Hot Water Heat Pump Warranties Ranked From Best To Worst

Of the heat pump warranties we reviewed, Apricus featured the longest.

Hot water heat pump systems are great for saving energy, but there’s a major problem dogging them like an overly friendly labrador that has been rolling in fish guts.  Most warranties stink!  I can only think of four brands commonly sold in Australia with warranties I consider close to acceptable.

But have no fear, because I’m here to save you from blindly blundering into buying a heat pump with a warranty so short it could slide under a snake with its umbrella up.  When I’m done, you’ll be able to see exactly what kind of warranty risk you’re blundering into.  To help you out I’m going to make a ranked list of heat pump warranties from best to worst.  You can be sure I’ll do a good job of it because everyone agrees I’m a huge… maker of ordered lists.

But I’m not going to get too carried away.  The Clean Energy Regulator lists heat pumps from over 100 manufacturers, which is around 80 too many for me to go into.  But many either aren’t available or have only been sold in small numbers.  To keep things manageable, I will only rank the heat pumps on our comparison table in the SolarQuotes guide Hot Water Heat Pumps: Choosing The Right One.  The 17 brands on the table include all the major heat pump manufacturers currently selling in Australia.

Short Warranties On Heat Pump Parts

A major heat pump warranty problem is rather than having a single warranty period, many manufacturers divide their systems into sets of components and slap a different warranty length on each set.  And you can be damn sure the shortest warranty will be on the parts most likely to break down.  As an example, a manufacturer could provide a 5 year warranty for the storage tank, 2 years for the sealed heat pump system, and one year for everything else.  Some warranties may provide replacement parts longer than they cover labour costs, while some specifically exclude covering any labour costs for replacing some components.

Below are the 17 brands from our heat pump comparison table, showing the shortest warranty period offered for a part or for labour costs for residential installation.  The Thermann brand appears twice because it has considerably different warranties between its split and all-in-one models.  Brace yourself — you don’t have to go far down the list for things to get ugly:

1. Apricus All-in-one:  6 years
2. Hydrotherm:  6 years
3. Haier Monoblock:  5 years
4. Reclaim/Panasonic:  5 years
5. Aquatech X6:  2 years
6. Ecogenica:  2 years
7. Emerald:  2 years
8. Solahart Atmos Eco:  2 years
9. Thermann Split:  2 years
10. Enviroheat:  1 year
11. Evoheat:  1 year
12. iStore:  1 year
13. Quantum:  1 year
14. Rinnai Enviroflo:  1 year
15. Stiebel Eltron WWK:  1 year
16. Rheem Ambiheat:  1 year
17. Therman All-in-one:  1 year
18. Sanden:  0 years

Of the 18 listed, only 4 provide warranties covering everything, including labour, for 5 or more years.  The best the next 5 can manage is 2 years, and then there are half a dozen that cover everything for only a single year — a length of time not nearly long enough for a pricey household item that should provide years of trouble-free service.  The very worst on this measure is the Sanden heat pump that offers a 1 or 2 year warranty on valves that’s only for parts with provision made for labour.

If you want a decent warranty, the top 4 are the only options.  With any others, you run a real risk of having no warranty cover if it fails after only 2 years.

Some of the brands featured on the SolarQuotes heat pump comparison table.

Heat Pump Warranty Components

Before I consider full warranties rather than just their shortest parts, I’ll describe how warranties that don’t cover everything equally — which is most of them — generally break heat pump parts into three categories:

• The tank:  This is often called the cylinder because that’s what shape it is.  It’s where the hot water is stored.  It can eventually suffer from corrosion and sediment buildup but doesn’t have any moving parts, so should last a long time.  Usually, they’re a steel tank lined with vitreous enamel — which is another way of saying glass.  They can also be made of stainless steel without a glass lining, but these are rarely used in Australia because water with high mineral content corrodes them.  Tank warranties usually won’t include parts such as the sacrificial anode, thermostat, electric resistance heating element if there is one, and the Pressure and Temperature Relief (PTR) valve.  (Sometimes called a T&P valve.)
• The “sealed” components:  These can also be called the heat pump components and are the refrigeration parts that draw heat out of the air and use it to warm water.  They normally include the compressor, heat exchangers, and piping between them.  These parts are sealed to prevent refrigerant fluid inside leaking out.  Electrical components and electronic controllers may be included here.
• Everything else:  This is typically external valves and anything not included in the first two categories.

