I got a heat pump installed, with an air handler to push the air through our ducts, in place of our old gas furnace in Seattle. I love it! But FYI the whole install cost $16k in 2021, and friends doing it now say it's well over $20k. Maybe we are all getting ripped off, but that was the lowest bid from several fully booked companies. I think it mostly points to our need for more electricians and HVAC technicians to scale up the installation of these great machines in capacity-constrained cities.
Jun 14, 2023·edited Jun 14, 2023Liked by Noah Smith
I put a system in this year in Colorado for less than half that not including rebates. With state, federal, and utility incentives out of pocket costs were about $5k.
I found it to be much cheaper to get the equipment myself and get bids solely on the labor/installation.
Ductless heat pumps (aka mini-splits) are much, much cheaper. Your pre-existing duct system may have add to the cost. We just got a ductless heat pump installed for $5K, before the 30% federal tax credit, that covers most of our 3 BR 2,000 sq. ft. home. It's working great.
The mini split for my open floor plan house will be 30 SEER. I’m keeping central HVAC on the second floor because it has more rooms. If I finish the attic it will have the 30 SEER mini split which I would think would end up making the second floor HVAC much more efficient. One day I was just thinking of mini splits and I was like, “wait a second, does the mini split bring in fresh air??” Turns out is doesn’t and so the central HVAC on the 2nd floor will bring in the fresh air for the first floor.
It is actually easier to install into a ducted system, assuming that you had a AC.
You have a small house for Colorado, as well as for Washington.
In Highlands Ranch, ours was 3100 ft^2.
We would have had to put in 2-3 mini splits, ran electricity, ran plumbing into the walls, and upgrade the electrical.
Mini splits can work when you have a small much older home, and only install 1 unit on the main floor, and have easy access to electrical, or are willing to run conduit all over the outside of your home.
That's incredible! Maybe I'll take bids after all for a separate ductless mini-split system for my upstairs. Did it require city inspection and permits? What outdoor unit model did you get?
I think ours is a somewhat high-end Mitsubishi system, because Seattle requires essentially the quietest models on the market. But the parts are only a small part of the cost anyhow.
I'm still happy we used the existing duct system and an air handler, because I like running it in fan mode to clean the air with the MERV-13 filter, and circulating through the basement is enough to cool the air on all but the hottest few days of summer here. Also, our walls are horsehair-and-plaster on the main floor, which makes it hard to run refrigerant lines and to hang heavy mini-splits without a bunch of plaster cracking and crumbling.
I'm outside Salem, Oregon. The vendor/installer took care of the permit but I don't think it required a county inspection. We had a follow-on inspection to qualify for an additional Oregon Energy Trust rebate ($500, which reduced the total price to $5,200). It's a Mitsubishi model heat pump, the most powerful model in the series at 24K. The wall-mounted "air handler" is also Mitsubishi. The bids we got ranged from $5,000 to $12,000 (the latter from an old-line electrical company). I think the companies are getting more competitive, and the HVAC focused companies seem to offer the best price.
Would you be willing to say which company you went with? I live pretty near Salem and passed on upgrading recently after getting quoted about 4x that for a similar install.
That's impressive! I'll suggest it to another coworker who just bought a house and is about to try to retrofit with a heat pump, and see if it helps her save that much.
My cost included the very modest utility rebate. I don't think there were any federal or (WA) state incentives in 2021.
If she bought an older ranch-style smaller home i..e. 1 floor, that does not have central HVAC, then it well make good sense to switch to that, esp. if done in the room that has an electric wall or baseboard heater.
But, if she got a newer home and it has central HVAC, she would likely be better off with remaining central.
I got mine installed for about $12K a year ago (there were some rebates paid directly to installer). Works great and cruises through the 100-degree days. Pairs well with solar system. Definitely worth it but still expensive.
It feels like the future but still will require significant subsidy (and bigger labor force) for people to convert.
Not bad! Happily haven't had to deal with 100-degree days here in Seattle. We have solar panels as well but we virtually never need cooling, so in the summer we just bank 100s of kWhrs a month with the utility, and then use them up in winter when our solar generation drops to <10% of summer production, and our electric usage skyrockets for heating.
If the quotes are upward of $20,000, and it seems to be the going rate by reputable firms with no wiggle room on the price, it's probably because of a shortage of supply or a shortage of skilled technicians.
The quoted estimate likely includes the construction work required to integrate the heat pump to your house (electrical, ductwork, breaking open and repairing the structure, etc.), and part of the high price is that a firm will warranty the work. If anything goes wrong after installation, the technicians will come out and diagnose and fix any problems. (Part of the hidden cost of warrantied work is that you're being front-loaded the cost of anticipated failures, similar to an insurance policy. If everything works, the installer pockets the premium. If something goes wrong, the installer must pay the cost of making it right.)
For a home improvement with such a high sticker cost, have a CPA do your taxes. They could probably find a tax advantage for you, or ease your cost burden by capitalizing the expense.
The invoice did not break that down. The equipment seems to be about $4,500 today. There were also some costs for permits and inspections in that $16k (Seattle requires mechanical AND electrical inspectors to come out and inspect a new heat pump install, which is nuts).
2 years ago, we installed a Lennox XP20 HP with nat gas furnace in our Colorado Home. It cost $20K. Then Boeing had us move to Mukilteo Wash, where installed the same HP in july 1 year ago. $32K
Lifetime HVAC.
Disgusting price. Install took quite a time since it was obvious that they were not use to installing HP. But 50% more????
Sorry to hear it. That sounds brutal, but really similar to my friend who got quotes for installing a ducted central main floor HP system in Ballard.
Welcome to the Seattle region! I hope you enjoy it, and don't miss the Colorado sun too badly! If you're ever going crazy from lack of sunshine just head east on Route 2 over Stevens Pass and it'll be sunnier like 75% of the time :-D.
Kids are on hockey team (last year was silvertips). We have spent some time over in eastern wash. Looks like Colorado Front Range. Still, plenty of clouds there.
I grew up all over the states, and to be honest, I MISS precipitation. Colorado is sun, sun, sun, and more sun. Seriously, until this year, it had been 20 years since Colorado had any serious precipitation. But, am looking forward to clamming, trying my hand at saltwater fishing, learning more about wildlife here. As it is, over by dog park saw a 'tree' that had a flat base that was over 10' diameter with multiple trunks coming out of it. Never saw a 'tree' like that. Then someone told me that this place had been clear-cut MULTIPLE times, but in the original clear-cutting, they left behind stumps that were 10' and bigger. Now, other trees are growing through them. THEN IT HIT ME. WOW. This place really has some interesting stuff.
OTOH, wife grew up in UK until age 10 and then has lived in Colorado since. She is missing the sun and the dryness. Always cold. But, in a couple of more years, she will likely be used to it. As it is, I have changed out the 40 and 60 watt flourescent bulbs that previous had, and put in 150 W equivalent LED (only 12-15 watts) in many of these cans. Feels brighter.
Do have to laugh about ppl thinking that 5K' being high, but, then again, going from 0 to top of say rainer, a 14er is really amazing, vs Colorado's 5K' up to 14er. And the ppl here are interesting (the regular ppl, not the freaky druggies outside of home depots and lowes).
We live suburb outside Seattle. In Feb 2022 we got bids on heat pumps and gas furnaces to replace older inefficient gas furnace.
With installation and electrical work for Trane 3 ton variable HP quote was $11,550. Trane 3.5 ton single stage HP $10,050. Different vendor Mitsubishi 3.5 ton variable, feature it is quiet, total cost with installation $19,500. 95% / 60000 BTU 2 stage gas furnace with install $5,050.
Newer house with decent duct work. This stuff varies a lot in cost.
Three vendors quoted all insisted need backup gas furnace.
With passage of inflation reduction act August 2022 offers up to $8000 low income credit paid to vendor. Have email from WA Dept of Commerce that states rebates not available until 2024.
Blames US Dept of Commerce. Not a super quick start but hopefully have controls to prevent fraud. I believe it would be very helpful is WA Dept of Commerce could not just process a credit but advocate for heat pumps in a consumer useful manner. 1. Have recommended list of heat pumps and reasons why. 2. State you do not need a backup furnace in WA state. 3. Collect vendor information and quotes - publish prices to purchase and install by vendor, help consumers with actual information to help drive competition and lower prices.
