this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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Without having read the article, I would say that the point of a heat pump isn't to save money.
Most detached single family homes in this country rely on centrally ducted gas furnaces for heating and separate air conditioning for cooling. Burning fossil fuels for heat directly on site is cheap and effective, but ultimately unsustainable.
Heat pumps solve this by being ridiculously efficient in the right conditions. Instead of converting fuel to heat by burning it, a heat pump simply takes the heat energy stored in the air (or ground) outside and relocates it inside. Moving heat energy is a lot easier than converting it, so a heat pump is able to be something like 300% efficient. For every watt of electricity needed to power the pump, it is able to move 3 or 4 watts of heat into your home.
Funnily enough, your run-of-the-mill air conditioner already does this, just in reverse. It pulls the heat energy out of the air in your home and ejects it outside. A heat pump can fill both roles by being reversible.
Unfortunately many of us live in a climate that sees temperatures fall below -20° for most of the winter which leaves very little available heat in the air, so heat pump efficiency during these times is lackluster and the unit may need to run constantly just to keep up. Therefore a backup heat source like baseboard or furnace heating is usually still required for winter, though advances in heat pump technology are making this less of a problem.
To expand on this, if you heat with natural gas, it's unlikely you'll save money with a heat pump unless natural gas is expensive or not available in your area. In Saskatchewan right now, a kWh of heat from natural gas is about 9x cheaper than a kWh of electricity. Even a very efficient heat pump can't offset that difference.
Propane or heating oil may be more on par with electricity, but it's best to calculate the per kWh price compared to electricity in your area. Don't forget delivery fees if those apply.
Money is better spent on other energy savings measures like air tightness, insulation, and doors and windows if you heat with natural gas.
That's today though. Those buying a heat pump are gonna have those for more than 10-15 years. Who knows what those rates will be then.
Of course that's today. Do you pay next year's utility rates? Why would you significantly increase your utility bill now because of a vague possibility that natural gas vs electricity prices might be different a decade from now? Why not wait until the prices are even somewhat close before installing one?
At least some heat pumps allow you to adjust when the furnace kicks in and in some cases override it completely so it just heats with the gas furnace.
That'd be on the thermostat end, and as the first post pointed out, a backup system is needed nearly everywhere in Canada anyway, so you'd have dual system controls anyway.
If you set it to only heat with NG, there's no point to a two way heat pump. Just get typical air conditioning.
I was mentioning that because you can switch based on the cost of electricity vs gas. As someone else said, if you get a heat pump system you should have it functioning for many years and you'll have the option of what utility to use based on what makes the most sense at the time.
They can do vertical well style ones now / depending on your geographic location makes it easier to add to existing properties. Basically just a few deep narrow holes and they run the loop up and down. Haven’t checked if anyone is doing it locally however no digging up the back yard to setup a large horizontal loop.