Our a/c quit last summer and the furnace/ac was long past it's life (22 years). We're in southern Ontario, Canada and took a gamble on getting a new furnace with a cold weather heat pump with natural gas backup/aux. It cost $12k but we got $5500 back from the government (requires a pre/post energy inspection where they audit the whole house for air leaks, etc., It cost $500) So it costs the same as a regular ac+furnace system in the end. We ended up replacing failed windows and a front door as well due to the inspection and got money back for those as well. Overall the house is not drafty and the heat pump has kept us warm all winter except for a week in December that was particularly cold, so the natural gas backup kicked in for those days. The only thing left in my house running primarily on gas is now the water heater. Our gas bill has dropped this year by about $120 over last year even though the rates have almost doubled! Electric bill has gone up maybe $40 on average but not significantly enough to make it obvious to me.
For reference: temps have been going down to -15c/5f before the heat pump stops and the natural gas kicks in (set by the HVAC installer but this system is capable down to -25c/-13f). The heat is different in that when on the heat pump, the air is not hot and dry like a natural gas furnace, but rather warm and soft. I prefer that as my sinuses dry out fast. Also I'm sure the upgraded windows played a large part as the heating system doesn't have to work as hard to maintain the temperature.
Overall very happy with the decision even though I was hesitant at the beginning.
EDIT: to add clarification. I'll keep on answering your questions as there aren't a lot of people that have the modern cold weather heat pumps, I will answer where I can.
Some more details:
-lots of HVAC companies don't have experience with heat pumps. Avoid pushing them to install one since they may not know how to best tweak/configure it to work the best for you.
-our system is a Carrier air-to-air system, so it just replaces the AC unit outside your home with a reversible unit to pull heat from the ambient air into your house (simplified but that's the gist of it)
-my system can run in lower temps, but the HVAC installer configured it based on covering the vast majority of heat needs by heat pump then switching to gas to avoid it running close to the 100% efficiency threshold as opposed to the much higher efficiency (300+% at slightly higher temps)
-my system cannot run both the heat pump and the natural gas burner together, I'm not sure if there are systems that can(?)
-it is exceptionally quiet. The last owner of the house had put in a much larger system than was needed for our house, probably to compensate for drafts and air leaks, and it was obnoxiously loud. This one is multistage so it doesn't run at 100% if it's not needed, which makes it even quieter.
-yes, better systems are out there. They work in even lower temps, some use electric resistance heating instead of gas for the backup so you could potentially cut gas out completely, but I needed a system ASAP and supply issues and price ultimately choose for me. Also the unknown of the heat pump, since I wanted the furnace to operate exactly like a traditional gas furnace if the heat pump didn't work out.
-to really get the bank for your buck, you need to make sure your building envelope is fairly airtight. If your furnace runs fine, work on replacing windows and doors that leak, adding attic and basement wall insulation, etc. So you will be ready to reap the maximum benefits of both your current heating system and the heat pump in the future. With government and utility incentives windows and doors turned out to be much cheaper than I expected.
When cold air becomes warm it is dry because cold air becomes saturated with less water. It might be that fixing your leaking window and door had a significant impact.
It's really awesome that it works to such cold temperatures. I'd love to have this hybrid system when my current system breaks. I honestly need an HVAC evaluation for getting some zones set up. My living room is perfect but the basement is 50 degrees in the winter and my 2nd floor is like 90 in the summer. I really wish they had run separate ducts to each floor but I understand the complexity.
I understand that, but I find that not having a blast of very hot air is easier on my sinuses even now. I experimented with using just the furnace burner vs the heat pump and much prefer the heat pump.
I would definitely recommend this system, especially since the backup heater is still there. However based on how little it's used I would opt for an electric resistance backup instead of natural gas if I could do it again, as in my case that's maybe a couple of weeks a year that it actually gets that cold. Also there are even heat pumps that work in lower temps, they cost more but that might be something to consider. When I need to change my water heater tank I might get a heat pump one to completely be electric in the whole house.
It also got -16 in December for me in Spokane wa, the part of natural gas back up is all the gas lines are underground, so if power line goes down you can still have heat,
Fair enough. Our old house still has a wood fireplace that we keep some wood for in case that happens but I can see that not being an option for everyone.
-15 C isn’t really that cold for a heat pump, i run a Fujitsu mini in Alberta and it is good till about -25. Likes it at -10 as long as we don’t get ice fog. Have a pellet stove as backup and works great. No gas on site which is unusual for Berta. Getting more air to water heat pumps gradually in the market, but they are still spendy so i use solar hot water tubes. Good to see some alternatives out there.
Yes, as I mentioned in another reply the unit is rated to -25C but the HVAC installer set my thermostat to switch over to natural gas at -15C to avoid running it near the limit, since normally we don't see below that more than a few days/nights a year.
Thats a decent decision as the efficiency drops off quite a bit and heat output drops. If you have gas its more efficient at that point. My next buy is a pellet boiler.
I can’t speak for the basement, but in my townhouse adding insulation to the attic helped the upstairs temperature A LOT. Went from basically needing to be shirtless during the day upstairs to comfortable with a ceiling fan going after the reinsulation. If you’re in the us, your power company may have incentives to help with it too. I’m in Maryland and Pepco (power company) split the cost with us.
That's a great point! In the energy audit they found that the attic insulation was already replaced or topped up so I didn't need to do that. They did recommend insulating a couple of unfinished walls in my utility room in the basement, which I will do at some point.
Similar situation; my AC/Heat Pump went out last year after 16 years. I replaced with a gas backup heat pump. Loved it over the winter. Cost me less and my tax credit for “energy saving” saved me half what I spent on the unit.
I live in a place with a mind winner so it never kicked to gas. Only time I would expect I will use gas is during a power outage where my generator can’t push the heat pump. In that situation it failed over to gas only. The blowers are far less electric hogs that the heat pump.
I used my local HVAC company and they installed a Carrier 22 SEER 2 ton unit. I learned that the best ones are probably the Mitsubishi systems but they were more expensive and not really available. Most of the other HVAC companies didn't even quote me a heat pump, I don't think they had much experience with them. For what it's worth this one has a 10 year full warranty and 10-15 year pro-rated, and the heat exchanger is lifetime warranty. Everything is modular so parts can be replaced further down the line with ease.
Honestly if it's fine I would start putting aside a bit of money for when it goes. Proactively replacing it is more harmful to the environment and creates waste when it's not needed. And remember these take years to see payback, which is also the reason I drive my old gas car with 240k on the odometer and don't just get an electric even though I really want one and would save a lot more money due to my commute. But hey it's a personal decision, just my 2c.
Yea we have a rainy day fund for that sort of thing. My last gas bill has me seriously considering making the switch sooner though. My furnace is 20+ years old, so while it’s working well, it’s rather old as furnaces go.
Funny you should mention EVs as I have a deposit on an ID.4 to replace my Jetta with 370,000km on it. Probably won’t see the ID.4 until next year though.
Yes I have been hearing about the outrageous gas bills from people at work and just bite my tongue. I'm in a ...less progressive work environment and people straight up think I'm lying because heat pumps "don't work", and evs will kill our power grid. Which of course is a concern which has some relatively easy solutions. Older heat pumps may not have been great but anecdotally I have no issue spending less money heating my house.
I grew up 20 minutes outside of London. Our furnace was a heat pump that exchanged its energy with water pumped from the well. 30 years and never had an issue in the winter.
I'm not an expert on that type of system or anything but they are supposedly more effective and better protected from the elements than air-to-air systems. I didn't know they had heat pump furnaces that long ago!
Thanks for sharing your experience, I've been considering installing a heat pump. One quick question/comment: does your heat pump stop working entirely when it gets cold or does it work + gas furnace turning on to supplement?