Bel-Red is one of the largest installers of HP / furnaces in our area and now owned by private equity. This tells you where industry heading and would be great if state could provide information to help the consumer get a fair deal.
I also encountered a few installers who insisted on "backup gas furnace". But we insisted otherwise, both due to our own research that it was not necessary, and because we were determined to demolish the furnace chimney that makes our staircase really janky. Now our only gas use is for cooking, and a tankless water heater outside the house.
Maybe I'll look into those rebates in 2024 when we consider a minisplit heat pump system for our poorly insulated bedrooms in the former attic of the house. :-D
Im curious. In Colorado, we put tanked Water Heaters in the basement. That is ideal for putting in a HP WH.
However, our new homes has WG (as well as furnace) in the garage. To me that is just weird. The previous owner did very little maintance/upgrades, so, am replacing all sorts of things, but WH is only 5 years old so not a priority.
However, it seems like a Tankless is the right way to go for Garage install.
I think a heat pump WH sounds grand. We went tankless largely at suggestion of our plumber because it could be done quickly and cheaply, and seemed good for running baths for the kids. I didn't even know about HP WHs at the time.
We removed the gas tanked heater as part of demolishing the nuisance furnace flue chimney, since it was shared by the gas tank heater.
My first floor has an open floor plan and I’m replacing my central HVAC with mini splits. In the two bigger rooms the one I’m getting has a 30 SEER!!! So 2 tons of HVAC with 30 SEER rating.
The problem is old homes that don’t have a central a/c. They’d require very expensive and extensive retrofits to accommodate a central air heat pump.
But that’s where mini-splits can come in. With those units you can add heat pumps (and cooling, incidentally) to any room in the house without an ugly window unit. They’re super efficient (even more so than central source heat pumps) and less costly / complex to install.
The nice thing about mini-splits is that you can find them that feed 2-4 vents inside, allowing you to only turn on the AC or heating in certain rooms or zones of your home where you actually are. You might, for example, want to make your kitchen and living room warm, but be comfortable and happy to sleep in a cold bedroom under thick blankets.
A central unit has to blast hot or cold air through the entire house at once, and the best you can do is close vents, but you still have a lot of uselessly heated/cooled air in all those dead-end vents.
A new development that I'm quite excited about is combining a heat pump with controls that let you treat your hot water tank as a thermal battery: https://www.harvest-thermal.com/
When energy is cheap (like, when your PV system is pumping out more than you need), you run the heat-pump to soak up some of that extra, and pack heat into a very well-insulated water tank. Then at night when you don't have energy, you get your hot water by down-mixing the super-hot water with cold; and you get air heat by running the air through a heat-exchanger fed with the super-hot water.
This is a very common application for people who have wood-fired heating. They buy a second accumulator tank that is insulated and can keep the water hot, acting as a thermal battery, allowing you to only have to build one fire a day in the wood boiler (which also reduces the major internal air pollution issue caused by wood heating).
It's also common for people who have solar water heating. You heat up all the water in the middle of the day when the sun is shining, and gather it into an insulated accumulator tank and don't have to use any other form of water heating, even if you miss out on a day or two of sufficient midday sun.
As for heat-pumps, you don't even need to use a water tank as a thermal battery. You use your home itself as a thermal battery! In the winter, when the need for heating is higher and electricity is more expensive (especially during the day) and any home PVs you have don't offer much electricity from the sun, you just blast the heat-pump overnight when the electricity is cheap and then turn it off all day after the first morning peak in prices until the late evening, when the prices go down again. Even when the home isn't perfectly insulated, the heat-loss over the course of 8-12 hours is minimal.
Using the air of the home as the thermal battery is going to sacrifice some amount of precision in holding the temperature within a range of 2-3F, compared to storing the heat in water (which can hold a lot more heat per cm^3) and then distributing it to the house over time. I think more people are going to be interested in implementing something like this if it means they don't have to accept letting the temperature vary by an additional 5+ degrees F, compared to traditional HVAC. Precision down-mixing from the hot tank to what flows to the hot water tap is also a big deal in terms of public acceptance. Most people want to be certain that when they turn on the tap, what comes out will not be so hot it could actually burn them.
The concern around heat-pumps working in cold regions always confused me because the place where heat pumps are and have been dominant for decades is... Scandinavia. And it famously gets cold here! I'm American, but live in Sweden, and my eyes have been opened to the potential of what is now a very mature and dominant technology here.
My Swedish MIL has had a ground-source or geothermal heat-pump for almost as long as I've been alive. It produces cheap, reliable heat for both her century-old radiators and hot water tank. For these geothermal units, you basically dig a borehole at least 100m down under or near the house, run a refrigerant coil loop down into it with a simple electric pump and compressor in your basement (like your fridge), and and utilize the fact that the ground is warmer than the winter air. Her house is a century-old, wood house and not very well-insulated, but her heating bill is almost nothing even in the depths of winter in a place where the lows often hit -30C (-22F).
We just installed a heat-pump ourselves that works a little differently. It's an air-source heat-pump. Because we live very near the water, it's harder to dig a borehole to the bedrock, so, instead, we have this very large air intake box outside the house that works like a "reverse AC," sucking in ambient air and using it to heat refrigerant and pressure differentials. This works even when it's very cold outside. Down to about -15C (5F), it's working very efficiently. Below that, the machine needs to kick in with direct electric heating, which is more expensive. Again, it would be better to have a ground-source pump like my MIL, to accommodate even lower temperatures, but this is fine most of the time, as the winter lows below that aren't so frequent and you can heat up the house in the middle of the day when the sun is up and it's less cold, with the house acting as a thermal battery through the lows overnight. Either way, this system was so much more efficient and cheaper than our legacy fuel oil boiler than it paid for itself within only 3 years!
Air-source heat-pumps can use the heat to heat up the legacy radiator system in your house (plus the hot-water tank), like ours, if your need for air-conditioning is minimal. Or, for American houses where it can get cold in the winter and also hot in the summer, you can get an air-source heat-pump that blows the heat inside via vents and also can kick into reverse to blow cold air through the same vents, essentially acting like a dual air-heat and AC system, in one. These are the kind you're seeing proliferate across the American South. They're a really good option across the (generally warmer) United States. If you lived in and older house in Maine with radiators, however, I would recommend a system that just specializes in heating hot water and radiator heating, only. They're more efficient at the single-job, minus the AC capability.
My neighbor has a third type of heat-pump: instead of a borehole or an air-source fan, it has coils buried underneath their entire backyard. Like geothermal heating, this takes advantage of the fact that the ground is much warmer than the air below the frost-line, about 40cm down. It's somewhere between my MIL's geothermal borehole heat-pump and our air-source heat pump in efficiency in the coldest weather. We didn't go for this option ourselves because it requires digging up the whole yard, adding some up-front costs and inconvenience. But this is an excellent format for cold places, even those like ours near water.
There's a fourth type of heat-pump for waterside houses: the water-source heat-pump. You run the coil under the water near your house, which takes advantage of how lakewater is warmer deeper down, below where it ices over in the coldest winter. Another excellent option for cold places near water.
Though heat-pumps are almost always a superior option both practically and financially, the realistic limit on all this stuff is what your local contractor base has experience with. They may not be familiar with heat-pumps at all, or else only know how to install the air-source kind (bore-holing is a whole other capability). Heat pumps are more expensive and complicated to install, initially, so you need somebody good and a network of experienced HVAC contractors who can fix it later. My American mom didn't go for one in Maryland after both her heating and cooling system gave out last year for this reason: there just weren't any contractors who were offering this service in her area. That's a real shame because she spent way more replacing a natural gas boiler and AC system recently that will now run in her house for the next 15-20 years and the total cost of ownership will be higher.
this is true that heat pumps don't work well in extremely cold temperatures. This situation can really tax the power grid. that's where gas furnaces are needed. this is a problem in the northeast, as seen this past winter. of course, a quarter of the US population lives in this area.
Your piece is funny and generally accurate. There is a LOT of nonsense in these comments. I won’t bother responding — it’s pretty clear who’s a whackadoodle. I’ll push back against one claim you make uneccessarily in the article: ANYTHING electric is a potential source for a fire. I live in Florida, in a very old house, and we use a hybrid system that produces very good AC during our long summers, and that also works admirably well (not great, but good enough) to provide warm air for cold nights in December. I’m not a great elctrician, but a pretty good one, and give me an hour to bridge some switches and break some parts, and I guarantee you that my house (wood) would burn to the ground. Heat pumps are safe and reliable, but not foolproof. tl;dr: What you said, minus the whole “heat pumps can’t cause fires.” Never make claims that are unnecessary and critics will seize upon. “Relative to furnaces that burn oil, heat pumps are far safer when it comes to fires.” Something like that….
