With the cold weather I was hoping to hear of some experiences people have had with their heat pumps.
What kind of backup heat do you have? Are you using it? Is there some temperature where you just stop using the heat pump, or are you even consciously thinking about it?
Thanks!
Here’s the thing though, 50% reduction in my electrical use is like $30 a month. It’s going to take quite a few years of 50% to make a $10k cost difference justifiable.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for heat pumps in principle. I personally have a heat pump heating my pool. I put in central air conditioning a couple years ago, and took a serious look at it for the house, but it was going to be more than double the cost. My electrical bill isn’t the problem either, it’s all the damn fees and riders that drive it into the stratosphere, not usage.
So that + the fact I live in Southern Alberta and it might not be very useful 4 or 5 months of the year, I just can’t make it make sense. The government is going to need to give out more grant $$ before I’ll consider it.
My total bill dropped, because the number of kWh dropped, and most of the distribution fees are linked to consumption.
For me, I was replacing my furnace anyway (builder grade crap) and I wanted the most efficient unit I could get – because summers are only getting hotter. I managed to upgrade from 2-ton AC to 2.5-ton heatpump, but the total cost (tax included) was approaching $12k). I may not get back every penny I spent in electricity savings, but the house is more comfortable, and it’s nice to know I have extra heating/cooling capacity as the weather gets more extreme.
There’s definitely a pretty good argument to be made there too, I won’t deny that. You are right, the summers are getting longer drier and gnarlier, and the freezes are getting worse too. We often have to deal with a lot of smoke later in the summer too. I for sure took a real close look at it a couple years ago, just as those grants and stuff came online, as we were doing our AC at the time.
The reality for my household, is that in current state and location we just don’t use enough hydro to justify the cost versus the benefits. Now does that change in the future, as my kids get older and the climate continues to change? Hey, maybe, never say never. Also I think if you are a household in SW Ontario, or anywhere near the lakes, absolutely I’d be taking a very very close and serious look at one. I just couldn’t get the math to math at the moment, in my location.
You might be surprised. I pulled 10 years of data for Lucky Lake, SK from environment Canada and the average number of days below -15C is 62. Our personal heating season is about 220 days (first use to last use, no matter how minimal). That works out to about 72% coverage for one of the less capable heat pumps.
Others have suggested a minimum of -20 for long-term reliability. I didn’t do that analysis, but I did for below -25 and the average number of days is more like 21. IIRC, below -30 was no more than a dozen, on average.
Obviously, every household’s calculations are different. Yours sound like it’s not worthwhile from a strictly personal finance perspective.
Precisely. You might pay more for heat on a couple days a year, but overall the advantage is huge.
I definitely should look at the details closer for our area. My big concern is with the big negatives, is mainly are these units going to last? Even though the ratings go to -15 or -20, the facts are that efficiency falls off a cliff even before you start getting into negative temps. At -15 you are using more energy than you would otherwise be with conventional heating sources. Now does that offset with more efficient days, I mean it probably does, it has to. But that doesn’t factor wear and tear. I mean that might be concern that’s all for naught too, but I just want to sit back a bit and see, personally.