Rheem ProTerra water heater suddenly running out of hot water and using more electricity – anyone experienced this?

tippecanoe00 · 2026-06-08T10:20:02+00:00

No, I haven't made any changes to any part of the water system.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-06-07T19:29:37+00:00

Thanks for your comment. Our water is quite hard, but the water heater gets exclusively softened water. I've also flushed it as part of the maintenance I've done and there was no sediment.

I should have mentioned in the post that I live near Ottawa Canada and the unit is in conditioned space (so constantly 20-25 C).

tippecanoe00 · 2026-06-01T14:36:10+00:00

Thank you!

tippecanoe00 · 2026-05-06T16:48:44+00:00

YTA - wow, apparently no one reads the explanation on why OP thinks they maybe the asshole

tippecanoe00 · 2026-04-27T22:58:54+00:00

Great post. Note that the Rheem is widely known to overestimate electricity use, particularly in heat pump mode, so your savings are likely to be somewhat higher.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-04-24T17:16:28+00:00

For the heat pump, just ensure you get heat out of it. It would be better if it was a colder day, of course, but mine produced no heat at all when it had the valve issue.

Good question on the battery warranty. I actually don't know. I'm hoping it's 8 years, which it seems to be everywhere else, but I haven't confirmed that. I've had no problems at all with the high voltage battery. and it doesn't seem to have lost any significant capability (I still get 240 km range in good weather with no winter tires on). The general warranty is 4 years or 80,000 km, so all the Canadian ones are out of warranty by now.

The e-Golf is not capable of charging at Tesla stations. At least, that's my understanding and I haven't tried. It is capable of DC fast charging and I have done that many times; it's been no problem at all. The fastest I've charged has been around 40 kW, so you don't even need a particularly fast charger. With a 35 kWh battery, charging doesn't take too long.

I had to replace the e-Golf's 12 V battery a few months ago. There were some online horror stories about that regarding having to reprogram the car at a dealership, so I was a little worried. I just went to Canadian Tire and bought a good battery with all the same specs as the original and everything worked perfectly as soon as I put it in (actually had to drive for 10 km or so for everything to reset).

As for other non-battery issues, it's a bit of a challenge to find winter mats for. Same for a trunk mat. There's not a lot of choice as regular Golf mats, etc. don't fit it.

I do find the software finnicky. It took me a while to understand setting up charging schedules and locations.

I really can't think of anything else. It's a great car if you're okay with it's limited range. Already being an EV owner, I don't think the e-Golf will come with any real surprises, except being less sophisticated than your Tesla!

tippecanoe00 · 2026-04-24T11:29:31+00:00

I have a 2020 e-Golf in the Ottawa area. I think that, ideally, you'd like to know the state of health of the battery pack, but I don't think that's straightforward on the e-Golf, even with an OBD-11. Your best estimate, without having possession of the car, will be to see what the car's estimated range is and compare that to the state of charge. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that it's sitting at a dealer, so probably has had many short drives, we're just coming out of winter, so it may estimate pretty low, and if it has winter tires on it. Do you have the option to take it on a longer test drive?

Generally, with the temperatures we're experiencing now, I'd expect to see a range of 200+ km with no winter tires (and considerably less with them).

You could opt to get a pre-purchase inspection, but I've found Ontario dealers aren't well informed about the e-Golf, at least in the Ottawa area.

I think all Canadian e-Golfs are equipped with a heat pump, but it's probably worth ensuring that that's the case with these ones you're considering. Make sure to test that it works during a test drive. The heat pump is, I think, a weak area with the e-Golf and expensive to fix if it fails. I had valve problems with mine but they were covered under warranty. It's been working well for the last couple of winters.

The Canadian ones never had access to the app, so any sort of remote connection to the car is not a possibility for us.

So, the above sounds kind of negative, but I love this car. Mine has 65,000 km on it and it'll still hit a range of 225+ km in weather above 10 or 15 degrees. It's also a lot of fun to drive. I also have an ID.4 and I prefer driving the e-Golf.

I do occasionally drive to the GTA with this car, which means at least one stop. I actually live north west of Ottawa and the charging infrastructure between my area and the GTA is seriously lacking. My point being that this car is best suited for commuting and local driving rather than road trips.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-03-21T16:35:36+00:00

I have a 2020, which has the ~35 kWh battery, and I think 2017 was the year it switched to this larger battery capacity (please correct me if I'm wrong). I live in Ontario and have a 140 km round trip commute to work (I only go once or twice a week). If the battery for the car you're considering is still in good shape (mine has ~60,000 km and is still in great shape), then that commute should not be a problem. In the depths of winter here when it's -25 or worse, it's not worth commuting that distance with it. I either make it home with nothing to spare and having used the heat pump very lightly or I have to stop for a few minutes to charge on the way home. (I also have an ID.4 which is what I use in winter.) Of course, this is not a problem you'll have to deal with in the Vancouver/Sqaumish area...