I think maybe the more important distinction is that heat pumps have no risk of producing carbon monoxide, so you can put them places (like the attic or under the floorboards) where you would never put a gas or oil heater.
I looked into having a heat pump installed for pool cooling - I live in California - and I was told they don't function as well in a dry climate so that wouldn't be a good solution. Instead, we installed a solar system that pulls the water through pipes on the roof at night to dissipate the heat.
If you have a pool in a place like Arizona or Palm Springs, unless you want it like a hot tub come July, your pool filtration system should have a chilling element built in. This can be a refrigerated system which cools the water, night time solar like we have or a heat pump. But in places where the daytime temp exceeds 100 and it doesn't get below 80 degrees at night for months - a system to cool pool water is an absolute must.
I grew up outside Palm Springs, and unless my dad upgraded without telling me (doubtful), we definitely did not have pool cooling, nor did any of my friends. During the Enron-induced power outages of my childhood, we'd jump in the pool and go to the bottom (where it stayed cool), or inch along the edges of the pool that got some shade.
The best pools were the ones that were deep and had been built to ensure some shade at all times of the day. Had honestly never heard of pool cooling until this comment (though it does not surprise me that it exists and is obvious in retrospect).
My mom had a home in Yuma and a 12' deep pool and during the hottest part of the summer the top was like a hot tub and the bottom around 85 degrees, so we'd swim down there and risk blowing out our ear drums for a little bit of cool water :-)
Yea we'd do the same thing. One friend had a 12' pool with landscaping that ensured the deepest part of the pool was ~always shaded. It was the most popular pool to hang out at during the summer.
In Australia we call space-oriented heat pumps “reverse cycle air conditioners” and they have become very typical in recent years for cooling purposes with occasional heating benefits (we don’t have harsh winters where anybody much lives, though my home city Melbourne gets fairly grey and coldish, and has a lot of gas space heating.)
Heat pumps for water heating are also an interesting topic too (and way less common here so far!)
The main problem with heat pumps is the same problem we have with solar and electric cars. The electricity grid is 50 years at least away from being good enough to cope. New solar projects in the UK are being told, "we might be able to connect you in 2030 if your lucky". If our idiotic politicians carry on pushing this (in lockstep with out global overlords) the only result will be poverty and inflation. If they were serious about the environment surely the first thing is to ban private jets and megayachts. Instead we are all going to pay, possibly with out lives.
So is nat gas home heating. In fact, total residential AND commercial CO2 emissions (lighting, cooling, heating) are 13 pct of the US total. Residential gas furnaces are single digits of US emissions and tiny percentages of global emissions. Massive expenditure ($20k per household)- about $2-$3 trillion in insulation and heat pumps for tiny cuts in emissions is insanity. Though I know a few donors from certain industries and unions who would love it.
Eliminating nat gas, like forcing EVs is largely about control and signaling from scientific and cost/benefit illiterates (plus punishment of “evil” fossil fuel companies- activists love punishment!). Retail initiatives are more about politics than sense. There are many better ways to spend trillions.
If we want to cut CO2, invest in upgrading our grid and India’s grid. Then replace India’s coal plants with nukes. When we go after some of the big low-hanging fruit we should of course look at residential housing and transport. One could argue we can do both……except we are not doing the most important one.
The USA could try not to blow up gas pipelines causing the biggest envirnomental disaster of our lifetimes. That might help! Also not spending trillions on wars all over the world and using depleted uranium shells by the million would also help!
I was always taught to lead by example, something the psycotic billionaires could learn from. Starving the poor to death while using more carbon in one trip than most people use in 4 years is not a good look!
That’s all fair. But the billionaires don’t care about the climate, so they aren’t leading by example. The people in power, who do care about the climate, are leading by example by regulating the things they have control over and offering incentives to make things better.
I am not sure what country you live in but in the UK none of our leaders are doing anything meaningful. Lip service is all we get. All there measures impact the poor and they carry on using helicopters to travel 30 miles to a meeting!
If they are offering subsidies to convert to heat pumps, that is meaningful. If they are raising gas taxes and investing in electricity, that is meaningful.
There's just no alternative right now to fixing the grid issue. Even aside from concerns about Climate Change and carbon intensity of HVAC, there's the issue that traditional fossil fuels will only get more expensive and harder to access in the near future. So, we need to electrify more things in order to at least diversify energy sources away from fossil fuels. The IEA has already called Peak Oil to happen within the decade, as a conservative estimate. It may have already happened. Global oil exploration is stagnant and there are major questions about how much "slack" there is in the proven reserves in places like Saudi Arabia. The non-traditional production from oil shale/sands and natural gas fracking that did so much to make the US a global export leader in energy again are also disappointing financially, and production is likely to drop off sharply. This all while global energy demand is increasing, and a large share of that demand (especially in developing countries) is coming from fossil fuels. LNG is making natural gas more of a global market, and there is new demand for it from both Europe and Asia to meet the gap from Russian exports. So all that means a really tight market from here on out. Which means that the cheap natural gas (and diesel and gasoline) that Americans are used to is unlikely to be as cheap in the future.
As a former peak oiler, it disappeared as a credible movement after predicting oil/gas would peak between 2006-2010 which never happened. They/we were just wrong about oil. And for sure you can't be talking about coal. Oil exploration becomes stagnant when there isn't much demand - it's exactly when demand is outstripping supply that exploration efforts ramp up. So this isn't the point you seem to think you're making.
Fossil fuels are abundant and will continue to be so for a long time; arguments for heat pumps can't rely on this type of assertion.
The most concerning thing is how the billionaires are using the environment to gain more and more power. The data is also being exaggerated at best and made up at worst. It's the perfect cover for the introduction of total control over ever aspect of our lives. If we allow this to happen then we will all be on rations, and if we criticise them we are likely to have out money switched off. I just hope we can get through this transition without too many innocent people being killed.
OK, but there's nothing self-sufficient about fossil fuels. Every single thing you do in your house is dependent on the long arm of a vulnerable and highly volatile supply chain controlled by a few multinational corporations. Those same billionaires are very much in charge of these coal, oil, and natural gas supply chains, too, are they not? You can't pump and distill oil or methane yourself!
The nice thing about an electrified house with PVs, batteries, and efficient appliances is that you can very easily run an off-grid or "island operation" and be self-sufficient. You can even build such a system yourself with cheap PVs, daisy-chained lead batteries, and an invertor. If you want backups, you just incorporate efficient wood stoves or boilers.
I agree with most of this, I live off grid with 25 solar panels and fork lift truck batteries so you are preaching to the converted on this one! The way the environment is being used to gain totalitariam control over all of us is the problem. The billionaires want total control over everything we do, every penny we spend, and now using media censorship they are even controlling what we are allowed to think. Hopefully the millions of deaths they have already caused using the censorship of scientists and doctors rightfully pointing out "the vaccine" is lethal will start to wake people up!
Covid-19 vaccines have collectively saved tens of millions of lives and prevented or greatly reduced the severity of hundreds of millions of cases. Please get your anti-science head out of your ass.
I think you have no evidence of this because there is no evidence. If you would like to see the evidence of millions of deaths caused by the vaccine please read this article I wrote summarising the data. It is all data from the ONS, CDC, Vaers, V-Safe and Pfizer themselves. I would love you to prove me wrong but I only listen to data and peer reviewed scientific papers so hyperbole and blanket statements based upon no evidence are not convincing. https://wakeuppeople.substack.com/p/the-risks-and-efficacy-of-the-so
The IEA predicts peak oil demand (not supply) in 2035, which will reduce oil prices, but for electricity this isn’t really relevant since most fossil fuel generation is from natural gas.
I guess maybe it depends where you live, but our heat pump only draws like 1-1.5 kW. That’s comparable to how much power we saved by switching all our light bulbs to led (and note that old forced air furnaces probably used 0.5kW just for the fan). So I don’t think switching to heat pumps on its own would really overload the grid. It’s electric cars that have really massive power draw (7kW or so)
Every little helps and the heat pumps are great. I just don't want to rely on the corporations to provide cheap electricity forever. Our bills already doubled and more and more people are having to choose between heating and eating. They also cost 15 times the cost of a gas boiler to install so they are out of reach for most people. Call me cynical but I also think the electicity prices are likely to double again and again due to the corporate monopolies. And what if you criticise the government? I can see them cutting you off from your digital bank account, electicity suppy, and passport, as they are already doing in China.
