... replaced my hot water heater with a heat pump heater ...
What's a heat pump?

Its like a AC unit that dumps the heat into the water instead of the outside air, awesome for added ac in the summer as well.
What happens if it's freezing cold inside the house, and there's no heat to dump into the water.
Its good to below freezing because the gasses are under pressure as well as then being well gasses that don't freeze at those temps lol.
You can opt to vacate the excess cool air out through a vent for the winter, not unlike a dryer vent.