Warranties Ranked From Best To Worst

As promised, I’ve made you a ranked list.  Deciding on the order unavoidably required personal judgment, but if you don’t like the arrangement, please feel free to take some scissors to your screen and put them in any order you prefer.

The warranties listed are all for residential use.  Where they appeared identical I simply put them in alphabetical order.  The Thermann split and all-in-one systems appear in different places due to significantly different warranties.  The brand names link to their warranty documents.  For components, I’ve generally used the same terms as the warranty document:

1. Reclaim/Panasonic:  Glass lined tank 10 year parts with 5 years labour.  Heat pump and controller 7 years parts and labour.  Valves 5 years parts and labour.
2. Apricus All-in-one:  6 years parts and labour for entire system.
3. Hydrotherm:  6 years parts and labour for entire system.
4. Haier Monoblock:  Tank 7  years parts with 5 years labour.  All other components 5 years parts and labour.
5. Sanden:  Glass lined tank 5 years parts and labour + 5 years pro-rata parts and labour.  Heat pump 6 years parts and labour.  Tank valves and connectors 1 or 2 years parts only with no labour costs covered.
6. iStore:  Tank, refrigeration, and electrical components 5 years parts and labour.  Sacrificial anode, PTR valve, air filter and consumable items 1 year parts and labour.
7. Solahart:  Tank 5 years tank parts with 3 years labour.  Sealed system 3 years parts and labour.  Other components 2 years parts and labour.  The 180HDC model has an extra 2 years parts only tank warranty.
8. Aquatech:  5 years parts with 2 years labour.
9. Rheem Ambiheat:  Tank 7 years parts with 3 years labour.  Sealed system components 3 years parts and labour.  All other components 1 year parts and labour.
10. Rinnai Enviroflo:  Tank 7 years parts with 3 years labour.  Refrigeration components 3 years parts and labour.  Other components 1 year parts and labour.
11. Thermann Split:  Tank 10 years parts with 2 years labour.  Heat pump unit 6 years parts with 2 years labour.  Other components 2 years parts and labour.
12. Emerald:  Split system tank 7 years parts with 2 years labour.  All-in-one tank 5 years parts with 2 years labour.  Other components 5 years parts with 2 years labour.
13. Ecogenica:  Tank and heat pump 5 years parts with 2 years labour.  Ancillary components 2 years parts and labour, which include the PTR Valve, Tempering Valve, Isolation Valve, Pressure Limiting Valve, General Power Outlet, and 3-pin plug.
14.  Thermann All-in-one — Tank and condenser 5 years parts and labour.  Refrigeration 2 years parts and labour.  PTR valves 1 year parts and labour.
15. Stiebel Eltron WWK:  Tank and condenser 5 years parts and labour.  Refrigeration and electrical components 2 years parts and labour.  PTR valve 1 year parts and labour.
16. Evoheat:  Tank 6 years parts with 1 year labour.  Compressor and other components 5 years parts with 1-year labour.
17. Quantum:  Tank 5 years parts and labour.  Refrigeration components plus fan coil and motor and electrical components 2 years parts and labour.  PTR valve 1 year parts and labour.
18. Enviroheat:  Tank and compressor 5 years parts with 1 year labour.  Electrical element 1 year parts and labour.  Sacrificial anode, PTR valve, and ECV 1 year parts and labour.  Installer supplied valves and fitting – no warranty.

Note that while warranties may say they cover labour, this normally only applies within a certain distance of a service centre.  When only replacement parts are offered they sometimes won’t deliver them and instead expect you to pick them up yourself.

As you can see, the warranties for these appliances, which can cost thousands of dollars are, for the most part, dismal.  But I have some good news.

Australian Consumer Law Helps — But Shouldn’t Have To!

If you have a heat pump hot water system with a warranty of only 2 years or less on the parts most likely to break down, the situation is not as grim as it seems.  This is because Australian consumer law provides plenty of protection.  You’re covered by Consumer Guarantees that always apply regardless of what the written warranty says.  One of them is, “Goods must be of acceptable quality”.  This means anything you buy as a consumer must be:

• Safe, durable, and free of defects
• Have an acceptable appearance and finish
• Do everything similar products are commonly used for

For obvious reasons, I’m going to focus on the “durable” part.  But before I get carried away, I should tell you I’m not a lawyer and anything I say on the topic is advice of the unprofessional kind.  Consumer Affairs or Fair Trading in your state or territory should be able to give precise advice if required.