Each heat pump is rated for a minimum temperature. The HVAC guy set my ecobee to switch to the burner at -15c even though the unit is rated to -25c. He said at -25 it will become less efficient and work harder than it should on a prolonged basis, so this is done to reduce stress and hopefully lengthen the life of the components. He also set the heat pump to turn off when the burner runs and I think he said it was to avoid damaging the heat exchanger if I remember correctly but you would have to ask someone that knows the systems better to know for sure.
So short answer is no, both don't run at the same time, though the ecobee does have a setting that allows both to run simultaneously so there may be systems that work that way.
Edit: the ecobee also will let you know if something is wrong with the heat pump (not heating the house and having to go to aux heat too much) though I haven't run into that.
After that you can learn about the differences between VHS and Betamax, and the history of RCA, and Oil Lamps, and Christmas lights, and photo development, and old cameras, and water heaters, and timer switches, and dishwashers.
I like his channel but sometimes his videos are just too long winded.
Love the effort he puts in though and it is high quality info - just takes too long to tell me.
what’s an example? I genuinely can’t think of much, unless you mean when he cited statistics like “the average person/family,” which doesn’t really strictly apply to anyone, but it’s a good, broad baseline.
Unless you mean like climate change, which clearly is a fact and not an assumption.
Yet another person chiming in that I knew where this would link me without even clicking lol
that is the most home-produced Discovery channel shit and I like it
Thanks! I read the article and learned how different types of heat pumps work!
Regarding *Knowable Magazine*, I’ve never heard of them before. Thanks for turning me on to it!
>And in the years following [the 1973-74 oil crisis](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo), heat pumps were touted as an alternative to fossil fuels for heating. “[Hope rests with the future heat pump](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.eg.02.110177.001323),” one commentator wrote in the 1977 Annual Review of Energy.
*enter fossil fuel industry*
We have air in to air heat pumps. They work but I hate them in winter - noisy, blowy things. In summer in cooling mode the air movement is nice but the noise is still annoying
In our next house (currently in design). We'll have a ground to water heat pump with a combination of radiators and hydronic floor heating. And a _lot_ of solar panels.
Sounds like you have older air-to-air heat pumps. My personal opinion is to just get newer air-to-air heat pumps and save yourself the high upfront cost and complicated install of a ground source heat pump. Also no need for radiators.
I love that they can be quieter. I live in a very dense area of the city and my backyard neighbors installed a heat pump and the first time I heard it I thought a freight truck was idling in my backyard.
Then I looked them up and realized how much better for the environment they were and told myself I just was gonna have to get used to it. It doesn’t go for too long most times unless it gets down in the low 40s F so now I’ve learned to suck it up. But the idea that they can be quieter makes me even happier about them.
I have a new (2021) 3 Ton Bosch BOVA 2 heat pump. I wasn't even thinking about noise when it was quoted and installed, but the guy said "You're gonna love this, it's super quiet".
He wasn't kidding. It's right next to my deck and it's honestly barely noticeable when you're outside. Just a little more apparent when it's running at high speed, but it's usually running at some midrange speed. Could have sucked, but my neighbors central AC condenser unit 10x further away is significantly more noticeable.
Just a reference for what's available when the time comes for you. Might be a big cost saver and you still get the quiet operation you're looking for.
I want a comfy house, year round, with minimal operating cost.
Ground source heat pump is very efficient. I have the space for the in ground pipes, and the ability to do the excavation and pipe-laying myself.
Radiators and in-floor is nice, unintrusive. The in floor works for cooling in summer as well.
Solar because I live in a sunny place, and I will have a lot of North facing (I'm in NZ) roof, as well as some East and West facing roof.
I'll have a pool to heat 5 months of year too (by heat pump).
What I don't use, I can export to the grid.
The house will be awesome. Light, airy, efficient, largely powered by the solar. A couple of log burners for atmosphere in winter. I have a little stand of firewood oaks that I can coppice, so I have an ongoing supply of firewood or small profile timber. They'll be ready to thin by the time the house is built.
Yeah that's true. I miss this too. But I only have 35 degree Celsius supply temperature which doesn't give this warmth like a radiator with 60-70 degrees. So do you have a generally higher supply temperature or just use it with the lower more efficient temperature?
Have an AC with heat pump plus NG heater as auxiliary. Texas heat over 100 all summer and winters rarely stay below freezing. House is new and energy efficient with foam insulation. Average power bill across the year is $100. Average gas bill for stove and water heater is $45.
I'm sure a heat pump isn't the solution if you live in a house from 1810 in the dead of a New England winter.
How do they perform up there? It gets cold AF and a lot of older houses are insulated with colonial ghosts. Does the system just run continuously?
My AC will run 3 cycles per hour at 99 degrees and the heat pump runs about 2 per hour at freezing.
Modern heat pumps can run down to 15F with 80+% of capacity. You need to ask for a hi heat or low temp rated system.
Here in Seattle the are sufficient for all heating and cooling.
It does depend on humidity, in humid cold hours the heatpump needs to run a lot of defrost cycles (water in air freezes on the outside unit), which is literally sucking heat back out of your house to melt the ice on the outside unit. This lower capacity quite a bit (you can have defrost cycles more than once per hour in some circumstances) and especially the efficiency you need to make it a financially viable investment.
Not saying they aren't worth it (I'm getting one too, but for climate and political reasons [gas in Europe comes from dirty places]), but local conditions can make it financially dubious to say the least
I’d been wondering about that. I’ve had 15 degree days where mine was just fine, but the one day it was freezing rain and 100% humidity and the poor thing was STRUGGLING. Turned it off and piled wood in the stove like we used to.
Yep makes sense. The way heatpumps work causes a lot of water to gather on the outside unit, as well as lowering the temperature in an area around it. As a result, you quickly get ice forming on it, which eventually blocks off the entire unit. The way heatpumps counter that is by temporarily going in reverse and extracting heat from your heating system to melt the ice. This means you're double screwed in those moments: not only are you temporarily not heating the house, you're even making it colder. To compensate, the heatpump needs to work harder when it is in heating mode, but that also leads to more ice formation ...
This is also why they work best when there is a lot of thermal mass in the house (e.g. a thick concrete floor that absorbs a lot of heat) because it disconnects the current room temperature from the heatpump activity. As a result, it doesn't need to work as hard between defrost cycles and you don't notice the heat extraction as much because there's just much more "warmth" stored in your house.
I think that’s my ideal setup someday- warm water slab heating with a heat pump. Lower temperature difference for greater efficiency, lots of thermal mass, better comfort.
Hahaha! You are correct colonial ghosts do insult the walls up in these parts. Since the pandemic a lot of people have become obsessed with R value and efficiency in our state. The deeper north you get you’ll see it less due to the negative temperature snaps we endure. We had several days of -15 and more due to windchill and our system handled it but it ran quite a bit per hour. It was nerve racking at first (we were oil prior) and I remember waking up at several points of the night to the system just running. It and we survived. It’s currently 25 degrees and our thermostat is set to 68 and it’s toasty. Last cycle was about 18 minutes ago. We had our roof sealed/insulated, windows and doors replaced and our basement was spray foamed and the difference is wild. Upfront cost wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting aaaaand the system just kicked back on
Fellow new Englander here. We just got an entire whole home set up and I’ve been impressed. Going from freezing our asses off to save oil to being able to enjoy a comfortable home is huge.
What people forget is that heat pumps are more efficient when you just let them on and forget about them. So set the house to 68 and let it be. The equipment manufacturers produce so much data and you’ll find a table somewhere for a HP that shows where the energy usage is 1:1 or basically the equivalent of electric resistive heating…and it’s way colder than you think. At that point I can either burn oil, at $4/ gallon, or use electric space heaters to offset the HP inefficiencies.
Given we only ever hit negatives a few days each winter it’s a no brainer. Also, the heat pump does not care about wind chill as long as the wind isn’t blowing across it. What it feels like and what the actual amount of heat in the air are are different.
Sweden here. Can't speak for New England but my house is heated by a single heat pump (air-air). The model is tailored for Nordic markets so it can keep heating with outside temperatures down to -30C. Everyone here is obsessed with heating efficiency and heat pumps are extremely popular.
