Some of you might be asking what is a heat pump?  It doesn’t sound like an air conditioner, but people are saying you can use one instead.  Does a “heat pump” heat or cool a place?

 

A heat pump can heat and cool a home.

 

If you’re looking for a buying guide, here’s a guide from consumer reports.  In this article, we will be talking about why is there a growing fan base of people installing heat pumps.  Sometimes it’s to save money.  It depends.

Here’s the quick lowdown:

• Heat pumps can heat and cool a place with one device using electricity alone
• Heat pumps can save money because they are very efficient (if used correctly)
• There are different types of heat pumps, making them more versatile
• Most people regard them as greener

What does a Heat Pump do?

For details, check out the diagram below, but here’s the simple version.

 

A heat pump pumps heat from one place to another.  Depending on the direction, it heats or cools a home.

 

A heat pump pumps heat from one place to another.  People have gotten clever how this works.  If you’re pumping heat away from a home into somewhere else, then it cools the home.  Alternatively, if you want to warm up a place, just pump the heat from somewhere into a home (or a room).  This is why one device can heat or cool the same place, depending on which direction you pump.  As a user, you just set it to “cooling” or “air conditioning” versus “heating”.  You don’t need to worry about how it works.

“Very Efficient?”

Yes.  A heater spends a lot of energy changing the temperature of the air, instead of just pumping it.  Here’s an article from Energy.gov explaining a heat pump’s efficiency in more detail.  By the way, if you have pre-conceived notion of how well a heat pump works, let’s just say the new ones aren’t your “grandma’s heat pumps.”  The technology has advanced a lot in the past decade.

Heat Pump Cools and Heats with Electricity Alone

If you’re buying a new home or renovating one, you may prefer installing just one device for both uses.  Installing and maintaining two systems can be more costly than one.  For those living in more moderate climates, this is a big convenience and likely a good investment.  This is especially true for those who worry about the safety of using natural gas heating or if natural gas isn’t even readily available.

Natural gas heaters don’t blow up all the time.  Not even close.  But people often complain about keeping one in the house, like these individuals on this forum.  Gas pipes can leak, or some dislike messing with the pilot of a natural gas heater or complain about the smell or just don’t like the idea of “gas”.

Heat Pumps Can Save Money

This is not always true because new devices cost money, and you usually have to pay someone to install them.  I hate to say it, but it all depends.  Here are some general rules of thumb:

1. If you already have efficient ways of cooling and heating your home, keep them.
2. A heat pumps’ efficiency kicks in more for places with moderate climates.
3. Some states offer rebates for installing heat pumps.  It’s generally considered greener by industry experts, so sometimes the state or federal government will help pay for heat pumps.  You can check on Energy Star’s website for tax credits or rebates available in your zip code.  Another example at the state level is that Washington state offers rebates for heat pumps.
4. Heat pumps offer versatility in how you use them.  If you just need to enhance cooling or heating for a single room, a ductless heat pump might be a great option.  Another option is that you install a heat pump just for a single room that your family is in all the time to offload the central heating/cooling in your home.  These savings can add up.

Heat Pumps are Greener

There’s some chatter going back and forth whether heat pumps are actually greener than traditional central air conditioning and heating systems.  The line of reasoning that it’s greener is two-fold.  One, you only use electricity for a heat pump, so if your local region uses “clean energy” for electricity, you are getting the world one step further away from dirty energy, like coal, oil and gas.  Two, heat pumps are very efficient.  Using less energy to do the same thing is always good for the environment.

The reason that the United States, including the Department of Energy, started promoting heat pumps by offering rebates is because they’ve done some homework at the national level and gave heat pumps the “green light.”

Another point worth noting is that other parts of the world have been using heat pumps as their primary system for heating and cooling homes for decades already.  It’s been this way for them out of convenience, cost savings and being less demanding on the energy grid.