What! The black, brown and LGBT unsafe state of Florida led by the fascist and vile Ron DeSantis and populated with racist conservatives... leads the way in environmentally friendly home climate control! Say it isn't so, Noah! Please!
More seriously, I had a heat pump on my house as a kid in the 1980's. Low maintenance, efficient, quiet, and unpolluting. What's not to like? Had I remembered 10 years ago when I redid my own HVAC, I would have put one on this house. But when you're a kid you don't notice things like that.
Heat pumps are marginal at best in many places. Your -15F (-20C?) citation is a perfect example. They can work, but anywhere with those temps exist also likely to see colder, and require a gas or electric furnace backup. That makes the ROI beyond the life of the heat pump any time I've tried to run the numbers. It does not help that heat pumps are just plain pricey.
Electric backup in particular blows the whole economic argument out of the water. Electric heating is so much more expensive than gas, particularly for backup in jurisdictions where fixed costs will dominate the bill, and one otherwise doesn't need utility power.
In Canada, outside southern Ontario and the Vancouver area, they are being installed by homeowners who are getting duped.
Such a one-sided article with no mention of the weaknesses of the technology. It makes me question if all articles here are written so one-sidedly here.
The plain fact is that if you live in an actually COLD climate, like Chicago or Minneapolis, where it goes below 32F outside for weeks at a time, notably NOT Seattle, then you will need to wear a coat indoors to feel comfortable during the depths of winter. When someone claims to be from a cold country and they love their heat pump, ask them what temp they keep their house at; they will probably say 62F and they have to wear full layers to make that work since a heat pump house feels colder at the same temp as a furnace-warmed house!!! If you are from a temperate climate and are proselytizing for heat pumps, please broaden your horizons, note what temp you keep your house at, how cold it gets during winter, how many layers you wear INSIDE the house during winter, and go some place cold during the winter to learn about the world.
Note that using electricity from the grid is not green by definition since it depends on where you live. If you live in areas in Canada, where hydroelectric feeds the electrical grid, then yes the electricity from your wall is green. BUT if you live in Texas or other states where coal is used to generate electricity, then your electricity is NOT "green"; your house and your EV is running off COAL and that will not change any time soon since there are not enough renewables to feed the energy needs of the US.
Because a heatpump uses 1 kWh of electricity (from which about 50% comes from RE), to pump 3 kWh of heat into the house. Even if all the rest would come from coal it would only be 0,5 kWh to produce 3 kWh of heat, while you would have to burn 3 kWh of coal to get 3 kWh of heat.
My parents have had a heat pump living outside of Toronto for years. It gets cold here all the time and there has never been an issue. They keep their house at a very normal temperature 68-71f and you don't need a sweater i side from my years of living there. Just my experience.
Toronto is in one of the warmest regions of Canada. Most of the country is much colder. Heat pumps can work in Toronto, but are marginal just 150km further north, where ground-source heat pumps aren't an option either.
Of course Toronto is warmer than much of Canada. However it is at least as cold as the vast majority of the US outside of a few states where the population is relatively small. Even within Canada probably half of the population is in a climate that would be similar. Go 150km north of Toronto and you are starting to cut the number of people into a much smaller number.
Sorry, no. 71% of Canadians live in a climate colder than Toronto. The other 29% live in the GTA itself, further south in Ontario, or live in southern BC.
Ok. But this doesn't defeat the main point. A vast majority of people in the US and globally are going to have no issue with a heat pump.and you would also need to show that Toronto was the limit and anything colder doesn't work which you haven't done either. Are they likely to work in Edmonton? No. But that's a really small portion of the worlds population that lives in those temperatures.
My comment was about Canada, not the US. The US is irrelevant to my comment to which you replied.
Toronto is pretty much the limit, marginal for most residents. In my experience with heat pumps, even the northern and northwestern areas of the GTA beyond Toronto's heat island are not close to economic, and require backup. None of the more northerly parts of Southern Ontario, including Ontario's only other 1M+ metro area, Ottawa, is not economical for heat pumps on a TCO basis.
At the risk of getting you off on a tangent on the US again, it's notable that heat pumps are economically viable in somewhat colder climates in the US than Canada, because installation and servicing is cheaper in the US.
It is part of the green transition. If and when renewables are charging your grid, it won’t help if everyone is still pumping fossil fuels directly to their homes and burning it.
We moved into a condo a year ago and lucked out in that all the units have individual heat pumps for climate control. We are not at the mercy of the building when we want to turn on the heat or AC and because the unit is also well insulated, our utility bills are 1/4 of our old house.
"It means that heat pumps aren’t being subjected to the same kind of pointless culture war that has hindered the implementation of ... induction stoves."
Not pointless for those of us who like good food and care about cooking, and don't want the federal government micromanaging how we cook our food. Note that the culture war about gas stoves only began when a commissioner of the Consumer Public Safety Commission stated in an interview that he wished to ban gas stoves altogether. Also note that this madness was based on a spate of very sketchy, speculative studies that have now largely been debunked. This was far from "pointless" outrage, and isn't something that conservatives fabricated out of the blue.
As for heat pumps, they sound great in terms of efficiency gain. The big concern, as with all purely electric appliances, is what happens when the power goes out. I used to live in a mountainous, rural-ish, very snowy region of California. Winter power outages were a frequent occurrence, often for days at a time. Much more frequent than gas outages.
On the positive side: I've heard a lot of groaning from degrowther types about how air conditioning is bad and evil and should be heavily restricted. Perhaps wider adoption of heat pumps could counteract the outdoor warming effect of summer AC by dumping out colder air in the winter?
In the mountainous, rural-ish, very snowy region of California, it's most common to have propane, since it's not very practical to run a natural gas infrastructure to remote housing. So, that's not even really the other alternative for such places.
Electricity isn't as reliable in such areas, no, but you can have backup propane or diesel generators. And, if it makes sense, you can have a redundancy of propane and electric induction stove, for little cost (there are single-burner options for both). Having redundant options for heating in mountainous areas is a must.
Within a city, a natural gas furnace uses electricity for its controls and the fans, so if the power dies the furnace dies. A gas oven usually has an electronic control board. You can still use the gas stove if you have a lighter for ignition.
The efficiency of an air-source heat pump is overstated if the power source for its electricity is a fossil fuel plant. The EIA estimates the efficiency of generation at 45% for natural gas and 32% for coal, so a majority of the energy is lost before getting to your house. I believe you still end up a bit more efficient than a furnace.
If they work, they are fine and super savers to boot. More than half of my friends experience issues of different sorts. Still a half baked tech, i guess. Needs further developement.
I have two heat pumps in my house for over 17 years, and had exactly two minor problems both fixed for under $100 (burnt out coil and stuck reversing valve). This isn’t really new technology and is fairly cheap and reliable.
I was told by some HVAC pros that in Minnesota, I cannot have a heat pump installed without a backup source of heat, due to the heat pumps not working in temps below -13.
No discussion of heat pumps would be complete without a discussion of the refrigerants used in heat pumps. These refrigerants can cause serious environmental problems if/when released into the atmosphere, as is often the case [in particular in poorly regulated places like China, India, Africa and South America]. The mass deployment of heat pumps/air conditioners in those places is an environmental disaster already in process.
I got a heat pump installed, with an air handler to push the air through our ducts, in place of our old gas furnace in Seattle. I love it! But FYI the whole install cost $16k in 2021, and friends doing it now say it's well over $20k. Maybe we are all getting ripped off, but that was the lowest bid from several fully booked companies. I think it mostly points to our need for more electricians and HVAC technicians to scale up the installation of these great machines in capacity-constrained cities.
I put a system in this year in Colorado for less than half that not including rebates. With state, federal, and utility incentives out of pocket costs were about $5k.
I found it to be much cheaper to get the equipment myself and get bids solely on the labor/installation.
Ductless heat pumps (aka mini-splits) are much, much cheaper. Your pre-existing duct system may have add to the cost. We just got a ductless heat pump installed for $5K, before the 30% federal tax credit, that covers most of our 3 BR 2,000 sq. ft. home. It's working great.
