A heat pump works by transferring heat, not by converting electrical energy into heat. A heat pump water heater removes energy from a low temperature source (ambient air) and moves it to a high temperature hot water tank. Electricity is simply used to upgrade the quality of heat energy not to generate heat energy. The basic principle of a Heat Pump water heater is similar to a refrigerator working in reverse. When hot water is drawn off, cold water enters the tank. A thermostat then activates a fan, compressor and circulation valve. A fan draws outside air in through the air inlet at the top of the water heater and the pump circulates water from the bottom of the storage tank and through a heat exchanger. Heat is absorbed from the air by an evaporator and transferred into the water through the heat exchanger. The resulting cold air is then discharged through the air outlet back to atmosphere and the heated water is circulated back into the top of the storage tank. This process continues while ever heating is required until the water in the storage tank reaches a temperature of 65°C.
Even on cold days, heat is drawn from the surrounding air. The heat pump will operate at ambient air temperatures between 5°C and 55°C. The booster heating unit will operate when the air temperature is below 5°C, if heating is required. The efficiency of the water heater increases as the surrounding air temperature increases.

You’ll always have hot water. Your new heat pump water heater is designed to provide you with all the energy efficient hot water you need 24 hours a day, 12 months a year, come rain, hail or shine.

Your new heat pump system has the ability to deliver large amounts of hot water. However, as it is a storage type system, if you use all of the stored hot water in a short period, it will need approximately 4 to 5 hours to recover.

Like a refrigerator, your new heat pump is a sealed unit and does not require periodic ‘topping’ up.

Your new heat pump water heater is thermostatically controlled and is designed to operate at a maximum temperature of 65°C. As a consequence, the system will not overheat.

Depending on the heat of the stored water, as a general rule your new heat pump water heater will heat around 25 – 30 litres of water per hour. As such, it may take around 5.5 - 6 hours to heat the entire stored volume (170 litre model) from cold to 65°C.

As there are no solar panels on the roof, there will be no hail damage.

Depending on what the comparison is being made with, i.e. the type of heater, type of tariff, the size of your family and the amount of hot water used. However, a payback period of around 5-7 years is not uncommon.

Midea’s range of heat pumps do not have any solar panels on the roof at all. All the ‘solar’ heating occurs at ground level through our heat pump. If we use all the hot water at night, will we have hot water in the morning? Even though your new heat pump is a ‘solar water heater’ it doesn’t require sunlight. As such, it will heat water 24 hours a day, so you’ll have hot water whenever you need it.

Although our systems are very simple to install, they do require the expertise of plumbing and electrical trades-people. ‘Home handyman’ type installations are very dangerous and illegal in all States & Territories. Small Scale Technology Certificates are also not available in these cases. Why are heat pumps more efficient than electric or gas water heaters? A heat pump only uses electrical energy to run the compressor, not to heat the water. The heat energy actually comes from the atmosphere. This allows an efficiency of up to 400% How does taking energy from the atmosphere make it more efficient? By using only a small amount of electrical energy to run the heat pump it can transfer 3 times this value, in heat energy from the atmosphere, into the water, giving an efficiency rating above 250% As an example, 1kW of electrical energy into the heat pump can transfer up to 4kW of heat energy into the water.

As heat pumps operate more efficiently in warm ‘humid’ areas, they can work effectively anywhere there is a good airflow of warm air. External locations such as north facing walls are a good example. They can be installed internally, as long as they’re not enclosed in small unventilated rooms, as they’ll tend to cool their surrounds as they remove the heat energy from the air.

A Midea heat pump water heater may reduce your home’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 2.5 tonnes per year.

Exact dollar amounts are difficult to calculate due to the vagaries of differing usage patterns, varying electricity & gas costs and the unstable nature of weather patterns and differing locations. However as a rough rule of thumb, hot water can account for up to 30% of a household’s energy bills. A correctly sized heat pump water may reduce your hot water bills by up to 65% and even more in the Northern areas of Australia. The table below is a fairly accurate indication of ‘real world running cost comparisons over a 10 year period. Note: costs include the supply & installation costs of each system outlined.

Hot water systems always seem to fail at the most inappropriate times, such as weekends, the middle of the night, or in the morning when you’re getting ready for work. As a consequence, customers quite often make the mistake of making a rushed decision to replace their existing water heater with another gas or electricity guzzler. The beauty of a heat pump water heater, is that it can be replaced in the same amount of time it would take to replace a standard gas or electric water heating system.