And then there are (at much greater expense and the need to drill wells) ground source heat pumps which are as efficient at -50° as they are at 50°.
On Mon, Dec 29, 2025 at 11:30 AM Leslie Turek <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm not an engineer and only have my personal experience to share, but > what I have observed bears out what Nick and others have been saying. > > I have had two heat pumps for my condo unit - one installed around > about 2011 and the other last summer. > > For the first heat pump, which had an auxiliary heat source to use when > the temperatures got low, I found that whenever the outside temp was around > 20 degrees or lower, the heat pump had a hard time keeping up, even with > the auxiliary heat. I would come down in the morning to a chilly house, > which would only catch up later in the day. > > The new heat pump, which was advertised to have the latest technology, has > no auxiliary heat source, which worried me at first. But so far, it has > performed perfectly, even on those recent nights when the temperature was > below 20. And it is far quieter than the earlier model. It operates in two > stages - when it runs on the lowest stage you can't even tell it is > running. It only uses the high stage on the coldest days, and then you hear > a low hum. > > I don't have enough data yet to compare energy usage, but I'm assuming > that the fact that I'm no longer using auxiliary heat, which is very > inefficient, will have a positive impact on my energy bills. > > So my experience backs up what Nick said about modern heat pumps. The > technology has improved enormously, and what used to definitely be a > problem seems to have been pretty much overcome. > > (If anyone is curious, the contractor that did my recent installation was > NetZero (netzerohvac.net).) > > Leslie Turek. > > On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 8:43 PM Nick Gardner <[email protected]> wrote: > >> That is unfortunately outdated information. With modern cold climate heat >> pumps, the heat pumps are more environmentally friendly than natural gas >> heating at around 15f if you're on the Lincoln basic plan and have a 95% >> efficient furnace. If you are on the standard plan, it's *always* more >> environmentally friendly to run the heat pumps instead of gas. The >> technology has greatly improved recently. Happy to go over the numbers with >> anyone if they'd like, I'm a bit proponent of heat pumps. >> >> I do agree about power reliability, but battery backup solutions have >> gotten a lot better recently as well. >> >> -Nick >> >>> >>>
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