The mini split for my open floor plan house will be 30 SEER. I’m keeping central HVAC on the second floor because it has more rooms. If I finish the attic it will have the 30 SEER mini split which I would think would end up making the second floor HVAC much more efficient. One day I was just thinking of mini splits and I was like, “wait a second, does the mini split bring in fresh air??” Turns out is doesn’t and so the central HVAC on the 2nd floor will bring in the fresh air for the first floor.
Nope.
It is actually easier to install into a ducted system, assuming that you had a AC.
You have a small house for Colorado, as well as for Washington.
In Highlands Ranch, ours was 3100 ft^2.
We would have had to put in 2-3 mini splits, ran electricity, ran plumbing into the walls, and upgrade the electrical.
Mini splits can work when you have a small much older home, and only install 1 unit on the main floor, and have easy access to electrical, or are willing to run conduit all over the outside of your home.
That's incredible! Maybe I'll take bids after all for a separate ductless mini-split system for my upstairs. Did it require city inspection and permits? What outdoor unit model did you get?
I think ours is a somewhat high-end Mitsubishi system, because Seattle requires essentially the quietest models on the market. But the parts are only a small part of the cost anyhow.
I'm still happy we used the existing duct system and an air handler, because I like running it in fan mode to clean the air with the MERV-13 filter, and circulating through the basement is enough to cool the air on all but the hottest few days of summer here. Also, our walls are horsehair-and-plaster on the main floor, which makes it hard to run refrigerant lines and to hang heavy mini-splits without a bunch of plaster cracking and crumbling.
I'm outside Salem, Oregon. The vendor/installer took care of the permit but I don't think it required a county inspection. We had a follow-on inspection to qualify for an additional Oregon Energy Trust rebate ($500, which reduced the total price to $5,200). It's a Mitsubishi model heat pump, the most powerful model in the series at 24K. The wall-mounted "air handler" is also Mitsubishi. The bids we got ranged from $5,000 to $12,000 (the latter from an old-line electrical company). I think the companies are getting more competitive, and the HVAC focused companies seem to offer the best price.
Would you be willing to say which company you went with? I live pretty near Salem and passed on upgrading recently after getting quoted about 4x that for a similar install.
https://www.gaglesheating.com
That's impressive! I'll suggest it to another coworker who just bought a house and is about to try to retrofit with a heat pump, and see if it helps her save that much.
My cost included the very modest utility rebate. I don't think there were any federal or (WA) state incentives in 2021.
Careful.
If she bought an older ranch-style smaller home i..e. 1 floor, that does not have central HVAC, then it well make good sense to switch to that, esp. if done in the room that has an electric wall or baseboard heater.
But, if she got a newer home and it has central HVAC, she would likely be better off with remaining central.
I got mine installed for about $12K a year ago (there were some rebates paid directly to installer). Works great and cruises through the 100-degree days. Pairs well with solar system. Definitely worth it but still expensive.
It feels like the future but still will require significant subsidy (and bigger labor force) for people to convert.
Not bad! Happily haven't had to deal with 100-degree days here in Seattle. We have solar panels as well but we virtually never need cooling, so in the summer we just bank 100s of kWhrs a month with the utility, and then use them up in winter when our solar generation drops to <10% of summer production, and our electric usage skyrockets for heating.
If the quotes are upward of $20,000, and it seems to be the going rate by reputable firms with no wiggle room on the price, it's probably because of a shortage of supply or a shortage of skilled technicians.
The quoted estimate likely includes the construction work required to integrate the heat pump to your house (electrical, ductwork, breaking open and repairing the structure, etc.), and part of the high price is that a firm will warranty the work. If anything goes wrong after installation, the technicians will come out and diagnose and fix any problems. (Part of the hidden cost of warrantied work is that you're being front-loaded the cost of anticipated failures, similar to an insurance policy. If everything works, the installer pockets the premium. If something goes wrong, the installer must pay the cost of making it right.)
For a home improvement with such a high sticker cost, have a CPA do your taxes. They could probably find a tax advantage for you, or ease your cost burden by capitalizing the expense.
Jeff, do you know how much you paid for the equipment itself and how much for the labor and installation? Was that broken down?
The invoice did not break that down. The equipment seems to be about $4,500 today. There were also some costs for permits and inspections in that $16k (Seattle requires mechanical AND electrical inspectors to come out and inspect a new heat pump install, which is nuts).
Actually, it is not nuts. Lots that can AND WILL go wrong if cheap inexperienced labor is used.
2 years ago, we installed a Lennox XP20 HP with nat gas furnace in our Colorado Home. It cost $20K. Then Boeing had us move to Mukilteo Wash, where installed the same HP in july 1 year ago. $32K
Lifetime HVAC.
Disgusting price. Install took quite a time since it was obvious that they were not use to installing HP. But 50% more????
INSANE.
Sorry to hear it. That sounds brutal, but really similar to my friend who got quotes for installing a ducted central main floor HP system in Ballard.
Welcome to the Seattle region! I hope you enjoy it, and don't miss the Colorado sun too badly! If you're ever going crazy from lack of sunshine just head east on Route 2 over Stevens Pass and it'll be sunnier like 75% of the time :-D.
Kids are on hockey team (last year was silvertips). We have spent some time over in eastern wash. Looks like Colorado Front Range. Still, plenty of clouds there.
I grew up all over the states, and to be honest, I MISS precipitation. Colorado is sun, sun, sun, and more sun. Seriously, until this year, it had been 20 years since Colorado had any serious precipitation. But, am looking forward to clamming, trying my hand at saltwater fishing, learning more about wildlife here. As it is, over by dog park saw a 'tree' that had a flat base that was over 10' diameter with multiple trunks coming out of it. Never saw a 'tree' like that. Then someone told me that this place had been clear-cut MULTIPLE times, but in the original clear-cutting, they left behind stumps that were 10' and bigger. Now, other trees are growing through them. THEN IT HIT ME. WOW. This place really has some interesting stuff.
OTOH, wife grew up in UK until age 10 and then has lived in Colorado since. She is missing the sun and the dryness. Always cold. But, in a couple of more years, she will likely be used to it. As it is, I have changed out the 40 and 60 watt flourescent bulbs that previous had, and put in 150 W equivalent LED (only 12-15 watts) in many of these cans. Feels brighter.
Do have to laugh about ppl thinking that 5K' being high, but, then again, going from 0 to top of say rainer, a 14er is really amazing, vs Colorado's 5K' up to 14er. And the ppl here are interesting (the regular ppl, not the freaky druggies outside of home depots and lowes).
We live suburb outside Seattle. In Feb 2022 we got bids on heat pumps and gas furnaces to replace older inefficient gas furnace.
With installation and electrical work for Trane 3 ton variable HP quote was $11,550. Trane 3.5 ton single stage HP $10,050. Different vendor Mitsubishi 3.5 ton variable, feature it is quiet, total cost with installation $19,500. 95% / 60000 BTU 2 stage gas furnace with install $5,050.
Newer house with decent duct work. This stuff varies a lot in cost.
Three vendors quoted all insisted need backup gas furnace.
With passage of inflation reduction act August 2022 offers up to $8000 low income credit paid to vendor. Have email from WA Dept of Commerce that states rebates not available until 2024.
Blames US Dept of Commerce. Not a super quick start but hopefully have controls to prevent fraud. I believe it would be very helpful is WA Dept of Commerce could not just process a credit but advocate for heat pumps in a consumer useful manner. 1. Have recommended list of heat pumps and reasons why. 2. State you do not need a backup furnace in WA state. 3. Collect vendor information and quotes - publish prices to purchase and install by vendor, help consumers with actual information to help drive competition and lower prices.
Bel-Red is one of the largest installers of HP / furnaces in our area and now owned by private equity. This tells you where industry heading and would be great if state could provide information to help the consumer get a fair deal.
wow.
We got screwed. Badly.
Are you still in king county? And how did Bel-Red do?
Great tips and details, thanks!
I also encountered a few installers who insisted on "backup gas furnace". But we insisted otherwise, both due to our own research that it was not necessary, and because we were determined to demolish the furnace chimney that makes our staircase really janky. Now our only gas use is for cooking, and a tankless water heater outside the house.
Maybe I'll look into those rebates in 2024 when we consider a minisplit heat pump system for our poorly insulated bedrooms in the former attic of the house. :-D
Im curious. In Colorado, we put tanked Water Heaters in the basement. That is ideal for putting in a HP WH.
