Hybrids do not require there own seperate room. They do require about 700cuft of unobstructed space to allow for free air circulation, garages in the warmer climates are ideal, basements are good in the cooler climates as they are below grade and some heat comes from the earth that is below grade. Most won't run the heat pumps below a certain ambient temp, mine runs down to 45F, after that it uses standard elements just like a regular electric water heater. In Maine I get about 8 months of heating just off the heat pump, runs me about $20 per month. With just the elements it runs $50-60 per month. Hybrids make perfect sense in certain situations. They do produce some noise, and they exhaust cold air into the room that they are in. One needs to take into account for these "features" before buying one.
Don't forget to add in the non recoverable cost of the water heater. If a tank heater is good for only ten years and costs $600 you have an additional $60/yr expense. I don't think that will tip the scales, but it should be included.
We run a dehumidifier year round in the basement, seems the HP water heater does a great job of removing sensible heat, but not latent heat. I get at most a quart of water per day from the water heater, but at least 50pints per day from my dehumidifier, and this is in the summer when it is humid. I wouldn't install a HP water heater with the hopes of replacing my dehumidifier.
Exactly, you need to include equipment and any maintenance costs to figure out your return on investment. Here is my quick example. I was using 100gals/year of oil just in the 3 summer months for DHW productions. This was at $3.49/gal. So my oil cost was $116/mo. New water heater was $1000, and I use $20/mo for electric. Assuming a 10 year life span my costs including equipment are $29 per month. This is an $87/mo savings, or $1044 per year, essentially making it a 1 year payback on my investment. Even if I ran straight electric and not the heat pump my monthy cost would be $69/mo for a savings of $47/mo or a 2.5 year payback period. My electric rates are $0.14/kwh. As you can see with oil at such a high cost even a cheap straight electric water heater can save you some $$$ with a fairly quick payback. DHW generated by a tankless coil which is most common in the northeast is highly inefficient, that boiler stays hot year round just in case someone needs hot water, most of that heat goes up the chimney in the form of standby losses.
No this is not year round, mostly spring and summer, I have a typical Maine basement that is always damp, and it does leak when it rains heavily. Fortunatly this is not a finished basement
Without the dehumidifier the basement would smell moldy and it's not good for the wooden parts of the houses structure.
