Heat Pumps

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Heat Pumps

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Schmeat pumps.

-very efficient at cooling

-can be ideal for southern regions

-sucks balls at heating in extreme cold weather

-works twice as often as an A/C....theoretically last half as long.

My train HVAC system has an electric heat pump. It works great. I am in SWLA. My home is very well insulated.

I looked into them pretty carefully. This is what I concluded, If you currently have natural gas in your home then I would go with conventional HVAC with natural gas furnace - this what I currently have and what I will replace my older system with within the a year.

If you are all electric, I would go with a air sourced heat pump with the supplemental electric heat strips to supplement the heat on the coldest days when the heat pump can’t keep up.

I have friends in BR that are all electric and switched to heat pumps to replace their 2 old old HVACs with electric furnaces. They are happy with them and they told me they have significant reduction in electric bills during winter over the old systems. I think they have had them about 6 or so years now.

Heat pumps have been around for several decades, not new technology, they are a bit more complex than conventional HVACs but not signicantly so. I’ve not read where the life span of a heat pump is any shorter than a conventional HVAC in the Deep South. Reversing valves and defrost boards seem to the “common” repair issues on heat pumps - conventional HVACs don’t have these 2 components. I don’t think there is much difference in cost between a heat pump with supplemental electric heat strips vs conventional HVAC with natural gas furnace.

If you want to play with annual cooling and heating costs of heat pumps vs conventional HVACs with either natural gas or electric furnaces here is a on-line calculator HVACOPCOST

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Heat pumps have been around for several decades, not new technology, they are a bit more complex than conventional HVACs but not signicantly so.

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Conventional HVACs are heat pumps. They pump heat from inside the house to the outside.

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I’ve not read where their life span of a heat pump is any shorter than a conventional HVAC in the Deep South. Reversing valves and defrost boards seem to the “common” repair issues on heat pumps - conventional HVACs don’t have these 2 components.

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Yeah they're pretty much just an AC with the refrigerant cycle running backwards so the condenser is the evaporator and vice versa, right?

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I have friends in BR that are all electric and switched to heat pumps to replace their 2 old old HVACs with electric furnaces. They are happy with them and they told me they have significant reduction in electric bills during winter over the old systems.

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Yeah that's because air conditioners / heat pumps are able to move more energy than it takes to run them, so they're like 200% to 400% efficient (CoP of 2 to 4). By contrast an electric heater cannot be more than 100% efficient.

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I have heat pump heating.

Wasn't a problem until The Day After Tomorrow in Texas happened. Struggled during that.

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Yeah, open air ones are going to struggle in very cold weather. I think geothermal heat pumps are getting more popular, especially up north. Makes the heating and cooling more efficient. Very expensive though since you have to bury hundreds or even thousands of feet of tubing.