However, our new homes has WG (as well as furnace) in the garage. To me that is just weird. The previous owner did very little maintance/upgrades, so, am replacing all sorts of things, but WH is only 5 years old so not a priority.
However, it seems like a Tankless is the right way to go for Garage install.
Why did you folks go tankless?
I think a heat pump WH sounds grand. We went tankless largely at suggestion of our plumber because it could be done quickly and cheaply, and seemed good for running baths for the kids. I didn't even know about HP WHs at the time.
We removed the gas tanked heater as part of demolishing the nuisance furnace flue chimney, since it was shared by the gas tank heater.
My first floor has an open floor plan and I’m replacing my central HVAC with mini splits. In the two bigger rooms the one I’m getting has a 30 SEER!!! So 2 tons of HVAC with 30 SEER rating.
The problem is old homes that don’t have a central a/c. They’d require very expensive and extensive retrofits to accommodate a central air heat pump.
But that’s where mini-splits can come in. With those units you can add heat pumps (and cooling, incidentally) to any room in the house without an ugly window unit. They’re super efficient (even more so than central source heat pumps) and less costly / complex to install.
The nice thing about mini-splits is that you can find them that feed 2-4 vents inside, allowing you to only turn on the AC or heating in certain rooms or zones of your home where you actually are. You might, for example, want to make your kitchen and living room warm, but be comfortable and happy to sleep in a cold bedroom under thick blankets.
A central unit has to blast hot or cold air through the entire house at once, and the best you can do is close vents, but you still have a lot of uselessly heated/cooled air in all those dead-end vents.
You can use zoning with central A/C but in general that’s at best going to be a floor by floor solution.
I kinda think they look cool 🪭
You can hide an air handler in the attic or under the floor and run short ducts, that hides the unit and lets you target multiple rooms with a single unit. https://hvacdirect.com/mitsubishi-svz-kp24na-24-000-btu-ductless-mini-split-air-handler.html
A new development that I'm quite excited about is combining a heat pump with controls that let you treat your hot water tank as a thermal battery: https://www.harvest-thermal.com/
When energy is cheap (like, when your PV system is pumping out more than you need), you run the heat-pump to soak up some of that extra, and pack heat into a very well-insulated water tank. Then at night when you don't have energy, you get your hot water by down-mixing the super-hot water with cold; and you get air heat by running the air through a heat-exchanger fed with the super-hot water.
Now we need to combine this with pump storage hydroelectric and geothermal somehow just to go the whole nine yards.
This is a very common application for people who have wood-fired heating. They buy a second accumulator tank that is insulated and can keep the water hot, acting as a thermal battery, allowing you to only have to build one fire a day in the wood boiler (which also reduces the major internal air pollution issue caused by wood heating).
It's also common for people who have solar water heating. You heat up all the water in the middle of the day when the sun is shining, and gather it into an insulated accumulator tank and don't have to use any other form of water heating, even if you miss out on a day or two of sufficient midday sun.
As for heat-pumps, you don't even need to use a water tank as a thermal battery. You use your home itself as a thermal battery! In the winter, when the need for heating is higher and electricity is more expensive (especially during the day) and any home PVs you have don't offer much electricity from the sun, you just blast the heat-pump overnight when the electricity is cheap and then turn it off all day after the first morning peak in prices until the late evening, when the prices go down again. Even when the home isn't perfectly insulated, the heat-loss over the course of 8-12 hours is minimal.
Using the air of the home as the thermal battery is going to sacrifice some amount of precision in holding the temperature within a range of 2-3F, compared to storing the heat in water (which can hold a lot more heat per cm^3) and then distributing it to the house over time. I think more people are going to be interested in implementing something like this if it means they don't have to accept letting the temperature vary by an additional 5+ degrees F, compared to traditional HVAC. Precision down-mixing from the hot tank to what flows to the hot water tap is also a big deal in terms of public acceptance. Most people want to be certain that when they turn on the tap, what comes out will not be so hot it could actually burn them.
The concern around heat-pumps working in cold regions always confused me because the place where heat pumps are and have been dominant for decades is... Scandinavia. And it famously gets cold here! I'm American, but live in Sweden, and my eyes have been opened to the potential of what is now a very mature and dominant technology here.
My Swedish MIL has had a ground-source or geothermal heat-pump for almost as long as I've been alive. It produces cheap, reliable heat for both her century-old radiators and hot water tank. For these geothermal units, you basically dig a borehole at least 100m down under or near the house, run a refrigerant coil loop down into it with a simple electric pump and compressor in your basement (like your fridge), and and utilize the fact that the ground is warmer than the winter air. Her house is a century-old, wood house and not very well-insulated, but her heating bill is almost nothing even in the depths of winter in a place where the lows often hit -30C (-22F).
We just installed a heat-pump ourselves that works a little differently. It's an air-source heat-pump. Because we live very near the water, it's harder to dig a borehole to the bedrock, so, instead, we have this very large air intake box outside the house that works like a "reverse AC," sucking in ambient air and using it to heat refrigerant and pressure differentials. This works even when it's very cold outside. Down to about -15C (5F), it's working very efficiently. Below that, the machine needs to kick in with direct electric heating, which is more expensive. Again, it would be better to have a ground-source pump like my MIL, to accommodate even lower temperatures, but this is fine most of the time, as the winter lows below that aren't so frequent and you can heat up the house in the middle of the day when the sun is up and it's less cold, with the house acting as a thermal battery through the lows overnight. Either way, this system was so much more efficient and cheaper than our legacy fuel oil boiler than it paid for itself within only 3 years!
Air-source heat-pumps can use the heat to heat up the legacy radiator system in your house (plus the hot-water tank), like ours, if your need for air-conditioning is minimal. Or, for American houses where it can get cold in the winter and also hot in the summer, you can get an air-source heat-pump that blows the heat inside via vents and also can kick into reverse to blow cold air through the same vents, essentially acting like a dual air-heat and AC system, in one. These are the kind you're seeing proliferate across the American South. They're a really good option across the (generally warmer) United States. If you lived in and older house in Maine with radiators, however, I would recommend a system that just specializes in heating hot water and radiator heating, only. They're more efficient at the single-job, minus the AC capability.
My neighbor has a third type of heat-pump: instead of a borehole or an air-source fan, it has coils buried underneath their entire backyard. Like geothermal heating, this takes advantage of the fact that the ground is much warmer than the air below the frost-line, about 40cm down. It's somewhere between my MIL's geothermal borehole heat-pump and our air-source heat pump in efficiency in the coldest weather. We didn't go for this option ourselves because it requires digging up the whole yard, adding some up-front costs and inconvenience. But this is an excellent format for cold places, even those like ours near water.
There's a fourth type of heat-pump for waterside houses: the water-source heat-pump. You run the coil under the water near your house, which takes advantage of how lakewater is warmer deeper down, below where it ices over in the coldest winter. Another excellent option for cold places near water.
Though heat-pumps are almost always a superior option both practically and financially, the realistic limit on all this stuff is what your local contractor base has experience with. They may not be familiar with heat-pumps at all, or else only know how to install the air-source kind (bore-holing is a whole other capability). Heat pumps are more expensive and complicated to install, initially, so you need somebody good and a network of experienced HVAC contractors who can fix it later. My American mom didn't go for one in Maryland after both her heating and cooling system gave out last year for this reason: there just weren't any contractors who were offering this service in her area. That's a real shame because she spent way more replacing a natural gas boiler and AC system recently that will now run in her house for the next 15-20 years and the total cost of ownership will be higher.
this is true that heat pumps don't work well in extremely cold temperatures. This situation can really tax the power grid. that's where gas furnaces are needed. this is a problem in the northeast, as seen this past winter. of course, a quarter of the US population lives in this area.
Geothermal makes sense for retail heat pumps - expensive in US though- no scale yet.
Your piece is funny and generally accurate. There is a LOT of nonsense in these comments. I won’t bother responding — it’s pretty clear who’s a whackadoodle. I’ll push back against one claim you make uneccessarily in the article: ANYTHING electric is a potential source for a fire. I live in Florida, in a very old house, and we use a hybrid system that produces very good AC during our long summers, and that also works admirably well (not great, but good enough) to provide warm air for cold nights in December. I’m not a great elctrician, but a pretty good one, and give me an hour to bridge some switches and break some parts, and I guarantee you that my house (wood) would burn to the ground. Heat pumps are safe and reliable, but not foolproof. tl;dr: What you said, minus the whole “heat pumps can’t cause fires.” Never make claims that are unnecessary and critics will seize upon. “Relative to furnaces that burn oil, heat pumps are far safer when it comes to fires.” Something like that….
