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!
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.