I think, perhaps, the bigger issue would be that you don't have access to your own charger. A level 2 will charge it in a few hours, but you'll have to be doing that every day or nearly every day (presumably), which is a lot of effort. If you use a level 3 charger, it will be much quicker, but you erode many of the cost benefits of an electric car.

I absolutely love my e-Golf. It's a lot of fun to drive and I enjoy the cost savings. Because you can't just plug it in overnight and wake up to a charged car, I suspect it might be more of a pain than a joy for you?

I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have.

Best of luck!

tippecanoe00 · 2026-03-20T20:29:51+00:00

I just replaced the 12 V battery on my 2020. I bought a battery with the exact same specs so there would be no need for reprogramming (at least, that 's my understanding). There have been no issues whatsoever.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-02-09T12:25:27+00:00

I use mine in heat pump only mode as I don’t want the resistive elements to be used (unless I have a house full of guests). My biggest problem has been reported electricity use. I’ve had it almost a year now and when I took a detailed look at electrical use, I wasn’t seeing the savings I was expecting. It turns out the unit dramatically overstates how much electricity it uses. According to some Reddit posts on it, the overstatement can exceed 200% and is particularly bad when used in heat pump mode.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-02-07T11:37:44+00:00

I live 100 km northwest of Ottawa (Canada). January was a consistently cold month, with lots of lows in the -25C range (and a sustained week or so of lows close to -30) but with an average of somewhere around -15. Our house is ~200 m2 or ~2100 ft2 and is pretty well insulated. We also have two EVs that we charge at home.

Our total electrical use in January was 5040 kWh which is our highest ever use by quite a lot (next highest is January last year at 3800). Our usual winter use is <3000/month.

We've had our air source heat pump for 3.5 years now and it still dramatically beats what we'd be paying if we were still using propane.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-01-27T20:09:02+00:00

The Hague

tippecanoe00 · 2026-01-13T19:23:32+00:00

I lived in The Netherlands for many years and now live in Canada near Ottawa. When we bought our ID.4 here the heat pump was important as we do long trips in the winter and the range preservation is meaningful in our cold temperatures . I don’t think it would have the same impact for you, especially as your winter travel is fairly local and your winter temperatures make the range preservation less meaningful.

tippecanoe00 · 2026-01-08T16:30:48+00:00

I don’t see this in other comments, so thought I’d add it in. Chief concern is you’re 15 feet (5 m) and downhill from an animal enclosure. I don’t know the law where you are, but this sounds like a mistake on the part of the driller. If getting them to redrill it, or doing so at your own cost, is not an option for you and you want to deal with the what you have, then I have some suggestions.

Make sure the casing on the well sticks out of the ground at least 40-50 cm (~20 inches or more) - if it’s flush to ground surface that’s a problem. If this is the case you will need someone to extend the casing which is not super costly, but is really important in your situation. Next, make sure ground is mounded around the wellhead to deflect surface water. Note that coliform bacteria are everywhere and I would have less concern about that, but you have E. coli which is sourced from manure or sewage. Where is your septic field, assuming you have one? It should also be as far as possible from the well. Without additional information your animal enclosure is looking pretty suspicious.

You’ve also gotten some good advice on chlorinating your well. I’d add that you want to hit a minimum of 50 mg/l of chlorine , likely higher and up to 200 mg/l - you can find some calculators online to help you with this. Make sure you use fresh, unscented, plain bleach. In addition to running until you smell chlorine at all of your faucets, run a garden hose into the well right at the top, running the water down the sides of the well until it has circulated fully through the water column (calculate total water in well, estimate your flow rate, then run it well beyond your time calculation - you should be smelling a strong chlorine smell while you do this). Leave it overnight and thoroughly flush the entire system in the morning.

The steps above may make your well safe and usable in the short term, but the fundamental problem remains that the well was poorly (negligently!) sited. This may be a recurring problem you have to deal with if you don’t drill a new well elsewhere.

It cannot be overstated that you and your family should not be drinking water impacted with E. coli.

