Earlier post: How our household is saving $2,400 a year on heating costs (with asterisk)
The answer was: a heat pump. We mostly like our heat pump. But there are some idiosyncrasies.
The heat coming out of the forced air registers is not hot, not even that warm really. It might even feel cool. But there is indeed heat.
Temperature changes can take quite a while. If you program your thermostat to drop the temperature at night, and bring it back up in the morning, the system may come on an hour or two in advance, depending on outdoor temperature and how many degrees need to be recovered. Some advice-givers suggest that the night-time setback be minimal because whatever energy you save with a lower night setting will be largely lost when the system comes on to bring back the daytime temperature. The math and monitoring to figure this out is beyond me. And other advice-givers disagree.
The system makes noise. Inside, there’s the sound of rushing air when the heat is on. Plus the sound of a little motor and fan that blows the air. Some of this can be quieted by adjustments to your duct system. (Perversely, I’ve been pleased to hear other heating systems running more noisily than ours.)
There are two major units of hardware. A compressor and fan sit outside, sucking heat from the air, delivering it through tubing to an air handler inside that blows heat into the ducts and through the registers.
The outside unit makes noise when it is delivering heat. Installers advise you to be neighbour friendly by putting the unit away as much as possible from other houses, especially their bedroom windows. Our unit, which sits in the backyard, does not make that much noise; in fact, you can’t hear it from the front street, and still can’t hear it until you are a couple of metres from it, and even then you might mistake it for a breeze until you’re right next to the unit. That’s not necessarily the case with other heat pumps that I have encountered.
When it gets really cold, the heat pump may not be able to supply enough heat to keep the house comfortable. More expensive backup heating needs to kick in, supplied by electric coils, or a furnace. There’s also a point when it’s so cold outside that it’s more economical to use backup heat, instead of the heat pump. That point can be an educated guess; it’s programmed to be minus-5 C on our thermostat, for example. Below minus-5, the electric heat takes over. Our heat pump can still keep up when it’s around minus-5 but has a little trouble when it’s colder.
A smarter thermostat, such as the Nest (which we do not have), can try to make the calculation for you. It might vary the temperature at which it switches over to backup heat, depending on how fast you want the house to heat up, or how much you want to save on energy costs.
Because the system's heat is a lower temperature than that delivered by an oil or natural gas furnace, it will run for longer periods.
At our house, an unexpected side benefit of the heat pump system was the virtual disappearance of condensation from some older window. One reason might be increased air flow.
The heat pump is able to cool the house in the summer. We have not used this option much because it doesn’t get that hot in Greater Victoria.
Our air handler uses a 20x22x1 filter, which is non-standard in our market. We’ve had to buy them custom-made, which is a little inconvenient and costly.
The air handler has blinking green and blue lights. I don’t know what they’re for, but they look nifty in the dark.
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