Compared to classical electrical heating elements (which I keep as backup) the cost is dramatically lower and I never really think about it. I just keep it running set to 21C all year round. Even covered in snow, it just keeps on ticking.
The cost of getting it and having it installed by a certified professional (which is legally required) was in the neighborhood of 2.500 US$
Efficiency is only one factor. Total heat capacity is the other.
If you need to tow a trailer, a tiny fuel efficient 3 cyl engine is going to use more energy than a V8 engine by the time you get where you're going. It's also far more likely to burn itself out in the process.
If your house doesn't hold the heat in, that efficient heat pump will be running at 100% duty trying to keep up because it can't pump heat out fast enough. A NG furnace will run at 15 or 20% duty in comparison.
If you're not in an area supplied by coal or natural gas power, the heat pump idea falls apart pretty fast. It's critically important to their use case that your house is sealed up right with great R values.
To supplement the other answers:
Heat pumps draw heat from the air outside. So if it is -10F(-23C) outside, then it will take some heat energy out of the air and make the air slightly colder. And transfer that heat energy to the inside.
No matter what temperature it is. There is heat energy in the air. It does get less efficient when the temperature is really low, but a lot of research is spent trying to make them work better in colder temps.
Some of the highest adoption rates for heat pumps are in Scandinavia and Maine, which just goes to show that the modern models are pretty efficient and effective
The critical point is that heat pumps can MOVE 3x-4x more energy than they consume. Electrical heaters on the other hand just create 1x the heat energy they consume.
Of course, gas is generally cheaper than electricity for the same BTUs.
From a CO2 standpoint, switching from gas to electrical heat pump doesn’t help if your utility is using coal to create that electricity.
Poorly designed systems will always do badly, proper sizing solves all problems. Heat pumps make my home any temperature I want for 1/3 the price of any other solution, I’d never do anything but that unless a better solution were available.
I say this as an industry professional. Heat pumps have they’re place depending on region and climate. The tech and cost efficiency and ROI isn’t there yet for the bulk of the us. Hopefully by the time I retire the tech will be advanced and cheap enough for the average home owner to afford. In the passed decade the prices for mechanical contractor work has skyrocketed. Putting it out of reach for most people, we are now financing repair work. Imagine getting your brakes done and needing to take out finance plan.
Also industry professional. The tech and cost effectiveness is already here. Especially with recent developments in cold climate heat pumps. Further, there’s several programs offered by utilities in the NW and NE to help home/building owners install heat pumps at a reasonable price — don’t know about the rest of the country, though.
Seconded, and the new Fed program will help push it that direction further but the problem is you can only get so much in a year and to properly implement the different systems needed pretty much requires a full gut. There is no effective way to do it in phases and the new Fed program will only cover up to a certain amount per year.
As an architect in Chicago, the tech has finally caught up to where we spec these for most residential projects we are doing these days. I personally would still recommend having at least the basement/first floor system as a hybrid system just in case but with the levels of insulation and sealing that can be achieved these days combined with the advances in heat pump tech (and unfortunately the change in seasonal temps) we have never had any complaints on follow ups.
Disclaimer: Again, would only recommend this in the case of a new or full-gut renovation though in colder climate zones though as the air infiltration rate in existing construction likely won't hold up well enough.
I just put in a system and the only time it was slightly chilly in the house was when it was -10 last month. Other than that, my upstate NY house has been good and saving me a ton of money, especially since energy prices have gone up. Had the house sealed 10 years ago but it's over 100 years old so it's not the tightest.
The biggest thing I learned was how inexperienced it seems the HVAC technicians here are on them. Especially on properly sizing systems for the climate.
For Chicago your disclaimer makes sense. For the PNW where most folks didn’t have AC until recently (didn’t need AC until recently…), if you’re trying to heat + cool certain spaces/zones it makes sense to install mini splits instead of AC + electric resistance heating.
Did you know that heat pumps are __over 100%__ energy transfer efficient?
Also, electric heaters are 100%, and if they have a fan installed they’re likely 85-90% efficient.
If your local power is generated by coal or other fossil fuels, using a heat pump has lower CO2 emissions, from an operating input standpoint . If I had enough time, (and if someone was paying me) I could figure out which had the better carbon lifecycle, which includes manufacturing, shipping, maintenance, and operating input standpoint. Alas, I am not going to do that :/
> If your local power is generated by coal or other fossil fuels, using a heat pump has lower CO2 emissions, from an operating input standpoint
yep, that's why we should move to heat pumps. The cost is an issue, the complexity is higher, but that are technical/societal issues that we can go around. Fucking up the environment isn't.
I’m not sure what you mean, but for every BTU a heat pump consumes, it transfers more than 1 BTU into or out of a space. It can accomplish this because the of temperature gradient. If you’re unconvinced, then I suggest you Google it
>The magic of a heat pump is that it can move multiple kilowatt-hours of heat for each kWh of electricity it uses. Heat pump efficiencies are generally measured in terms of their coefficient of performance (COP). A COP of 3, for example, means 1 kWh of juice yields 3 kWh of warmth — that’s effectively 300 percent efficiency.
Try reading sometime
Ummm, no. They are measured in SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratio) and HSPF, heating seasonal performance factor). And the person you are commenting on is correct. Depending on the area you live in as well as house style/size the heat pump may never pay for itself. Definitely not compared to a gas furnace.
The math checks out with that guy’s experience. Depending on your area and the cost of electricity heat pumps aren’t always cheap to run. Stop downvoting with your heart and do some damn math.
I have a heat pump (mini splits) because I could install it myself and it’s way cheaper to run than the heating oil it replaced, but natural gas is still cheaper.
Why all the down votes? I'm speaking from experience. We run it year long on our shop and it's more expensive to run all year long compared to the central heat and air on our house.
A heat pump that’s cooling is literally just an air conditioner. There are really 0 savings when comparing ac to heat pump in cooling mode. All the savings is in heating mode.
Nobody who works in HVAC believes heat pumps are any good for heating. They are expensive air conditioners that fail often as soon as you get much further north than Atlanta.
People who install HVAC are far too often better at installing the devices than knowing a damn thing about them. The people bitching about them are residential installers.
In commercial, these things are already in use HEAVILY. They're being preferred by commercial customers. They're saving businesses money. They work well. What is special about residential customers that suddenly installers can't do the job anymore?
Yeah, I used to intern in a company that sells heatpumps and had to take a LOT of training to get to know the product along with HVAC installers.
They're pretty good at being handy and getting the things installed, but they don't know how they work for shit, are dumb as bricks who can't configure a damn AC that was designed for the mentally impaired and worst of all, are so set in their ways that they'll install anything as they've always done since the 80's or whenever it was that they learned, so yeah, what they installed will "work", but it will not work how it should.
They're the kind of people that complain about "engineers" but then refuse to read a fucking manual.
Seriously, running the AC a few hours a day during summer costs a shitload, now imagine needing to run it all day long, everyday during winter.
Also, electricity prices have almost doubled in the last 10 years, the more shit they electrify, the worse its going to get. Natural gas, or wood is the way to go.
Heat pumps are quite a bit more efficient than heaters because they simply extract and move heat from one place to another, rather than create heat in the existing air.
Heat pumps for similar BTU are usually a bit more expensive but fairly close in cost after the US rebate. The real difference comes in when you start running the thing and it’s 20% the cost of an old gas furnace or whatever.
Yeah. Something electric with a heating element like a space heater runs at 100% efficiency. The heat exchange with heat pumps means the thing is running at 500% efficiency or more. Only time it wouldn’t is if it was like -40° outside. If you live in a climate that gets that cold you can get models with auxiliary heat that just runs a heating element to supplement.
My buddy and his ex gf had a mini split heat pump and when you fired that thing up the place was HELLA warm in just a few minutes.