I think maybe the more important distinction is that heat pumps have no risk of producing carbon monoxide, so you can put them places (like the attic or under the floorboards) where you would never put a gas or oil heater.
No chance of producing carbon monoxide prior to the electrical fire starting. :P
I looked into having a heat pump installed for pool cooling - I live in California - and I was told they don't function as well in a dry climate so that wouldn't be a good solution. Instead, we installed a solar system that pulls the water through pipes on the roof at night to dissipate the heat.
I never knew there was such a thing as 'pool cooling'. You learn something new every day.
If you have a pool in a place like Arizona or Palm Springs, unless you want it like a hot tub come July, your pool filtration system should have a chilling element built in. This can be a refrigerated system which cools the water, night time solar like we have or a heat pump. But in places where the daytime temp exceeds 100 and it doesn't get below 80 degrees at night for months - a system to cool pool water is an absolute must.
I believe it. I would not like to be where it doesn't go below 80 for months.
Where I am, the best solution for high temps is a lake under 55 (12C), so I suspect that's why I haven't seen pool cooling before.
I grew up outside Palm Springs, and unless my dad upgraded without telling me (doubtful), we definitely did not have pool cooling, nor did any of my friends. During the Enron-induced power outages of my childhood, we'd jump in the pool and go to the bottom (where it stayed cool), or inch along the edges of the pool that got some shade.
The best pools were the ones that were deep and had been built to ensure some shade at all times of the day. Had honestly never heard of pool cooling until this comment (though it does not surprise me that it exists and is obvious in retrospect).
My mom had a home in Yuma and a 12' deep pool and during the hottest part of the summer the top was like a hot tub and the bottom around 85 degrees, so we'd swim down there and risk blowing out our ear drums for a little bit of cool water :-)
Yea we'd do the same thing. One friend had a 12' pool with landscaping that ensured the deepest part of the pool was ~always shaded. It was the most popular pool to hang out at during the summer.
In Australia we call space-oriented heat pumps “reverse cycle air conditioners” and they have become very typical in recent years for cooling purposes with occasional heating benefits (we don’t have harsh winters where anybody much lives, though my home city Melbourne gets fairly grey and coldish, and has a lot of gas space heating.)
Heat pumps for water heating are also an interesting topic too (and way less common here so far!)
The main problem with heat pumps is the same problem we have with solar and electric cars. The electricity grid is 50 years at least away from being good enough to cope. New solar projects in the UK are being told, "we might be able to connect you in 2030 if your lucky". If our idiotic politicians carry on pushing this (in lockstep with out global overlords) the only result will be poverty and inflation. If they were serious about the environment surely the first thing is to ban private jets and megayachts. Instead we are all going to pay, possibly with out lives.
Private jets and mega yachts are rounding errors.
So is nat gas home heating. In fact, total residential AND commercial CO2 emissions (lighting, cooling, heating) are 13 pct of the US total. Residential gas furnaces are single digits of US emissions and tiny percentages of global emissions. Massive expenditure ($20k per household)- about $2-$3 trillion in insulation and heat pumps for tiny cuts in emissions is insanity. Though I know a few donors from certain industries and unions who would love it.
Eliminating nat gas, like forcing EVs is largely about control and signaling from scientific and cost/benefit illiterates (plus punishment of “evil” fossil fuel companies- activists love punishment!). Retail initiatives are more about politics than sense. There are many better ways to spend trillions.
If we want to cut CO2, invest in upgrading our grid and India’s grid. Then replace India’s coal plants with nukes. When we go after some of the big low-hanging fruit we should of course look at residential housing and transport. One could argue we can do both……except we are not doing the most important one.
13% is huge! Even single digit percentage is significant.
Private jets and yachts are *much* less than that.
The USA could try not to blow up gas pipelines causing the biggest envirnomental disaster of our lifetimes. That might help! Also not spending trillions on wars all over the world and using depleted uranium shells by the million would also help!
I was always taught to lead by example, something the psycotic billionaires could learn from. Starving the poor to death while using more carbon in one trip than most people use in 4 years is not a good look!
That’s all fair. But the billionaires don’t care about the climate, so they aren’t leading by example. The people in power, who do care about the climate, are leading by example by regulating the things they have control over and offering incentives to make things better.
I am not sure what country you live in but in the UK none of our leaders are doing anything meaningful. Lip service is all we get. All there measures impact the poor and they carry on using helicopters to travel 30 miles to a meeting!
If they are offering subsidies to convert to heat pumps, that is meaningful. If they are raising gas taxes and investing in electricity, that is meaningful.
This is what I love about Substack, respectful discussion of the issues is a refreshing change from just shouting at each other!
Why'd you have to shout that?!
There's just no alternative right now to fixing the grid issue. Even aside from concerns about Climate Change and carbon intensity of HVAC, there's the issue that traditional fossil fuels will only get more expensive and harder to access in the near future. So, we need to electrify more things in order to at least diversify energy sources away from fossil fuels. The IEA has already called Peak Oil to happen within the decade, as a conservative estimate. It may have already happened. Global oil exploration is stagnant and there are major questions about how much "slack" there is in the proven reserves in places like Saudi Arabia. The non-traditional production from oil shale/sands and natural gas fracking that did so much to make the US a global export leader in energy again are also disappointing financially, and production is likely to drop off sharply. This all while global energy demand is increasing, and a large share of that demand (especially in developing countries) is coming from fossil fuels. LNG is making natural gas more of a global market, and there is new demand for it from both Europe and Asia to meet the gap from Russian exports. So all that means a really tight market from here on out. Which means that the cheap natural gas (and diesel and gasoline) that Americans are used to is unlikely to be as cheap in the future.
As a former peak oiler, it disappeared as a credible movement after predicting oil/gas would peak between 2006-2010 which never happened. They/we were just wrong about oil. And for sure you can't be talking about coal. Oil exploration becomes stagnant when there isn't much demand - it's exactly when demand is outstripping supply that exploration efforts ramp up. So this isn't the point you seem to think you're making.
Fossil fuels are abundant and will continue to be so for a long time; arguments for heat pumps can't rely on this type of assertion.
The most concerning thing is how the billionaires are using the environment to gain more and more power. The data is also being exaggerated at best and made up at worst. It's the perfect cover for the introduction of total control over ever aspect of our lives. If we allow this to happen then we will all be on rations, and if we criticise them we are likely to have out money switched off. I just hope we can get through this transition without too many innocent people being killed.
OK, but there's nothing self-sufficient about fossil fuels. Every single thing you do in your house is dependent on the long arm of a vulnerable and highly volatile supply chain controlled by a few multinational corporations. Those same billionaires are very much in charge of these coal, oil, and natural gas supply chains, too, are they not? You can't pump and distill oil or methane yourself!
The nice thing about an electrified house with PVs, batteries, and efficient appliances is that you can very easily run an off-grid or "island operation" and be self-sufficient. You can even build such a system yourself with cheap PVs, daisy-chained lead batteries, and an invertor. If you want backups, you just incorporate efficient wood stoves or boilers.
I agree with most of this, I live off grid with 25 solar panels and fork lift truck batteries so you are preaching to the converted on this one! The way the environment is being used to gain totalitariam control over all of us is the problem. The billionaires want total control over everything we do, every penny we spend, and now using media censorship they are even controlling what we are allowed to think. Hopefully the millions of deaths they have already caused using the censorship of scientists and doctors rightfully pointing out "the vaccine" is lethal will start to wake people up!
Covid-19 vaccines have collectively saved tens of millions of lives and prevented or greatly reduced the severity of hundreds of millions of cases. Please get your anti-science head out of your ass.
I think you have no evidence of this because there is no evidence. If you would like to see the evidence of millions of deaths caused by the vaccine please read this article I wrote summarising the data. It is all data from the ONS, CDC, Vaers, V-Safe and Pfizer themselves. I would love you to prove me wrong but I only listen to data and peer reviewed scientific papers so hyperbole and blanket statements based upon no evidence are not convincing. https://wakeuppeople.substack.com/p/the-risks-and-efficacy-of-the-so
Definitely some waking up required here.
