I've been assuming that heat pump water heaters generally don't do the exchange with the room they're stored in, but with the environment outside the house, or if the owner is incredibly lucky, the water in their well or in heat exchangers buried in their yard.
Heat pump water heaters are self contained, there is no outdoor heat exchanger or fresh air intake/outlet from what I've seen. However I've heard of people creating their own fresh air intake/outlet. People also do this with dryers so that they are not exhausting conditioned air.
Exchanging heat with well water or a buried ground loop while possible, would be extremely expensive and require modifications to the well or digging out a ground loop.
Edit: Outdoor heat exchanger systems exist but the one OP posted is a self contained unit.
I've been assuming that heat pump water heaters generally don't do the exchange with the room they're stored in, but with the environment outside the house, or if the owner is incredibly lucky, the water in their well or in heat exchangers buried in their yard.
Heat pump water heaters are self contained, there is no outdoor heat exchanger or fresh air intake/outlet from what I've seen. However I've heard of people creating their own fresh air intake/outlet. People also do this with dryers so that they are not exhausting conditioned air.
Exchanging heat with well water or a buried ground loop while possible, would be extremely expensive and require modifications to the well or digging out a ground loop.
Edit: Outdoor heat exchanger systems exist but the one OP posted is a self contained unit.
Fascinating, thank you Elon!