Sales are growing so quickly that some installers wonder whether heat pumps could even wipe out the demand for new air conditioners in a few years and put a significant dent in the number of natural gas furnaces.
Sales are growing so quickly that some installers wonder whether heat pumps could even wipe out the demand for new air conditioners in a few years and put a significant dent in the number of natural gas furnaces.
I’ve been looking into them and two common issues I’ve heard are incorrect installation of the unit and not understanding that its not a full replacement for AC and a furnace.
How is it not full replacement for an AC? It is an AC.
Edit: fine. You’re all correct and I’m wrong.
A heatpump is an AC, definitionally. There is no major difference for a 9000 BTU heat pump and a 9000 BTU AC in terms of capability to cool. They both work through using gas to move heat from the inside to the outside of the building.
A heat pump can just run in reverse, and move heat form outside the building inside.
A mini-split is a version of a heat pump where it has its own head and its own radiator, that are split. this is opposed to central AC.
Most central AC area also split systems. The evaporator is indoors and the compressor/condenser unit sits outside, and are connected by pipes.
The only difference is that they are ducted to the entire house, where a mini-split generally only cools a single room.
And yo can get central type units that have a reversing valve which allows them to cool the house in the summer and heat it in the winter. Though those have historically been a lot harder to find. There are more coming on the market in the last few years.
Wait, that doesn’t make sense to me. Are you talking about air heat pumps, or geo heat pumps here? The air ones are literally just ACs in a different shape, and the latter is basically an AC where the outside bit goes underground.
The principals are the same, and they even use the same terminology. I know other countries dont’ differentiate in the slightest and just call them all the same thing.
There are ones with broader operating ranges. I have a Carrier infinity that cools just fine in the Saskatchewan heat and heats down to -15. I’ve seen some models that can operate to -25 or 30.
And yes, AC is a one-direction heat pump. The heat pumps that provide heat are an AC that can reverse the refrigeration loop and force heat into a space rather than out of a space.
Then you haven’t done very good research… My Gree Minisplit heatpump has no issues cooling in the hottest days.
Then you’ve been lied to. My heat pump keeps the house cool when it’s 40C, and warm when it’s -40C.
@Luci @wildbus8979 this may have been true a decade ago but now the cold-climate versions can operate at 100% down to -20C. Ours was operational at -29C and running at about 80% output (even though according to the specs thermal shutoff is -28)
One of the downsides with really good energy efficient products is that they tend to take longer to do their task compared to the old quick and dirty models.
For example you can now buy high efficiency heat pump clothes dryers which can operate on 120v without a vent, but will take far longer to dry a load of laundry than your typical electric dryer. Uninformed people who buy the product are immediately disappointed with how long they take and will call it defective.
“If my gas furnace can heat my house in seconds and for pennies, why would I spend thousands on a lousy heat pump?”
I mean, that’s an issue for any heating/cooling system.