Electric hot water heater question...

[Misty Blue]

I am tire4d of running my boiler all summer just to heat hot water. So I plan to put in an electric system for the season.

There is a fairly new system that uses a heat pump which is on top of the heater to take heat from the room and pump it down into the water tank. You heat the water while air conditioning and de-humidifying the basement! The engineer in me loves the concept.

They are expensive, around $1200 but you can get a rebate (up to $500) from the Co-Op which brings it back into range.

My question is "just how noisy is the compressor"?

I don't want to sink in a pile of money only to find out that I have to turn up the volume on the TV in the living room up stairs.

Any thoughts?

Misty Blue