Heat pumps can’t take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth::By installing a heat pump in his house in the hills of Oslo, Oyvind Solstad killed three birds with one stone, improving his comfort, finances and climate footprint.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    11 year ago

    There are heat pumps now that use gas to do the supplemental heat. Those are the best possible option. They are equally efficient to a gas furnace when supplementing, and even cheaper when not.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      11 year ago

      I’m sure there’s applications where that’s true, but then you’re essentially talking about having a gas furnace plus a heat pump, so you’re installation cost is close to the sum of both systems. Energy rates vary by region, but around here electricity is about 7 times the cost of gas, so a heat pump running at a coefficient of performance around 3 would still cost twice as much to run as a natural gas furnace, it would be cheaper to just turn off the heat pump altogether and only use that “supplementary” heat.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        11 year ago

        When I was looking at new heat pumps the hybrid ones were between 500 & 1000 more than the equivalent electric ones.

        It’s not a sperate unit, it just has a gas heater in place of the electric supplemental coils.