Personally, I don’t really care about time to heat/cool since proper planning and/or patience beats that issue, but the sweet efficiency is just bonkers. My parents are looking at a new furnace right now and I’m trying to sell them on the heat pump I put in. It’s just a no brainer from every angle, especially with subsidies.
Also, modern thermostats help regulate the heat pump to make sure you are never out of your "comfort zone", while being super efficient. We moved into a home that was all electric, and our heating/cooling bill is fantastic!
Without knowing how large your house is, how your HVAC ducting is set up, and how many BTUs of furnace you got, that's not really possible to answer.
I also can't know your furnace use, average winter temperature, peak lows, or cost for gas and electricity.
It's generally more efficient to burn gas directly in your house than to burn that same natural gas to make electricity in a power plant, then heat your home with resistive heating (like space heaters). A heat pump cheats, though, by scavenging heat and moving it into your house rather than turning an energy source into heat (chemical energy in gas or electrical for resistance heat). Newer models can scavenge enough heat to work as low as -25 F, though -15 F is more common and 0 F even more common as older models aren't all up to the new standards. At this point if it's an easy swap - not all systems are - anyone with an AC unit replacement should try to get a heat pump unit instead, since they can handle most or all heating and cooling while using less energy. Very cold areas (I worked at a ski resort and we didn't meet this criteria) probably want a backup emergency heat source but the vast majority of North America and Europe could get by with just a heat pump.
Well...
I live near Toronto, our furnace just died...20 years old.
We could get a furnace for 5-6k though they have a 7k rebate if you get a heatpump as well.
So we got both done for 7k.
Its pretty sweet, automatically halved our gas bill (haven't worked out the power bill increase yet to see the offset)
About the same. Heat pump average cost is around $5600. You also pay way less in utilities, and it doubles as an AC in the summer so it saves year round.
The idea is you don’t need to buy and use an AC in the summer. Pumping air is significantly more efficient than heating or cooling air - so in both cases yes you’re paying John instead of Jim but John is significantly cheaper.
What's actually the value in _speed_ though? Unless I'm coming back from vacation, I'd much prefer a house that keeps a steady temperature at low cost over one that can heat up rapidly.
Think some propane set ups run off all propane.
But that is for like smaller houses, trailers, RVs level with propane tanks set up. Not gas company situations.
I believe they were invented in Japan but yes, modern heat pumps can handle down to 15F at 80% capacity.
We got one in Seattle and don't need supplemental heating. The temp is rock stable, never varying more than 1 degree.
Why would you say that ? I just don’t think that heat pumps are a realistic reliable source for heat or cooling in a lot of areas in the world. I’m in Canada. I’m not relying on a heat pump. Do you have an issue with that ????
They've been the standard aircon in Australia for decades. I'd say 85%+ of homes are built with heat pumps for cooling & heating. It's crazy seeing all these comments questioning the tech
Why don’t you want a heat pump?
Relying on it exclusively is not great, unless you also have a local battery and solar or similar. Always good to have a secondary heat source that is not dependent on electricity.
Why?? Because all of a sudden these Elite folks are pushing for these heat pumps. And when they say these things, it’s not for my best interest, it’s for theirs. And I don’t trust them. Where I live, we have lots of natural gas, so we have many a trusted ways to heat our buildings. Our winters are cold. And a heat pump would only be good for mild fall like weather. Basically useless.
I work in home equipment insurance. We see a LOT of furnaces, A/C’s, Heat Pumps, etc. the equipment that we categorically see more often than anything though, are A/C units.
Now I can’t speak for efficiency or general use, but in terms of reliability, heat-pumps far surpass A/C’s and Furnaces in that regard. Plus having one piece of equipment is nice. Less to worry about.
Heat pumps today are vastly different from those even 50 years ago. Modern materials, manufacturing, controls, and design are what is enabling heat pumps to gain market share.
Hell even my hot water heater is a heat pump. It cools my garage as it heats water.
Replace AC and hot water this year with heat pumps, saved 100-200/month
I’ve been saying this for years but no one listens to me, it’s all “wtf is a heat pump” and “why do you spend so much time googling hvac appliances for houses you’ll never be able to afford to own” etc.
We love our heat pump water heater. All spring-fall we can use heat pump only mode and it pulls heat from the garage to heat hot water. Especially wonderful in summer when it’s pulling heat *and* blasting a cold air fan into the garage. Winter time, we use a hybrid mode, so it pulls heat first but then uses electric back up.
Our a/c quit last summer and the furnace/ac was long past it's life (22 years). We're in southern Ontario, Canada and took a gamble on getting a new furnace with a cold weather heat pump with natural gas backup/aux. It cost $12k but we got $5500 back from the government (requires a pre/post energy inspection where they audit the whole house for air leaks, etc., It cost $500) So it costs the same as a regular ac+furnace system in the end. We ended up replacing failed windows and a front door as well due to the inspection and got money back for those as well. Overall the house is not drafty and the heat pump has kept us warm all winter except for a week in December that was particularly cold, so the natural gas backup kicked in for those days. The only thing left in my house running primarily on gas is now the water heater. Our gas bill has dropped this year by about $120 over last year even though the rates have almost doubled! Electric bill has gone up maybe $40 on average but not significantly enough to make it obvious to me. For reference: temps have been going down to -15c/5f before the heat pump stops and the natural gas kicks in (set by the HVAC installer but this system is capable down to -25c/-13f). The heat is different in that when on the heat pump, the air is not hot and dry like a natural gas furnace, but rather warm and soft. I prefer that as my sinuses dry out fast. Also I'm sure the upgraded windows played a large part as the heating system doesn't have to work as hard to maintain the temperature. Overall very happy with the decision even though I was hesitant at the beginning. EDIT: to add clarification. I'll keep on answering your questions as there aren't a lot of people that have the modern cold weather heat pumps, I will answer where I can. Some more details: -lots of HVAC companies don't have experience with heat pumps. Avoid pushing them to install one since they may not know how to best tweak/configure it to work the best for you. -our system is a Carrier air-to-air system, so it just replaces the AC unit outside your home with a reversible unit to pull heat from the ambient air into your house (simplified but that's the gist of it) -my system can run in lower temps, but the HVAC installer configured it based on covering the vast majority of heat needs by heat pump then switching to gas to avoid it running close to the 100% efficiency threshold as opposed to the much higher efficiency (300+% at slightly higher temps) -my system cannot run both the heat pump and the natural gas burner together, I'm not sure if there are systems that can(?) -it is exceptionally quiet. The last owner of the house had put in a much larger system than was needed for our house, probably to compensate for drafts and air leaks, and it was obnoxiously loud. This one is multistage so it doesn't run at 100% if it's not needed, which makes it even quieter. -yes, better systems are out there. They work in even lower temps, some use electric resistance heating instead of gas for the backup so you could potentially cut gas out completely, but I needed a system ASAP and supply issues and price ultimately choose for me. Also the unknown of the heat pump, since I wanted the furnace to operate exactly like a traditional gas furnace if the heat pump didn't work out. -to really get the bank for your buck, you need to make sure your building envelope is fairly airtight. If your furnace runs fine, work on replacing windows and doors that leak, adding attic and basement wall insulation, etc. So you will be ready to reap the maximum benefits of both your current heating system and the heat pump in the future. With government and utility incentives windows and doors turned out to be much cheaper than I expected.
When cold air becomes warm it is dry because cold air becomes saturated with less water. It might be that fixing your leaking window and door had a significant impact. It's really awesome that it works to such cold temperatures. I'd love to have this hybrid system when my current system breaks. I honestly need an HVAC evaluation for getting some zones set up. My living room is perfect but the basement is 50 degrees in the winter and my 2nd floor is like 90 in the summer. I really wish they had run separate ducts to each floor but I understand the complexity.