Consumer law says products must work for an “acceptable” amount of time.  If it doesn’t, the business that supplied it must provide a remedy that doesn’t leave the consumer out of pocket.  This could be a repair, replacement, or refund.  For heat pumps, it’s usually a repair, but it could be one of the others.  Not being out of pocket includes not having to pay for labour or delivery costs.

There is no set definition of how long an “acceptable” period of time is.  It all depends on the product and how much you paid for it.  So if you buy a heat pump with a warranty of 2 years but most other systems in its price range have 5 or 6 year warranties, then I’d say, at an absolute minimum, you should not be out of pocket if your heat pump breaks down within 6 years.

Avoiding key heat pump install mistakes can minimise the chance of problems that require warranty support in the first place.

Express Warranties Make Things Interesting

Determining what an “acceptable” period of time for a product to last is can be difficult, but many manufacturers simply say on their sites how long you can expect their heat pumps to last.  Interestingly, the expected lifespans they give are always much longer than what they’re willing to cover in their written warranties.

A basic principle of Australian Consumer Law is businesses aren’t allowed to lie.  This means if a company says you can expect their heat pump to last 10 years then the “acceptable” amount of time it should last becomes at least 10 years.  This is called an express warranty and refers to any additional promises a business may make about a product or service that aren’t in the written warranty.

If a manufacturer sells you a product they say should last 10 years but it breaks down after 7 and the written warranty only covers 5 years, then under Australian consumer law you should be able to get a remedy at no cost to you — provided whoever gave you the express warranty is still around.

Keep Records Of Express Warranties

To avoid a situation where you try to use an express warranty but the provider is a bastard and denies they ever gave you one, I strongly recommend keeping records of any express warranties given in product documents.  Here are some I’ve found for the heat pump manufacturers on our comparison table:

Aquatech:  On this FAQ page they say, “The expected life of a quality heat pump is approximately 10-15 years.”

Emerald:  As FAQ answer here, they state, “The life expectancy of an Emerald hot water heat pump is 10 to 20 years.”

Enviroheat:  They mention on this page that the deemed life of a heat pump hot water system for STC purposes is 10 years, and above this state, “Over a ten year period approximately 30,000 kWh worth of energy is saved”.  This makes it sound like you can expect the system to last 10 years.

Evoheat:  On this page they say, “If a hot water system lasts its expected 15 year lifespan…”

Haier Monoblock:  While they don’t give an “expected lifespan” the figure of 160,000 cycles for the tank given on this page makes it sound like it will last a very long time.  If it’s cycled once per day that would come to 438 years.

Hydrotherm:  Under Cost Saving FAQ’s, “The expected lifespan of Hydrotherm systems are approximately 10-15 years.”

Sanden:  From the Sanden FAQ page, “The Sanden Hot Water Heat Pump is designed to last 15 years.”

There are some manufacturers that clearly have a good understanding of Australian consumer law and refrain from giving any express warranties in their online information that goes beyond what’s covered by their written warranties.  But there are others that are either very confident about the reliability of their heat pumps in a way that’s strangely not reflected in their written warranties — or they don’t realise the consumer law liability they’re taking on.

Don’t Risk It

My final advice is — don’t buy a heat pump with a lousy short warranty and then expect Australian consumer law to bail you out if required.  While there are plenty of people who’ve had expensive bacon saved by it, consumer law can only help if the businesses involved are still around.  Anyone making or installing lousy heat pumps may be out of business — or possibly out of the country — by the time you want to make use of consumer protection.

I instead recommend going with one of the heat pumps that has a more robust warranty than most.  Not only are you less likely to have a problem, but both the installer and manufacturer are more likely to be around if you need to make use of consumer guarantees in the future. If you do run into warranty issues, don’t forget to leave a hot water heat pump review to let others know.

Do your own research on the warranties and other features of heat pumps using our comparison table, and consider the results of our installers choice awards for Australia’s best heat pumps. If you’re ready to get a heat pump for your home — we now offer up to three quotes for heat pumps from great installers.