These things have been completely standard fixtures elsewhere in the world for decades. I was honestly shocked that America, the land of air conditioning, had never heard of them.
They’re so ubiquitous in Australia it’s what we think of when we hear “air conditioner”.
When you shop for aircons they have to specify “cooling only” because reverse cycle is the default.
Typical naive Australian. What you would consider unbearably frigid is warm by northern standards. It wasn’t until recently that heat pumps were efficient enough to compete with wood and coal furnaces.
They are completely standard in large parts of the US too–just the northeast and other colder areas haven’t started using them due to their colder winters.
I’ve watched many heat pump videos from Technology Connections on YouTube and he covers some of this. Heat pumps have had trouble handling really cold temperatures (apparently they’re getting better at that), so rather than having a furnace and a heat pump, or just a heat pump and being left cold… most Americans in regions that need to worry about being colder than heat pumps could historically handle would just get a furnace and call it a day. I’m in one of those areas. I’m starting to see heat pumps around on newer builds, I assume due to advancements in the technology. The Technology Connections guy tried it out and clocked just a few days per year that the heat pump wasn’t good enough. Some people are willing to put up with that, some aren’t, and most are going to assume it’s going to be worse than that, so they play it safe. Everyone has a pretty big fear of their pipes freezing (rightfully so).
It gets below zero in the north east in the winter. Heat pumps stop working at 20-30F and the system has to switch to classic/emergency heat. They are great for fall/spring (or summer as an AC), but useless for winter.
The bigger issue is that it is extremely expensive to install ductwork, wiring for 1 or more thermostats, and a shiny new heating/cooling system in many existing homes that use classic radiator heat. Depending on where the oil tank is located, it may require removal as well (example: if it is underground, depending on state/municipal laws).
That’s not necessarily true now the newer systems can go to as low as -15F which in the north only happens for a few hours a year so still a reduction in heating gas/oils needed
First off, as the other poster replied, that isn’t true about modern heat pumps. They continue to work below freezing, and many support an “eheat” resistive heating mode, obviously only good if you still have electricity, but that’s true of all heat pumps. Generators or solar+batteries become much more important.
But the beauty of heat pumps is that you don’t need to install ductwork. Look at mini splits. You can do zoned or single room installs. No ductwork required. One of the huge upsides of mini splits are you do get “instant” zoning. You can stop heating and cooling unused rooms to a human comfortable temperature.
You can also get systems that retrofit into existing forced air ductwork.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone made or will make a heat pump water heater for hydronic radiators.
You can also run the element that is typically outdoors inside if you have enough space in a basement, for example, which stay a pretty consistent temperature all year long.
Man this was a wild ride on this comment chain. At first I was sad, because I don’t have ductwork, now I am excited because I was eyeing a mini-split for our AC anyway. Yay!
Still within range of a good heat pump but Scandinavian countries don’t have a lock on cold. January averages where I live in the US are colder than Reykjavik, Iceland!
It’s a simple idea, but it’s not quite that simple.
When it gets to be around freezing outside, you have to deal with frost buildup on the outdoor unit.
And as temperatures fall, output and efficiency generally falls. So you need an oversized unit to heat your house on the coldest days, but an oversized unit isn’t great the rest of the year.
Historically, heat pumps were only good if it never got down below freezing. Now, modern cold- climate heat pumps are efficient well below freezing and Mitsubishi’s models advertise that they deliver 100% of their output down to -23F/-30C. Between adding variable inverters, better defrosting, etc they’ve come a really long way in the past decade.
I’ve never seen anyone using their furnace to run hot water. Radiator water loops are closed loops and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that water to be used for anything you’d use hot water for.
I think it’s mostly a factor of ACs weren’t historically efficient. They were all on or all off. In the more recent designs that are ultra efficient they use variable speed compressors.
They were also historically less reliable than a furnace and certainly more difficult and complicated to service.
Heat pumps = simply running your AC in reverse
It escapes me such a simple concept could take so long to be considered for homes instead of radiators
These things have been completely standard fixtures elsewhere in the world for decades. I was honestly shocked that America, the land of air conditioning, had never heard of them.
They’re so ubiquitous in Australia it’s what we think of when we hear “air conditioner”.
When you shop for aircons they have to specify “cooling only” because reverse cycle is the default.