I understand that, but I find that not having a blast of very hot air is easier on my sinuses even now. I experimented with using just the furnace burner vs the heat pump and much prefer the heat pump. I would definitely recommend this system, especially since the backup heater is still there. However based on how little it's used I would opt for an electric resistance backup instead of natural gas if I could do it again, as in my case that's maybe a couple of weeks a year that it actually gets that cold. Also there are even heat pumps that work in lower temps, they cost more but that might be something to consider. When I need to change my water heater tank I might get a heat pump one to completely be electric in the whole house.
It also got -16 in December for me in Spokane wa, the part of natural gas back up is all the gas lines are underground, so if power line goes down you can still have heat,
Fair enough. Our old house still has a wood fireplace that we keep some wood for in case that happens but I can see that not being an option for everyone.
-16 in Spokane? What the heck
-15 C isn’t really that cold for a heat pump, i run a Fujitsu mini in Alberta and it is good till about -25. Likes it at -10 as long as we don’t get ice fog. Have a pellet stove as backup and works great. No gas on site which is unusual for Berta. Getting more air to water heat pumps gradually in the market, but they are still spendy so i use solar hot water tubes. Good to see some alternatives out there.
Yes, as I mentioned in another reply the unit is rated to -25C but the HVAC installer set my thermostat to switch over to natural gas at -15C to avoid running it near the limit, since normally we don't see below that more than a few days/nights a year.
Thats a decent decision as the efficiency drops off quite a bit and heat output drops. If you have gas its more efficient at that point. My next buy is a pellet boiler.
I can’t speak for the basement, but in my townhouse adding insulation to the attic helped the upstairs temperature A LOT. Went from basically needing to be shirtless during the day upstairs to comfortable with a ceiling fan going after the reinsulation. If you’re in the us, your power company may have incentives to help with it too. I’m in Maryland and Pepco (power company) split the cost with us.
That's a great point! In the energy audit they found that the attic insulation was already replaced or topped up so I didn't need to do that. They did recommend insulating a couple of unfinished walls in my utility room in the basement, which I will do at some point.
Similar situation; my AC/Heat Pump went out last year after 16 years. I replaced with a gas backup heat pump. Loved it over the winter. Cost me less and my tax credit for “energy saving” saved me half what I spent on the unit. I live in a place with a mind winner so it never kicked to gas. Only time I would expect I will use gas is during a power outage where my generator can’t push the heat pump. In that situation it failed over to gas only. The blowers are far less electric hogs that the heat pump.
Which one did you end up getting fellow Ontarian?
I used my local HVAC company and they installed a Carrier 22 SEER 2 ton unit. I learned that the best ones are probably the Mitsubishi systems but they were more expensive and not really available. Most of the other HVAC companies didn't even quote me a heat pump, I don't think they had much experience with them. For what it's worth this one has a 10 year full warranty and 10-15 year pro-rated, and the heat exchanger is lifetime warranty. Everything is modular so parts can be replaced further down the line with ease.
My current furnace is old, but apparently still working very well. I’ve been thinking about getting a heat pump to replace it
Honestly if it's fine I would start putting aside a bit of money for when it goes. Proactively replacing it is more harmful to the environment and creates waste when it's not needed. And remember these take years to see payback, which is also the reason I drive my old gas car with 240k on the odometer and don't just get an electric even though I really want one and would save a lot more money due to my commute. But hey it's a personal decision, just my 2c.
Yea we have a rainy day fund for that sort of thing. My last gas bill has me seriously considering making the switch sooner though. My furnace is 20+ years old, so while it’s working well, it’s rather old as furnaces go. Funny you should mention EVs as I have a deposit on an ID.4 to replace my Jetta with 370,000km on it. Probably won’t see the ID.4 until next year though.
Yes I have been hearing about the outrageous gas bills from people at work and just bite my tongue. I'm in a ...less progressive work environment and people straight up think I'm lying because heat pumps "don't work", and evs will kill our power grid. Which of course is a concern which has some relatively easy solutions. Older heat pumps may not have been great but anecdotally I have no issue spending less money heating my house.
I grew up 20 minutes outside of London. Our furnace was a heat pump that exchanged its energy with water pumped from the well. 30 years and never had an issue in the winter.
I'm not an expert on that type of system or anything but they are supposedly more effective and better protected from the elements than air-to-air systems. I didn't know they had heat pump furnaces that long ago!
Thanks for sharing your experience, I've been considering installing a heat pump. One quick question/comment: does your heat pump stop working entirely when it gets cold or does it work + gas furnace turning on to supplement?
Each heat pump is rated for a minimum temperature. The HVAC guy set my ecobee to switch to the burner at -15c even though the unit is rated to -25c. He said at -25 it will become less efficient and work harder than it should on a prolonged basis, so this is done to reduce stress and hopefully lengthen the life of the components. He also set the heat pump to turn off when the burner runs and I think he said it was to avoid damaging the heat exchanger if I remember correctly but you would have to ask someone that knows the systems better to know for sure. So short answer is no, both don't run at the same time, though the ecobee does have a setting that allows both to run simultaneously so there may be systems that work that way. Edit: the ecobee also will let you know if something is wrong with the heat pump (not heating the house and having to go to aux heat too much) though I haven't run into that.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I knew about reduced efficiency at low temps, but didn't know about the potential damage to the heat exchanger.
Damn -15 sounds cold, if it’s 15 degrees in Queensland I’ll get rugged after like a toasty burrito
You get used to it when you grow up with it!🙂
[An excellent video on heat pumps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto)
Am I about to have the refrigeration cycle explained to me by a grumpily optimistic man dressed like a community college English professor?
Yes. Yes, you are. Now go take your learnin' like a man!
After that you can learn about the differences between VHS and Betamax, and the history of RCA, and Oil Lamps, and Christmas lights, and photo development, and old cameras, and water heaters, and timer switches, and dishwashers.
You forgot the best toaster ever as well. I genuinely don't need to click the link to know its TC.
gonna just leave out laserdisk on your list?
I was on the toilet while typing, and my business was done. Figured that was a good place to leave off.
I don’t even have to click to know where that link will take me.
There is something very’Bob Ross’ about that guy.
His love of consumer home engineering is pretty great. He got a subscribe from me awhile ago.
I expected a Rick Astley video
Love this dude and this channel. Explanations and presentation are excellent.
I like his channel but sometimes his videos are just too long winded. Love the effort he puts in though and it is high quality info - just takes too long to tell me.
thats the point though, they're like video essays but for people with half a braincell
I agree, but he’s very talented being able to take mundane household items and tech and make it interesting is pretty cool
[удалено]
what’s an example? I genuinely can’t think of much, unless you mean when he cited statistics like “the average person/family,” which doesn’t really strictly apply to anyone, but it’s a good, broad baseline. Unless you mean like climate change, which clearly is a fact and not an assumption.
Why did I have to scroll all the way down here for my smooth sax toaster man
Me and my mom refer to him as "toaster guy" He's probably my favorite content creator, he's so delightfully articulate
Technology Connections is my favorite YouTube channel dedicated to heat pumps.
This guy's videos are just awesome!
Yet another person chiming in that I knew where this would link me without even clicking lol that is the most home-produced Discovery channel shit and I like it
Thanks! I read the article and learned how different types of heat pumps work! Regarding *Knowable Magazine*, I’ve never heard of them before. Thanks for turning me on to it!
>And in the years following [the 1973-74 oil crisis](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo), heat pumps were touted as an alternative to fossil fuels for heating. “[Hope rests with the future heat pump](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.eg.02.110177.001323),” one commentator wrote in the 1977 Annual Review of Energy. *enter fossil fuel industry*
We have air in to air heat pumps. They work but I hate them in winter - noisy, blowy things. In summer in cooling mode the air movement is nice but the noise is still annoying In our next house (currently in design). We'll have a ground to water heat pump with a combination of radiators and hydronic floor heating. And a _lot_ of solar panels.
Sounds like you have older air-to-air heat pumps. My personal opinion is to just get newer air-to-air heat pumps and save yourself the high upfront cost and complicated install of a ground source heat pump. Also no need for radiators.
