:

• the old tank, and how hard it is to get out of the basement
• room in the electrical panel for the circuit
• where the condensate can drain to from where the unit stands
• where it will be installed, and whether that room is heated
• whether you are claiming the rebate, which means the assessment has to happen before the install

Take the panel alone. Two electric tanks of the same age, in houses built the same year, can land in completely different quotes because one panel has a spare double breaker and the other has none. That is why a real number only comes after someone has opened the panel and looked.

Houses on well water, out past the edge of town, raise a second question. Untreated water is harder, and what we find inside the old tank tells us what the new one is in for.

Heat Pump Water Heater Questions From Smithville Homeowners

Will a heat pump water heater make my basement cold?

Yes, a little, because taking heat out of the air is how it works. Whether that matters depends on the room. In an unfinished basement most people never notice the difference. In a finished basement that gets used every day, they notice.

Can I install a heat pump water heater myself in Ontario?

Not the electrical side. ESA allows only Licensed Electrical Contractors, with some exemptions such as HVAC installers, to do electrical work in a home. (3) The work also has to be reported to ESA before it starts. (4)

Does a heat pump water heater work in a Niagara winter?

Yes, because it lives indoors and draws on basement air rather than outdoor air. That makes it a different question from an outdoor heat pump heating the house. The NRCan caveat is about value, not about whether it works: it is less beneficial in winter when the space is being heated anyway. (2)

Is a heat pump water heater worth it if I have a gas tank now?

Much less so, because the efficiency case is built against an electric heating element, and swapping from gas means adding electrical capacity to replace a fuel you already have connected.

What do I need before you can quote one?

Three things: the fuel the current tank runs on, where it sits and whether that space is heated, and a photo of the electrical panel with the door open.

Book a Heat Pump Water Heater Quote in Smithville

Call the office with the fuel your current tank burns, where it sits, and whether the basement is heated. We cover Smithville, Grimsby, Beamsville, Caledonia and West Lincoln.

If you are trying to get out of a rental, the water heaters page makes the case against renting your hot water tank. If it is the whole house you are thinking about heating differently, that is heat pumps that warm the house, not just the tank.

References

1. Natural Resources Canada, ENERGY STAR certified heat pump water heaters, natural-resources.canada.ca
2. Natural Resources Canada, Guide to residential water heaters, natural-resources.canada.ca
3. Electrical Safety Authority, Who can do electrical work at my property?, esasafe.com
4. Electrical Safety Authority, Notifications and Inspections, esasafe.com
5. Save on Energy, Home Renovation Savings, saveonenergy.ca