Typical naive Australian. What you would consider unbearably frigid is warm by northern standards. It wasn’t until recently that heat pumps were efficient enough to compete with wood and coal furnaces.
They are completely standard in large parts of the US too–just the northeast and other colder areas haven’t started using them due to their colder winters.
I’ve watched many heat pump videos from Technology Connections on YouTube and he covers some of this. Heat pumps have had trouble handling really cold temperatures (apparently they’re getting better at that), so rather than having a furnace and a heat pump, or just a heat pump and being left cold… most Americans in regions that need to worry about being colder than heat pumps could historically handle would just get a furnace and call it a day. I’m in one of those areas. I’m starting to see heat pumps around on newer builds, I assume due to advancements in the technology. The Technology Connections guy tried it out and clocked just a few days per year that the heat pump wasn’t good enough. Some people are willing to put up with that, some aren’t, and most are going to assume it’s going to be worse than that, so they play it safe. Everyone has a pretty big fear of their pipes freezing (rightfully so).
We have them in Florida. It’s just very cold in the Northern USA.
It gets below zero in the north east in the winter. Heat pumps stop working at 20-30F and the system has to switch to classic/emergency heat. They are great for fall/spring (or summer as an AC), but useless for winter.
The bigger issue is that it is extremely expensive to install ductwork, wiring for 1 or more thermostats, and a shiny new heating/cooling system in many existing homes that use classic radiator heat. Depending on where the oil tank is located, it may require removal as well (example: if it is underground, depending on state/municipal laws).
That’s not necessarily true now the newer systems can go to as low as -15F which in the north only happens for a few hours a year so still a reduction in heating gas/oils needed
I know the guy in the TC video used Chicago as an example but the “few hours a year” thing simply isn’t true for many of us.
Where I live we had many days below -15f including a week where itpretty much stayed between -20 and -30 for nearly a week straight.
A Heat Pump will still work, even here, but you need to be careful about which one you purchase and how it handles cold weather.
First off, as the other poster replied, that isn’t true about modern heat pumps. They continue to work below freezing, and many support an “eheat” resistive heating mode, obviously only good if you still have electricity, but that’s true of all heat pumps. Generators or solar+batteries become much more important.
But the beauty of heat pumps is that you don’t need to install ductwork. Look at mini splits. You can do zoned or single room installs. No ductwork required. One of the huge upsides of mini splits are you do get “instant” zoning. You can stop heating and cooling unused rooms to a human comfortable temperature.
You can also get systems that retrofit into existing forced air ductwork.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone made or will make a heat pump water heater for hydronic radiators.
You can also run the element that is typically outdoors inside if you have enough space in a basement, for example, which stay a pretty consistent temperature all year long.
Man this was a wild ride on this comment chain. At first I was sad, because I don’t have ductwork, now I am excited because I was eyeing a mini-split for our AC anyway. Yay!
In Scandinavia we run ours down to -4F or colder. Efficiency goes down but they are still better than 1:1 until then.
Average temperatures for Bangor, Maine in January are colder than the average temperatures for January in Stockholm, Sweden.
Bangor
Stockholm
Still within range of a good heat pump but Scandinavian countries don’t have a lock on cold. January averages where I live in the US are colder than Reykjavik, Iceland!
It’s a simple idea, but it’s not quite that simple.
When it gets to be around freezing outside, you have to deal with frost buildup on the outdoor unit.
And as temperatures fall, output and efficiency generally falls. So you need an oversized unit to heat your house on the coldest days, but an oversized unit isn’t great the rest of the year.
Historically, heat pumps were only good if it never got down below freezing. Now, modern cold- climate heat pumps are efficient well below freezing and Mitsubishi’s models advertise that they deliver 100% of their output down to -23F/-30C. Between adding variable inverters, better defrosting, etc they’ve come a really long way in the past decade.
The benefits of having hot water and heating from the same source I’d guess
I’ve never seen anyone using their furnace to run hot water. Radiator water loops are closed loops and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that water to be used for anything you’d use hot water for.
I think it’s mostly a factor of ACs weren’t historically efficient. They were all on or all off. In the more recent designs that are ultra efficient they use variable speed compressors.
They were also historically less reliable than a furnace and certainly more difficult and complicated to service.
Combination boilers are incredibly popular in Europe.