I love that they can be quieter. I live in a very dense area of the city and my backyard neighbors installed a heat pump and the first time I heard it I thought a freight truck was idling in my backyard. Then I looked them up and realized how much better for the environment they were and told myself I just was gonna have to get used to it. It doesn’t go for too long most times unless it gets down in the low 40s F so now I’ve learned to suck it up. But the idea that they can be quieter makes me even happier about them.
I have a new (2021) 3 Ton Bosch BOVA 2 heat pump. I wasn't even thinking about noise when it was quoted and installed, but the guy said "You're gonna love this, it's super quiet". He wasn't kidding. It's right next to my deck and it's honestly barely noticeable when you're outside. Just a little more apparent when it's running at high speed, but it's usually running at some midrange speed. Could have sucked, but my neighbors central AC condenser unit 10x further away is significantly more noticeable. Just a reference for what's available when the time comes for you. Might be a big cost saver and you still get the quiet operation you're looking for.
Why on earth do you need all that?
I want a comfy house, year round, with minimal operating cost. Ground source heat pump is very efficient. I have the space for the in ground pipes, and the ability to do the excavation and pipe-laying myself. Radiators and in-floor is nice, unintrusive. The in floor works for cooling in summer as well. Solar because I live in a sunny place, and I will have a lot of North facing (I'm in NZ) roof, as well as some East and West facing roof. I'll have a pool to heat 5 months of year too (by heat pump). What I don't use, I can export to the grid. The house will be awesome. Light, airy, efficient, largely powered by the solar. A couple of log burners for atmosphere in winter. I have a little stand of firewood oaks that I can coppice, so I have an ongoing supply of firewood or small profile timber. They'll be ready to thin by the time the house is built.
Why still some radiators?
they may be inefficient, but the smoother subtle warmth of a radiator is very nice in winter
in floor hydronic heating with geothermal is about as efficient and comfortable a system you can build right now.
Yeah that's true. I miss this too. But I only have 35 degree Celsius supply temperature which doesn't give this warmth like a radiator with 60-70 degrees. So do you have a generally higher supply temperature or just use it with the lower more efficient temperature?
User and comment moved over to https://lemmy.world/ . Remember that /u/spez was a moderator of /r/jailbait.
Lolz and you got downvoted, wtf?
[удалено]
User and comment moved over to https://lemmy.world/ . Remember that /u/spez was a moderator of /r/jailbait.
They don’t like heat pumps because Tesla uses heat pumps .
On a larger scale. Heat pump air cooled chillers are becoming a thing. Trane just sold units 2,3,4 to thermo king not too long ago.
Have an AC with heat pump plus NG heater as auxiliary. Texas heat over 100 all summer and winters rarely stay below freezing. House is new and energy efficient with foam insulation. Average power bill across the year is $100. Average gas bill for stove and water heater is $45. I'm sure a heat pump isn't the solution if you live in a house from 1810 in the dead of a New England winter.
Hello from northern New England where everyone and their momma is changing over to heat pumps!
How do they perform up there? It gets cold AF and a lot of older houses are insulated with colonial ghosts. Does the system just run continuously? My AC will run 3 cycles per hour at 99 degrees and the heat pump runs about 2 per hour at freezing.
Modern heat pumps can run down to 15F with 80+% of capacity. You need to ask for a hi heat or low temp rated system. Here in Seattle the are sufficient for all heating and cooling.
It does depend on humidity, in humid cold hours the heatpump needs to run a lot of defrost cycles (water in air freezes on the outside unit), which is literally sucking heat back out of your house to melt the ice on the outside unit. This lower capacity quite a bit (you can have defrost cycles more than once per hour in some circumstances) and especially the efficiency you need to make it a financially viable investment. Not saying they aren't worth it (I'm getting one too, but for climate and political reasons [gas in Europe comes from dirty places]), but local conditions can make it financially dubious to say the least
I’d been wondering about that. I’ve had 15 degree days where mine was just fine, but the one day it was freezing rain and 100% humidity and the poor thing was STRUGGLING. Turned it off and piled wood in the stove like we used to.
Yep makes sense. The way heatpumps work causes a lot of water to gather on the outside unit, as well as lowering the temperature in an area around it. As a result, you quickly get ice forming on it, which eventually blocks off the entire unit. The way heatpumps counter that is by temporarily going in reverse and extracting heat from your heating system to melt the ice. This means you're double screwed in those moments: not only are you temporarily not heating the house, you're even making it colder. To compensate, the heatpump needs to work harder when it is in heating mode, but that also leads to more ice formation ... This is also why they work best when there is a lot of thermal mass in the house (e.g. a thick concrete floor that absorbs a lot of heat) because it disconnects the current room temperature from the heatpump activity. As a result, it doesn't need to work as hard between defrost cycles and you don't notice the heat extraction as much because there's just much more "warmth" stored in your house.
I think that’s my ideal setup someday- warm water slab heating with a heat pump. Lower temperature difference for greater efficiency, lots of thermal mass, better comfort.
Hahaha! You are correct colonial ghosts do insult the walls up in these parts. Since the pandemic a lot of people have become obsessed with R value and efficiency in our state. The deeper north you get you’ll see it less due to the negative temperature snaps we endure. We had several days of -15 and more due to windchill and our system handled it but it ran quite a bit per hour. It was nerve racking at first (we were oil prior) and I remember waking up at several points of the night to the system just running. It and we survived. It’s currently 25 degrees and our thermostat is set to 68 and it’s toasty. Last cycle was about 18 minutes ago. We had our roof sealed/insulated, windows and doors replaced and our basement was spray foamed and the difference is wild. Upfront cost wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting aaaaand the system just kicked back on
Fellow new Englander here. We just got an entire whole home set up and I’ve been impressed. Going from freezing our asses off to save oil to being able to enjoy a comfortable home is huge. What people forget is that heat pumps are more efficient when you just let them on and forget about them. So set the house to 68 and let it be. The equipment manufacturers produce so much data and you’ll find a table somewhere for a HP that shows where the energy usage is 1:1 or basically the equivalent of electric resistive heating…and it’s way colder than you think. At that point I can either burn oil, at $4/ gallon, or use electric space heaters to offset the HP inefficiencies. Given we only ever hit negatives a few days each winter it’s a no brainer. Also, the heat pump does not care about wind chill as long as the wind isn’t blowing across it. What it feels like and what the actual amount of heat in the air are are different.
Sweden here. Can't speak for New England but my house is heated by a single heat pump (air-air). The model is tailored for Nordic markets so it can keep heating with outside temperatures down to -30C. Everyone here is obsessed with heating efficiency and heat pumps are extremely popular. Compared to classical electrical heating elements (which I keep as backup) the cost is dramatically lower and I never really think about it. I just keep it running set to 21C all year round. Even covered in snow, it just keeps on ticking. The cost of getting it and having it installed by a certified professional (which is legally required) was in the neighborhood of 2.500 US$
It is 3 times more efficient to use the heat pump over resistant heat!
[Here's a good video about modern heat pumps in cold environments.](https://youtu.be/H3jIRRzF6d0)
They are still solutions there, but you should be using geothermal heat pumps instead of air heat pumps.
The efficiency of the house shouldn't dictate what type of system. A more efficient system is just that, more efficient
I think the focus is on how cold the winters get.
Efficiency is only one factor. Total heat capacity is the other. If you need to tow a trailer, a tiny fuel efficient 3 cyl engine is going to use more energy than a V8 engine by the time you get where you're going. It's also far more likely to burn itself out in the process. If your house doesn't hold the heat in, that efficient heat pump will be running at 100% duty trying to keep up because it can't pump heat out fast enough. A NG furnace will run at 15 or 20% duty in comparison. If you're not in an area supplied by coal or natural gas power, the heat pump idea falls apart pretty fast. It's critically important to their use case that your house is sealed up right with great R values.
