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As with heat pump sizing, the ultimate energy efficiency of your entire home will depend on a number of factors in addition to the heat pump itself, such as weatherization and air filtration, the climate in which you live, and how often you plan on using your system.
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One of the best ways to find a contractor is to find someone else who worked with a contractor they liked. If you see a friend or a neighbor with heat pumps at their home, ask them about their experience. Check your local community social media forums on Facebook or Neighbors, as well. People may even recommend that you try a different contractor, or they may offer some advice on unexpected issues that surprised them, and all of that is helpful, too.
Many statewide incentive programs do not merely encourage but require updated weatherization before you qualify for a heat pump rebate or a loan. Some of these states also provide free weatherization consultation services. If you live in a drafty home, this is something to look into even before you start reaching out to contractors about installing a heat pump.
There are a few situations where installing a new heat pump and keeping your gas- or oil-fueled burner as a backup might actually be cheaper and less carbon intensive than strictly relying on the heat pump. This kind of installation is called a dual-heat or hybrid-heat system, and it works best in places that regularly deal with temperatures below freezing. Since heat pumps can be less efficient in extremely cold weather, the idea is to offset the difference by using fossil fuels to help get the room up to a temperature where the heat pump can perform best, typically somewhere between 20 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Think of it as being similar to how a hybrid car works.
The technology can heat and cool homes, and supply hot water. A high-efficiency electric heat pump that replaces a fossil fuel furnace or boiler resembles an air conditioner unit and is installed outside the house.
To heat the home, a liquid refrigerant in a copper coil extracts heat from the atmosphere as warm air naturally moves toward the cold. The heat transforms the refrigerant into a cold gas; a compressor then pressurizes the gas, raising its temperature and heating the air inside the house. In the summer, the appliance cools a home by absorbing heat from inside and transferring it outside.
Heat pumps are as much as four times as efficient as natural gas furnaces because they merely move heat from one place to another rather than burn fuel. A heat pump water heater works on the same principle and is as much as four times as efficient as conventional gas or electric water heaters.
Another alternative to reduce the electrical load is to install a lower-voltage heat pump water heater. Right now, just a couple of 120-volt models are available, including Ruud and Rheem, which is sold only in California. But other major manufacturers are expected to bring 120-volt versions to market in the next year or so.
Sometimes called air source heat pumps, these use ambient air temperature and feature two sets of coils, one indoors and the other outdoors. They often come with a backup electrical heating element in case the exterior temperature drops too low for the pump to properly function.
Getting the right sized HVAC system for your home is important. An undersized unit will struggle to heat/cool the home. An oversized one will hit the desired temperature before it completes its cycle, resulting in frequent stops/starts that will shorten its lifespan.
This assumes a typical three-bedroom, single-family home with two stories and a pre-existing duct system. Features that can drive up heat pump pricing include size, efficiency, variable-speed blowers and cold climate capabilities.
The IRA rolled out a range of incentives tied to heat pumps, specifically in the High Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Act (HEEHRA). A household may qualify for a tax credit or rebate on heat pumps and heat pump water heaters purchased after Jan. 1, 2023.
In contrast, an air-source heat pump can provide up to three times more heat than the electricity it consumes. That efficiency, combined with ongoing grid-wide improvements to greener energy sources, mean that over the life of your heat pump, your carbon footprint will be much lower than that of a traditional furnace.
Combined with the money-saving incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act of up to $8,000 for low-income households and $2,000 for higher incomes, which start in 2023, getting a heat pump is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly.
Most homeowners who have heat pumps use them to heat and cool their homes. But a heat pump also can be used to heat water -- either as stand-alone water heating system, or as combination water heating and space conditioning system.
Heat pump water heaters use electricity to move heat from one place to another instead of generating heat directly. Therefore, they can be two to three times more energy efficient than conventional electric resistance water heaters. To move the heat, heat pumps work like a refrigerator in reverse.
While a refrigerator pulls heat from inside a box and sends it into the surrounding room, a stand-alone air-source heat pump water heater pulls heat from the surrounding air and transfers it -- at a higher temperature -- to heat water in a storage tank. You can purchase a stand-alone heat pump water heating system as an integrated unit with a built-in water storage tank and back-up resistance heating elements. You can also retrofit a heat pump to work with an existing conventional storage water heater.
Heat pump water heaters will not operate efficiently in a cold space since they tend to cool the space they are in. Installing them in a space with excess heat, such as a furnace room, will increase their efficiency.
You can also install an air-source heat pump system that combines heating, cooling, and water heating. These combination systems pull their heat indoors from the outside air in the winter and from the inside air in the summer. Because they remove heat from the air, any type of air-source heat pump system works more efficiently in a warm climate.
Homeowners primarily install geothermal heat pumps -- which draw heat from the ground during the winter and from the indoor air during the summer -- for heating and cooling their homes. For water heating, you can add a desuperheater to a geothermal heat pump system. A desuperheater is a small, auxiliary heat exchanger that uses superheated gases from the heat pump's compressor to heat water. This hot water then circulates through a pipe to the storage water heater tank in the house.
Desuperheaters are also available for tankless or demand-type water heaters. In the summer, the desuperheater uses the excess heat that would otherwise be expelled to the ground. With frequent operation during the summer, the geothermal heat pump may provide the majority of your hot water needs.
During the fall, winter, and spring -- when the desuperheater isn't producing as much excess heat -- you'll need to rely more on your storage or demand water heater. Some manufacturers also offer triple-function geothermal heat pump systems, which provide heating, cooling, and hot water. They use a separate heat exchanger to meet all of a household's hot water needs.
Proper installation depends on many factors. These factors include fuel type, climate, local building code requirements, and safety issues. Therefore, it's best to have a qualified plumbing and heating contractor (or geothermal heat pump system installer/designer) install your heat pump.
After your water heater is properly installed and maintained, try some additional energy-saving strategies to help lower your water heating bills. Some energy-saving devices and systems are more cost-effective to install with the water heater.
Heat pumps can save homeowners money on energy costs, since they use a sustainable process of extracting usable heat from ambient air or other outside sources for both heating and cooling. When compared with conventional HVAC systems, the long-term savings are considerable. In fact, according to the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnership, savings average around $600 compared with electric resistance heating systems.
If you live in an area with especially cold winters where temperatures consistently fall considerably below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit), you may look for alternatives to heat pumps, such as gas furnace units or electric resistance heaters. However, geothermal heat pumps may still be a good solution, since the temperatures in the ground remain at useful levels during extreme cold.
Not only are geothermal heat pumps the most eco-friendly options on the market, they also offer the most economical and efficient option when it comes to energy bills. However, the up-front cost of these can be extremely high due to the complicated and time-consuming installation. Air-source heat pumps are the most common and can still save you hundreds of dollars each year in efficiency and reduced energy usage compared with traditional HVAC systems.
In the long run, though, many of those expenses can save people money. EVs are cheaper to own and operate after several years despite higher upfront costs. Induction stoves and heat pumps may cost more than natural gas equivalents, but they allow people to eliminate the monthly expense of a gas hookup.
Heat pumps can also keep homes cool in the summer by transferring heat to the exterior. So although heat pump installation is expensive, a heat pump can effectively replace two types of HVAC systems (air conditioning and furnaces).
Heat pumps come in different sizes and capacities (measured in tons and BTUs). In general, larger homes require larger and more powerful heat pumps to heat efficiently and adequately. These, of course, are more expensive.
For example, a 1,000-square-foot space may only require a 2-ton heat pump ($2,500 to $5,000) while a 2,500-square-foot home needs a much larger, 5-ton system ($6,000 to $10,000). 041b061a72