The IEA predicts peak oil demand (not supply) in 2035, which will reduce oil prices, but for electricity this isn’t really relevant since most fossil fuel generation is from natural gas.
I guess maybe it depends where you live, but our heat pump only draws like 1-1.5 kW. That’s comparable to how much power we saved by switching all our light bulbs to led (and note that old forced air furnaces probably used 0.5kW just for the fan). So I don’t think switching to heat pumps on its own would really overload the grid. It’s electric cars that have really massive power draw (7kW or so)
Every little helps and the heat pumps are great. I just don't want to rely on the corporations to provide cheap electricity forever. Our bills already doubled and more and more people are having to choose between heating and eating. They also cost 15 times the cost of a gas boiler to install so they are out of reach for most people. Call me cynical but I also think the electicity prices are likely to double again and again due to the corporate monopolies. And what if you criticise the government? I can see them cutting you off from your digital bank account, electicity suppy, and passport, as they are already doing in China.
What! The black, brown and LGBT unsafe state of Florida led by the fascist and vile Ron DeSantis and populated with racist conservatives... leads the way in environmentally friendly home climate control! Say it isn't so, Noah! Please!
More seriously, I had a heat pump on my house as a kid in the 1980's. Low maintenance, efficient, quiet, and unpolluting. What's not to like? Had I remembered 10 years ago when I redid my own HVAC, I would have put one on this house. But when you're a kid you don't notice things like that.
Heat pumps are marginal at best in many places. Your -15F (-20C?) citation is a perfect example. They can work, but anywhere with those temps exist also likely to see colder, and require a gas or electric furnace backup. That makes the ROI beyond the life of the heat pump any time I've tried to run the numbers. It does not help that heat pumps are just plain pricey.
Electric backup in particular blows the whole economic argument out of the water. Electric heating is so much more expensive than gas, particularly for backup in jurisdictions where fixed costs will dominate the bill, and one otherwise doesn't need utility power.
In Canada, outside southern Ontario and the Vancouver area, they are being installed by homeowners who are getting duped.
Such a one-sided article with no mention of the weaknesses of the technology. It makes me question if all articles here are written so one-sidedly here.
The plain fact is that if you live in an actually COLD climate, like Chicago or Minneapolis, where it goes below 32F outside for weeks at a time, notably NOT Seattle, then you will need to wear a coat indoors to feel comfortable during the depths of winter. When someone claims to be from a cold country and they love their heat pump, ask them what temp they keep their house at; they will probably say 62F and they have to wear full layers to make that work since a heat pump house feels colder at the same temp as a furnace-warmed house!!! If you are from a temperate climate and are proselytizing for heat pumps, please broaden your horizons, note what temp you keep your house at, how cold it gets during winter, how many layers you wear INSIDE the house during winter, and go some place cold during the winter to learn about the world.
Note that using electricity from the grid is not green by definition since it depends on where you live. If you live in areas in Canada, where hydroelectric feeds the electrical grid, then yes the electricity from your wall is green. BUT if you live in Texas or other states where coal is used to generate electricity, then your electricity is NOT "green"; your house and your EV is running off COAL and that will not change any time soon since there are not enough renewables to feed the energy needs of the US.
Which states use so much coal that a heat pump running off the grid is worse than a gas furnace for emissions?
I asked the same question on twitter
Jörg Handwerg
@JHandwerg
Because a heatpump uses 1 kWh of electricity (from which about 50% comes from RE), to pump 3 kWh of heat into the house. Even if all the rest would come from coal it would only be 0,5 kWh to produce 3 kWh of heat, while you would have to burn 3 kWh of coal to get 3 kWh of heat.
My parents have had a heat pump living outside of Toronto for years. It gets cold here all the time and there has never been an issue. They keep their house at a very normal temperature 68-71f and you don't need a sweater i side from my years of living there. Just my experience.
Toronto is in one of the warmest regions of Canada. Most of the country is much colder. Heat pumps can work in Toronto, but are marginal just 150km further north, where ground-source heat pumps aren't an option either.
Of course Toronto is warmer than much of Canada. However it is at least as cold as the vast majority of the US outside of a few states where the population is relatively small. Even within Canada probably half of the population is in a climate that would be similar. Go 150km north of Toronto and you are starting to cut the number of people into a much smaller number.
Sorry, no. 71% of Canadians live in a climate colder than Toronto. The other 29% live in the GTA itself, further south in Ontario, or live in southern BC.
Ok. But this doesn't defeat the main point. A vast majority of people in the US and globally are going to have no issue with a heat pump.and you would also need to show that Toronto was the limit and anything colder doesn't work which you haven't done either. Are they likely to work in Edmonton? No. But that's a really small portion of the worlds population that lives in those temperatures.
My comment was about Canada, not the US. The US is irrelevant to my comment to which you replied.
Toronto is pretty much the limit, marginal for most residents. In my experience with heat pumps, even the northern and northwestern areas of the GTA beyond Toronto's heat island are not close to economic, and require backup. None of the more northerly parts of Southern Ontario, including Ontario's only other 1M+ metro area, Ottawa, is not economical for heat pumps on a TCO basis.
At the risk of getting you off on a tangent on the US again, it's notable that heat pumps are economically viable in somewhat colder climates in the US than Canada, because installation and servicing is cheaper in the US.
It is part of the green transition. If and when renewables are charging your grid, it won’t help if everyone is still pumping fossil fuels directly to their homes and burning it.
We moved into a condo a year ago and lucked out in that all the units have individual heat pumps for climate control. We are not at the mercy of the building when we want to turn on the heat or AC and because the unit is also well insulated, our utility bills are 1/4 of our old house.
"It means that heat pumps aren’t being subjected to the same kind of pointless culture war that has hindered the implementation of ... induction stoves."
Not pointless for those of us who like good food and care about cooking, and don't want the federal government micromanaging how we cook our food. Note that the culture war about gas stoves only began when a commissioner of the Consumer Public Safety Commission stated in an interview that he wished to ban gas stoves altogether. Also note that this madness was based on a spate of very sketchy, speculative studies that have now largely been debunked. This was far from "pointless" outrage, and isn't something that conservatives fabricated out of the blue.
As for heat pumps, they sound great in terms of efficiency gain. The big concern, as with all purely electric appliances, is what happens when the power goes out. I used to live in a mountainous, rural-ish, very snowy region of California. Winter power outages were a frequent occurrence, often for days at a time. Much more frequent than gas outages.
On the positive side: I've heard a lot of groaning from degrowther types about how air conditioning is bad and evil and should be heavily restricted. Perhaps wider adoption of heat pumps could counteract the outdoor warming effect of summer AC by dumping out colder air in the winter?
In the mountainous, rural-ish, very snowy region of California, it's most common to have propane, since it's not very practical to run a natural gas infrastructure to remote housing. So, that's not even really the other alternative for such places.
Electricity isn't as reliable in such areas, no, but you can have backup propane or diesel generators. And, if it makes sense, you can have a redundancy of propane and electric induction stove, for little cost (there are single-burner options for both). Having redundant options for heating in mountainous areas is a must.
Within a city, a natural gas furnace uses electricity for its controls and the fans, so if the power dies the furnace dies. A gas oven usually has an electronic control board. You can still use the gas stove if you have a lighter for ignition.
The efficiency of an air-source heat pump is overstated if the power source for its electricity is a fossil fuel plant. The EIA estimates the efficiency of generation at 45% for natural gas and 32% for coal, so a majority of the energy is lost before getting to your house. I believe you still end up a bit more efficient than a furnace.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44436
You’ve mentioned how common heat pumps are in Scandinavia. Are these mostly ground-source, air-source, or a mixture?
If they work, they are fine and super savers to boot. More than half of my friends experience issues of different sorts. Still a half baked tech, i guess. Needs further developement.
I have two heat pumps in my house for over 17 years, and had exactly two minor problems both fixed for under $100 (burnt out coil and stuck reversing valve). This isn’t really new technology and is fairly cheap and reliable.
I was told by some HVAC pros that in Minnesota, I cannot have a heat pump installed without a backup source of heat, due to the heat pumps not working in temps below -13.
No discussion of heat pumps would be complete without a discussion of the refrigerants used in heat pumps. These refrigerants can cause serious environmental problems if/when released into the atmosphere, as is often the case [in particular in poorly regulated places like China, India, Africa and South America]. The mass deployment of heat pumps/air conditioners in those places is an environmental disaster already in process.