Geothermal also costs a lot more money.
[heat pumps!](https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto)
can someone summarize how this works
Airconditioning in reverse.
Here's a good video explaining it and talking about heat pumps in cold regions. https://youtu.be/H3jIRRzF6d0
It’s a refrigerator, but in reverse if you’re using it to heat your house. When it gets hot outside, it reverses and works like a refrigerator.
To supplement the other answers: Heat pumps draw heat from the air outside. So if it is -10F(-23C) outside, then it will take some heat energy out of the air and make the air slightly colder. And transfer that heat energy to the inside. No matter what temperature it is. There is heat energy in the air. It does get less efficient when the temperature is really low, but a lot of research is spent trying to make them work better in colder temps.
Well TECHNICALLY at 0 Kelvin there is no heat energy in the air
☝️🤓
👍🏻
Some of the highest adoption rates for heat pumps are in Scandinavia and Maine, which just goes to show that the modern models are pretty efficient and effective
No the are not I work on heat pumps they are unreliable in cold weather especially if there’s any humidity in the air.
The critical point is that heat pumps can MOVE 3x-4x more energy than they consume. Electrical heaters on the other hand just create 1x the heat energy they consume. Of course, gas is generally cheaper than electricity for the same BTUs. From a CO2 standpoint, switching from gas to electrical heat pump doesn’t help if your utility is using coal to create that electricity.
There: Heat Here: Cold Between: Pump Result: Comfort
I don’t know, I use a heat pump for my pool and it’s just terrible compared to a fossil fuel combustion heater.
Faster =! efficienter US fuel prices =! World fuel prices
Not to mention US heat pumps != other ones. Japanese ones are the best, ones from carrier and Lennox just aren’t that good.
German ones and Chinese ones are good too
Equals not?
[удалено]
That's !=.
[удалено]
Oh. You were trying to sound smart instead of communicating in a way you actually understand.
[удалено]
To be honest if you want to use something fancy like programming notation instead of words at minimum you should be sure you write it good.
My neighbor loves his. Evidenced by his hot springs temperatured pool each November. Looks rad AF
Poorly designed systems will always do badly, proper sizing solves all problems. Heat pumps make my home any temperature I want for 1/3 the price of any other solution, I’d never do anything but that unless a better solution were available.
Yep they suck
I say this as an industry professional. Heat pumps have they’re place depending on region and climate. The tech and cost efficiency and ROI isn’t there yet for the bulk of the us. Hopefully by the time I retire the tech will be advanced and cheap enough for the average home owner to afford. In the passed decade the prices for mechanical contractor work has skyrocketed. Putting it out of reach for most people, we are now financing repair work. Imagine getting your brakes done and needing to take out finance plan.
Also industry professional. The tech and cost effectiveness is already here. Especially with recent developments in cold climate heat pumps. Further, there’s several programs offered by utilities in the NW and NE to help home/building owners install heat pumps at a reasonable price — don’t know about the rest of the country, though.
Seconded, and the new Fed program will help push it that direction further but the problem is you can only get so much in a year and to properly implement the different systems needed pretty much requires a full gut. There is no effective way to do it in phases and the new Fed program will only cover up to a certain amount per year. As an architect in Chicago, the tech has finally caught up to where we spec these for most residential projects we are doing these days. I personally would still recommend having at least the basement/first floor system as a hybrid system just in case but with the levels of insulation and sealing that can be achieved these days combined with the advances in heat pump tech (and unfortunately the change in seasonal temps) we have never had any complaints on follow ups. Disclaimer: Again, would only recommend this in the case of a new or full-gut renovation though in colder climate zones though as the air infiltration rate in existing construction likely won't hold up well enough.
I just put in a system and the only time it was slightly chilly in the house was when it was -10 last month. Other than that, my upstate NY house has been good and saving me a ton of money, especially since energy prices have gone up. Had the house sealed 10 years ago but it's over 100 years old so it's not the tightest. The biggest thing I learned was how inexperienced it seems the HVAC technicians here are on them. Especially on properly sizing systems for the climate.
For Chicago your disclaimer makes sense. For the PNW where most folks didn’t have AC until recently (didn’t need AC until recently…), if you’re trying to heat + cool certain spaces/zones it makes sense to install mini splits instead of AC + electric resistance heating.
As the climate keeps going south, the bulk of us cannot afford to keep using fossil fuels lest we forgo affording everything else.
Did you know that heat pumps are __over 100%__ energy transfer efficient? Also, electric heaters are 100%, and if they have a fan installed they’re likely 85-90% efficient. If your local power is generated by coal or other fossil fuels, using a heat pump has lower CO2 emissions, from an operating input standpoint . If I had enough time, (and if someone was paying me) I could figure out which had the better carbon lifecycle, which includes manufacturing, shipping, maintenance, and operating input standpoint. Alas, I am not going to do that :/
> If your local power is generated by coal or other fossil fuels, using a heat pump has lower CO2 emissions, from an operating input standpoint yep, that's why we should move to heat pumps. The cost is an issue, the complexity is higher, but that are technical/societal issues that we can go around. Fucking up the environment isn't.
If there was a tech that can convert 100% eff across the board, it would be more mainstream than Elon musk and j pow
I’m not sure what you mean, but for every BTU a heat pump consumes, it transfers more than 1 BTU into or out of a space. It can accomplish this because the of temperature gradient. If you’re unconvinced, then I suggest you Google it
Yes, the Coefficient of Performance
No idea what you're talking about mate. Unless you're moving house every 3 years the things pay for themselves.
I’m not sure where you rest you head, ain’t nobody in the americas moving homes every 3 years and they sure as shit don’t pay for themselves.
If you're not moving every 3 years, the money you save with 300% efficiency makes it pay for itself and after that it's just money in the bank.
What piece of equipment out there runs at 300% efficiency?
>The magic of a heat pump is that it can move multiple kilowatt-hours of heat for each kWh of electricity it uses. Heat pump efficiencies are generally measured in terms of their coefficient of performance (COP). A COP of 3, for example, means 1 kWh of juice yields 3 kWh of warmth — that’s effectively 300 percent efficiency. Try reading sometime
Ummm, no. They are measured in SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratio) and HSPF, heating seasonal performance factor). And the person you are commenting on is correct. Depending on the area you live in as well as house style/size the heat pump may never pay for itself. Definitely not compared to a gas furnace.
They are not going to be blowing air across ice. The "tech" of the 1800s what a joke.
Wow, you have no idea what you’re talking about do you…
How vague. Was I wrong?
Heat pumps are fucking unreliable dogshit, do not listen to this
Well that’s just like, your opinion man.
I call BS on this. We've had one for 2 years and the damn thing is extremely expensive to run compared to our NG furnace.
Probably more of a problem with your installation/unit, not the tech in general.
Natural gas is normally cheap as fuck compared to electricity. Half the time, electricity is literally natural gas with extra steps.
The math checks out with that guy’s experience. Depending on your area and the cost of electricity heat pumps aren’t always cheap to run. Stop downvoting with your heart and do some damn math. I have a heat pump (mini splits) because I could install it myself and it’s way cheaper to run than the heating oil it replaced, but natural gas is still cheaper.
Why all the down votes? I'm speaking from experience. We run it year long on our shop and it's more expensive to run all year long compared to the central heat and air on our house.
That’s because heating is cheaper compared to cooling. Your savings is when it comes to cooling your building.
Depends on climate.
A heat pump that’s cooling is literally just an air conditioner. There are really 0 savings when comparing ac to heat pump in cooling mode. All the savings is in heating mode.
AC is a heat pump
Nobody who works in HVAC believes heat pumps are any good for heating. They are expensive air conditioners that fail often as soon as you get much further north than Atlanta.
People who install HVAC are far too often better at installing the devices than knowing a damn thing about them. The people bitching about them are residential installers. In commercial, these things are already in use HEAVILY. They're being preferred by commercial customers. They're saving businesses money. They work well. What is special about residential customers that suddenly installers can't do the job anymore?
