Heat Pump Sales Outpaced Gas Furnace Sales In the US In 2022 - Slashdot
source link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/04/01/0245254/heat-pump-sales-outpaced-gas-furnace-sales-in-the-us-in-2022
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Heat Pump Sales Outpaced Gas Furnace Sales In the US In 2022
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Only 8/50 states seem to report an average low of get $500 electric bills
You don't run the emergency heat every single day
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In our moderate climate, heat pumps aren't really good during the fall-to-winter and winter-to-spring seasons. During the winter, heat pumps won't work. So, their used is a nonstarter for 6 to 8 months a year. The technology just isn't there yet. Like other "green" technologies, heat pump technology is "there yet". It's a great idea whose time has not yet come.
IMHO-
oops, typo! Should read,,,"heat pump technology isn't "there yet".
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Based on what? You know people actually own these things right? They're not new technology, like at all, its actually been around for decades, we know heat pumps work on cold days just like we know air conditioners work on hot days because they are actually the same exact thing. Seriously, the argument against heat pumps has never been do they work on mild days because thats where they work best, it's always been about the extremes.
Even just the most cursory of google searches you can find operating specs:
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That is true for air-source heat pumps, but not for ground-source heat pumps.
If you live where winters are cold, ground-source is the way to go.
Even in milder climates, a ground-source heat pump is more efficient but is more expensive to install.
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"That is true for air-source heat pumps, but not for ground-source heat pumps."
The ground around here freezes in the winter, so I don't know how well that would work.
(46 degrees North latitude)
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BLUF: You bury the ground loop deeper the closer to the poles you are.
Okay, 65 degrees North latitude here. Ground doesn't just freeze in the winter, we have permafrost in areas. As in the ground doesn't even defrost in the summer. You can STILL make ground source heat pumps work this far north, it's just that the depth of the ground loop goes up.
46 degrees north latitude isn't bad at all.
Around 40 is probably "ideal", in that you're putting around as much heat into the ground via cooling your house, as you're extracting for heating it.
One of the ideas I examined in college was actually installing solar heating sufficient to cover 100% of my house. In Fairbanks, AK.
You might go "huh, wah?" - But here's the trick: The system I proposed was a massive heat sink/ transfer system. Basically, build a massive insulated box under the house. Think of a 12 foot sub-basement. Fill it back up with the dirt/sand, putting piping(probably pex) in as you go), top off with water for the extra mass and heat transfer rate.
How you exactly do it is optional, but after that you hook up solar thermal panels covering ~50% of your roof. This helps keep your house cooler in the summer, but more importantly, you're storing that heat in your insulated box. You then heat your house using a ground source heat pump that is pulling heat from the box. Well, that and if you install the necessary flow logic, you can heat the house using the flow from the solar panels directly if there's sufficient heat there. If the box is hot enough, you don't need the heat pump version, but a heat pump version allows the box to get much colder while staying useful. It reduces waste heat loss a lot if the box isn't as hot, so you don't need as much solar.
Totally impractical for a retrofit, not completely electricity free, but actually didn't have a bad payoff time because the digging and piping wasn't incredibly expensive, and when heating, even with oil, is that expensive... Probably work better with a more modern super-insulated(not that my house wasn't heavily insulated) house to reduce the needed size of everything. Probably want a "mass intensive" house - A house with a lot of concrete/stone/brick in the walls, with the insulation on the OUTSIDE of the walls, in order to provide a lot of thermal inertia.
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And how does one get the loop into the rock of the mountain side?
There are places where "things" work. In those places "go for it" -- if you can afford the installation costs.
There are places where "things" won't work. In those places, Quit Shoving Your On-Size-Fits-All down our throats and into our pocketbooks!
These deep/thermal heating systems don't work everywhere.
Solar panels don't work everywhere.
Please stop trying to fit a non-solution onto every person and every situation!
Let the people use w-
And how does one get the loop into the rock of the mountain side?
How do they get deep oil/gas wells? They have drills for that.
Or you go for my box, which doesn't need that much depth. Dynamite works well for that.
Note that I wasn't addressing "one size fits all", and that I noted that my "solution" ended up being impractical. Not a good payoff time, but it was a project in college, I got credit for doing the workup. I think it even made its way into potential applications elsewhere.
Gas/Oil is going up
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You drill. That is how these systems are usually installed. Round here we even call them "bedrock heat" (Norwegian: bergvarme).
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Mmm... slashdot users afraid of technology. Incels.
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The coils are buried below the frost line.
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In my area, ground-source hear pumps are prohibitively expensive (and just don't work in our mountains). The average homeowner (in 7 years?) would never recover the front-end cost. Whereas, a new, larger AC with a regular heat pump (that we installed) recovered the front-end cost in 7 years.
It seems unproductive to complain about people not choosing the more expensive option that produce no long-term savings. This is causing great resistant to change if when the change is good. This is one of the grea
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There have been a lot of improvements in the last few years. Older heat pumps were pretty much worthless below about 20*F. Newer ones work well down to about -10*F. If itâ(TM)s regularly colder than that where you live, having gas backup makes sense.
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Good thing then that not everyone lives in places where consistently it gets that cold. Heat pumps have been standard in all new houses in Virginia where I live for the past 30 or more years. It works perfectly here where we only get a few days a year where temps get to 20 F.
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For those of us in hot climates (myself included), my biggest gripe is that heat pumps are slight less efficient in cool mode. For example, the Carrier infinity A/c unit will go up to 26SEER, but its heat pump equivalent is only rated at 24SEER. Thatâ(TM)s almost a 10% efficiency hit from having the heat capability. That makes a difference for those of us who can see $500 cooling bills in peak summer.
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When I shopped AC last year the super high end 24+ SEER stuff was so expensive compared to 16, the ROI was a longer time frame than the expected life of the unit.
Ymmv but I replaced some really old shit with 16's and saw a dramatic drop in my electric bill. 26 wouldn't be so much lower as to be worth it. There just isn't that much room left in my electric bill to recover from a higher SEER unit. I live in a very hot place so ac is on all day, too.
Everyone should do their own long term roi math before buying anything. Everyone's situation is unique.
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I had to replace my heat pump last year and finding anything beyond the standard single stage units was pretty tough. When you did find something fancy (variable speed inverter compressors), the price was ridiculous to the point that it made zero sense due to the longer ROI. I'm in Northern NJ, so moderately cold climate. The biggest difference of a higher end unit was likely to reduce the use of heat strips, but I hardly use them now. The balance point of the cheapo unit I got is surprisingly good despite
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Also, single zone central heating/cooling is a waste of electricity no matter how high the SEER rating. Better to go with multi-zone, perhaps one zone for the bedrooms where people will sleep and another zone for the other rooms that don't need as much heat overnight.
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True but I'm the third or fourth owner so had no input into house design.
In my case they made the master suite a zone and the rest of the house a second larger zone. It works well enough since we're mostly in the house part and only use the master unit at night.
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Then burn more fossil fuels. Eventually, global warming will make heat pumps work in your area!
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