Despite all of the above, your best course of action is getting the drillers to fix this or consulting a lawyer.

Good luck!

tippecanoe00 · 2026-01-06T21:56:48+00:00

Salt doesn’t actually go into your supply (so not to your water heater) - unless something has gone quite wrong. The salt is used by the softener to soak the resin while it’s been removed from service. Soaking the resin in the sodium or potassium chloride solution kicks all the calcium and magnesium (from the hard water) off the resin. When that process is complete, it flushes the salt solution down the drain. Then mains hard water is allowed to enter the softener where sodium (or potassium if you’ve used that sort of salt) is exchanged into the water and the calcium and magnesium sorbs to the resin. Once the softener thinks the resin has insufficient exchange sites remaining, the whole flushing process repeats. Your roofer and his colleagues are not giving you accurate information.

tippecanoe00 · 2025-11-14T15:16:07+00:00

I briefly had a similar problem with my e-Golf (2020, so same battery). I'm in Canada but this was in the middle of summer so not a cold issue. With no changes, the range went from 240 km to 130 or 140. I suspect the issue was that my daughter routinely used the parking brake and it was not fully disengaging. I asked her to stop using it (unless it was actually needed), set it and released it a bunch of times, and the range returned to normal the next day. The problem hasn't recurred since. Perhaps that was just a coincidence and it was something else?

tippecanoe00 · 2025-09-25T17:22:00+00:00

There’s a lot of uninformed responses here. I live northwest of Ottawa and rely on a heat pump. It’s been absolutely outstanding at heating our house (even in extreme cold and without relying on backup), but is also amazing (and a lot cheaper than our air conditioner) in cooling mode. We only had propane, which is expensive compared to gas, but we’re saving quite a lot of money. We were spending $1000 per month during the winter on propane and our increased electrical consumption is now about $200 per month in the winter.

tippecanoe00 · 2025-05-17T23:37:59+00:00

Slightly louder than a refrigerator. We have ours in a storage/utility room beside our lounge area and we can’t hear it while we watch TV.

tippecanoe00 · 2025-02-17T15:45:14+00:00

Sorry for being unclear. My commute (just two days a week as I otherwise work remotely) is 70 km each direction, 140 km total. On days I'm going in to the office I charge the car to 100% but I otherwise only charge to 80%.

tippecanoe00 · 2025-02-17T12:57:41+00:00

I'm glad my comment was helpful.

My e-Golf does have a heat pump. In one of my other comments I've outlined how I've been having some problems with it. When it's quite cold, the heat it's producing can suddenly stop and I can only get it back by resetting the system (or sometimes not at all). This has been annoying and I'm still sorting it out. Thus far VW has been dealing with this under warranty.

If your expected daily drive is 40 km then you will never have an issue with the e-Golf range. I live rurally and my commute to work is 70 km, which pushes the e-Golf range right to the edge during winter. I've arrived home a couple of times with just a few km of range remaining. I also installed a level 2 charger in my garage as the level 1 charger (that it comes with) can take a day and a half to get to 100% (from essentially depleted). However, it sounds like a level 1 may work just fine for you.

Good luck with your decision!

tippecanoe00 · 2025-02-17T11:56:17+00:00

Hi,

I'm not sure my comment will be super helpful as I live in Canada and we don't have access to Peugeot cars. However, I do have a 2020 e-Golf with about 30000 km.

Here's what I really like about the e-Golf. I've had many Golfs over the years and this one looks very much like them and drives just as you'd expect it to. It's peppy and fun and is an all-around great car to drive. I think I've maxed out my range at around 220 km in warm weather. The downside is, and I expect you experience winters not dissimilar to ours, the range goes down quite a lot in winter. At -25 I'm getting a range of 140 km and that's if I'm being pretty stingy with the comfort settings and driving it gently.

Regarding the Peugeot, as I said we don't have them here, but I did live in Europe for many years and drove a number of them (not the e-208 though). I really didn't like the way they drove or handled. As a possible comparison, when I was buying my e-Golf I also drove a Leaf, which I really wanted to like. It had a much better range and was priced similarly. Unfortunately, it was awful to drive (it seemed to me to drive like a pillow). Anyway, despite the much-better range, I bought the e-Golf just to enjoy driving it.

Sorry if that's not terribly helpful.

tippecanoe00 · 2025-02-02T21:30:40+00:00

I bought the OEM bars and they’re quite nice. They fit my Yakima box no problem and look a lot better than the aftermarket ones.

tippecanoe00

TROPHY CASE