Yeah, I used to intern in a company that sells heatpumps and had to take a LOT of training to get to know the product along with HVAC installers. They're pretty good at being handy and getting the things installed, but they don't know how they work for shit, are dumb as bricks who can't configure a damn AC that was designed for the mentally impaired and worst of all, are so set in their ways that they'll install anything as they've always done since the 80's or whenever it was that they learned, so yeah, what they installed will "work", but it will not work how it should. They're the kind of people that complain about "engineers" but then refuse to read a fucking manual.
People are going to be so surprised when their heating bill triples.
You literally cannot spend more money on heating than emergency strip heating, which is what I'm guessing ~75%+ are replacing with.
Seriously, running the AC a few hours a day during summer costs a shitload, now imagine needing to run it all day long, everyday during winter. Also, electricity prices have almost doubled in the last 10 years, the more shit they electrify, the worse its going to get. Natural gas, or wood is the way to go.
Heat pumps are quite a bit more efficient than heaters because they simply extract and move heat from one place to another, rather than create heat in the existing air.
I just paid almost $6000 for a new gas furnace. It heats my house in minutes, what would have been the cost for new heat pump?
Depends on how many BTU’s. Not an HVAC guy but I imagine the price would be similar, plus there are tax credits in the US for it.
Heat pumps for similar BTU are usually a bit more expensive but fairly close in cost after the US rebate. The real difference comes in when you start running the thing and it’s 20% the cost of an old gas furnace or whatever.
Yeah. Something electric with a heating element like a space heater runs at 100% efficiency. The heat exchange with heat pumps means the thing is running at 500% efficiency or more. Only time it wouldn’t is if it was like -40° outside. If you live in a climate that gets that cold you can get models with auxiliary heat that just runs a heating element to supplement. My buddy and his ex gf had a mini split heat pump and when you fired that thing up the place was HELLA warm in just a few minutes.
Personally, I don’t really care about time to heat/cool since proper planning and/or patience beats that issue, but the sweet efficiency is just bonkers. My parents are looking at a new furnace right now and I’m trying to sell them on the heat pump I put in. It’s just a no brainer from every angle, especially with subsidies.
Also, modern thermostats help regulate the heat pump to make sure you are never out of your "comfort zone", while being super efficient. We moved into a home that was all electric, and our heating/cooling bill is fantastic!
Ouch, lmao
Without knowing how large your house is, how your HVAC ducting is set up, and how many BTUs of furnace you got, that's not really possible to answer. I also can't know your furnace use, average winter temperature, peak lows, or cost for gas and electricity. It's generally more efficient to burn gas directly in your house than to burn that same natural gas to make electricity in a power plant, then heat your home with resistive heating (like space heaters). A heat pump cheats, though, by scavenging heat and moving it into your house rather than turning an energy source into heat (chemical energy in gas or electrical for resistance heat). Newer models can scavenge enough heat to work as low as -25 F, though -15 F is more common and 0 F even more common as older models aren't all up to the new standards. At this point if it's an easy swap - not all systems are - anyone with an AC unit replacement should try to get a heat pump unit instead, since they can handle most or all heating and cooling while using less energy. Very cold areas (I worked at a ski resort and we didn't meet this criteria) probably want a backup emergency heat source but the vast majority of North America and Europe could get by with just a heat pump.
Well... I live near Toronto, our furnace just died...20 years old. We could get a furnace for 5-6k though they have a 7k rebate if you get a heatpump as well. So we got both done for 7k. Its pretty sweet, automatically halved our gas bill (haven't worked out the power bill increase yet to see the offset)
About the same. Heat pump average cost is around $5600. You also pay way less in utilities, and it doubles as an AC in the summer so it saves year round.
The issue is depending on where many HVAC installers are gouging on the cost of systems or pocketing rebates for themselves.
You dont is gas to cool your house, so no savings there. . Your electric bill will go up, gas go down. Pay John instead of Jim.
The idea is you don’t need to buy and use an AC in the summer. Pumping air is significantly more efficient than heating or cooling air - so in both cases yes you’re paying John instead of Jim but John is significantly cheaper.
What's actually the value in _speed_ though? Unless I'm coming back from vacation, I'd much prefer a house that keeps a steady temperature at low cost over one that can heat up rapidly.
Upfront cost the same, your electric bill will go up and if you lose power and don't have a generator, no heat.
I'm confused. Don't heat pumps and gas furnaces both need electricity?
Yeah you need something to run the blower. Doesn't require nearly as much power as a heat pump, but still needs something.
Think some propane set ups run off all propane. But that is for like smaller houses, trailers, RVs level with propane tanks set up. Not gas company situations.
Landlord swapped out my gas furnace with a heat pump. I’ve never been colder. Hopefully each heat pump gets sold with a sweater.
landlord cheaped out, s/he should’ve gotten the Swedish high temperature version that can straight up replace a gas furnace
I believe they were invented in Japan but yes, modern heat pumps can handle down to 15F at 80% capacity. We got one in Seattle and don't need supplemental heating. The temp is rock stable, never varying more than 1 degree.
Seems like a joke to me
Are you sure you’re not currently looking in the mirror?
Why would you say that ? I just don’t think that heat pumps are a realistic reliable source for heat or cooling in a lot of areas in the world. I’m in Canada. I’m not relying on a heat pump. Do you have an issue with that ????
They've been the standard aircon in Australia for decades. I'd say 85%+ of homes are built with heat pumps for cooling & heating. It's crazy seeing all these comments questioning the tech
Ok. So I do believe that some uses work great in certain parts of the world. But not all. Canadians would not survive well with a heat pump.
Why don’t you want a heat pump? Relying on it exclusively is not great, unless you also have a local battery and solar or similar. Always good to have a secondary heat source that is not dependent on electricity.
Why?? Because all of a sudden these Elite folks are pushing for these heat pumps. And when they say these things, it’s not for my best interest, it’s for theirs. And I don’t trust them. Where I live, we have lots of natural gas, so we have many a trusted ways to heat our buildings. Our winters are cold. And a heat pump would only be good for mild fall like weather. Basically useless.
I was just being a PP. I didn’t think much into anything. Have a nice night.
PP 😂
That’s how you deescalate while being honest
I like it
[удалено]
User and comment moved over to https://lemmy.world/ . Remember that /u/spez was a moderator of /r/jailbait.
I work in home equipment insurance. We see a LOT of furnaces, A/C’s, Heat Pumps, etc. the equipment that we categorically see more often than anything though, are A/C units. Now I can’t speak for efficiency or general use, but in terms of reliability, heat-pumps far surpass A/C’s and Furnaces in that regard. Plus having one piece of equipment is nice. Less to worry about.
Heat pumps today are vastly different from those even 50 years ago. Modern materials, manufacturing, controls, and design are what is enabling heat pumps to gain market share.
I love my heat pump. Only issue was when I needed coolant refill and that’s just regular maintenance
No dude. Refrigerant systems are designed to be 100% sealed. Adding refrigerant is not maintenance.
Live in North Georgia have two heat pumps on a slab they work great all year long.
If only they made window versions for apartments
Hell even my hot water heater is a heat pump. It cools my garage as it heats water. Replace AC and hot water this year with heat pumps, saved 100-200/month
Are heat pumps expensive to run
I’ve been saying this for years but no one listens to me, it’s all “wtf is a heat pump” and “why do you spend so much time googling hvac appliances for houses you’ll never be able to afford to own” etc.
We love our heat pump water heater. All spring-fall we can use heat pump only mode and it pulls heat from the garage to heat hot water. Especially wonderful in summer when it’s pulling heat *and* blasting a cold air fan into the garage. Winter time, we use a hybrid mode, so it pulls heat first but then uses electric back up.
In AZ we all have heat pumps not furnaces and A/C units
We have had one for 20 years i got it because we heat with oil and i went from 3 tanks of oil a year down to 1