We just got the GE 30" slide-in with the induction cooktop and convection oven. It is flat-out amazing to cook on compared to our old KA flattop electric. Superfast responsiveness, wider range of heat than electric or gas, HUGE oven, plus a warming drawer. Not to mention being able to place paper towels under the pan while you cook, to catch spills and spatters. I would never go back to electric or gas after using this.

We went with bisque (I think that's what it was called, it's off white anyway and I know that there were darker off whites than what we chose). One thing to consider is the color of the other things on your wall like central vac outlets. Our central vac outlets only come in white and our set back thermostats are white so on those walls I'm going to be changing the outlets and light switches to white so that everything on the wall is the same color as it doesn't look very good to have bisque outlets next to a white central vac outlet. In my kitchen, once we get the backsplash finished, I'll switch out the outlets/switches on the backsplash to a color that matches the backsplash.

Saltidog, Dude, chill. I was respectfully saying you had a different opinion - not what your opinion was or that it had anything to do with the heating elements. You can disagree without being disagreeable. I do understand thermodynamics very well, thank you. There is no "trend" and no misrepresentation. Yes, the units have resistive elements as backup, for high demand situations, and when the ambient temperature gets low enough that enough heat can't be extracted using the heat pump (for geospring unit that's 45 degrees F) Saltidog, I don't know what you are getting your panties in a bunch about... yes, I understand your heater works well for you. I would expect that. It's installed in a basement that's at least 700 cubic feet of space. Because it's underground it will maintain a temperature of around 50 - 55 degrees or more if there are other heat sources in the basement. That's enough to allow the heat pump to work just fine. The water heater will work in almost all situations / applications where one would normally install a tank heater. It will even run on the heat pump in most situations. The question is when you have the water heater in a fully conditioned space (not basement) and that space is being heated. At that time, one is shifting the heating load of the water heater to the furnace - which may or may not be more cost effective. I think the water heaters are great - esp if they can work out the reliability problems (which I think are teething pains, not inherent problems). I stick by my assertion that there are three applications whereby they produce the most system efficiency / cost effectiveness.

my understanding is that HUD has alot of things that DIFFER from local and nec codes, some more strict, and some less strict. but after i posted i talked to the second elec insp who found all the violations and said they dont even meet HUD code. 95% of the violations were from the contractor. basiclly we got the grant from housing revitalization. they get their funding from the state of new york, and they get the money from HUD. housing revitalization came into our home, determined what needed to be worked on and sent it out to be bid on by a group of independant contractors that do work for them. lowest bid wins... work starts. housing revitalization is responsibile for inspecting each individual item on the job sheet (i.e., replace front door, install new breaker box, etc) as it is done, then a final inspection. all electrical is to be inspected by a certified elec inspector, approved by local code officer and finally housing revitalization. the contractor is in no way a certified electrician. he is an average joe who has a 2 man crew, is was very messy, worked for 2 days and took a week off, was rude, crude and has had to come back a dozen times to fix other things that werent right. bottom line is no one in this situation knew what they were doing. contractor did piss poor work, housing revitalization approved said piss poor work and now is coming back to haunt us. there are many days i wish we had never gotten this grant.