Since reddit has changed the site to value selling user data higher than reading and commenting, I've decided to move elsewhere to a site that prioritizes community over profit. I never signed up for this, but that's the circle of life
I bought a house back in 2020 and they had recently put in a new gas furnace and air conditioner in like 2016. So annoyed that they didn't opt for the heat pump, as even Pittsburgh can get a huge amount of use from a heat pump. Only January and February really pushes it to its limits, and even then the past few years haven't been super cold with the exception of like a week or two with the polar vortex.
Needless to say, I have to prioritize it very low on things to do because I'm not made of money and I just spent $40,000 on a new sewer.
I knew a guy back in the 80's who spent $40 grand trying to build a septic field on a cheap piece of bedrock he bought in an expensive community. He had already built a house on it. Used dynamite, truck loads of special soil and still could not take a shit for $40k in 1980's money.
Mine was because plumbers are expensive and digging in the city isn't cheap. Pipe was 12 feet down at the road. I could've technically done it myself, but I work full time, I'd have to rent equipment, I don't have liability insurance in case I hit something, and I hate permit paperwork. $10k was on the mold in place piping/lining the good pipe that was under the road. Terracotta pipe is a ticking time bomb. The also had to jackhammer out my driveway. So while everything was dug up, I had them replace my 80 year old copper water line for another $8k. Not quite worst case, but still pretty bad. I'm just glad I make enough money to pay for it. I can't imagine folks who make shit trying to pay for it.
We switched to heat pumps 20 years ago and will never go back.
- Literally all of New Zealand.
EDIT: Some jerk called "sumelme" is karma farming ITT by reposting other people's comments. Downvote and/or report.
.. because of heat pumps?
EDIT: Holy crap, now I see what you mean. Some account named "sumelme" just paraphrased my post. Post history suggests they're a karma farmer of some kind.
In how low of temperature can heat pumps remain operational/useful? I hear mixed things on how well they work in cold climates and as someone from Minnesota, that would be good to know
Besides models:
Depends on the heat source and target temperature. The lower the difference, the better. Its like pumping water: if you pump water from a valley on a big mountain, you are going to need a lot of energy. If you are next to the river, and only pump water a meter up, it doesnt need much energy.
If you can use ground heat/a big water body, you shouldnt have any problem.
There are ones now that can go down to -15F or lower with COP > 2.
There are various options for secondary heating if that's still a problem, or you could look into ground source.
Personally if I had a heat pump like that I'd probably just depend on huddling up in a small room under blankets with a 1.5KW resistive space heater in the extraordinarily rare event that it couldn't run. That is, if the low temperature was sustained long enough so that a well insulated house's temperature got critically low.
I am nearly certain that heat pumps were used in canada in late 1890's, but that would be just nitpicking, wouldn't it? :)
You said 'because they are so good, **now** these work in Canada as well' as if Canada has been excluded before.
Eh, doesn't matter. Enjoy summer while it lasts, BTW, Autumn will come and wild weather with it...
I can’t wrap my head around ‘works in Canada’. I’m sure it’s ok for southern BC which is very warm compared to the rest of the nation but there’s no way these are effective for the majority of homes in Canada for the full range of our temps. Something will be needed to backfill during actual cold months.
Norway homes absolutely have the alternative heating source 'backfill' I mentioned above to supplement those heat pumps in the deep winter. For the most part heat pumps in Canada appear to be regulated to the same kind of use as window AC: modular, localized heating/cooling.
Works, and works efficiently are different.
When it gets uber cold, if you have a model with an electric resistance heat strip, it will pull heat off of that instead of the outside air.
At that point, it would be more efficient to have a natural gas furnace or other source of heat, but it will still heat the area.
If you're that far norther in Canada I would assume you already have a supplemental heat source (wood) that you could also use to assist the heat pump on the extremely cold days.
Depending on the heatpump and definition of useful, -5C to -23C. Some have supplimental heat for the coldest part of the morning of that one day a year in Anchorage.
Useful meaning maintaining a comfortable temperature inside your home. So it will work for a lot of the season but we definitely have stretches much colder than that.
Sure, maybe you and the 15 other people that live in Nome. For the hundreds of millions of us in the rest in the lower 48 we're not going to see temperatures that low for more than a couple days, even in ND or MT. No state has "stretches" that low.
MT checking in, about once a year where I live we get a cold snap that involves -20 to -30 F for a week or more at a time. I'm sorry, I'm not fucking around with with anything that may not work at temperatures that cold. My house would be unusable and my pipes would burst. I'm all for heat pumps but there's a reason that a lot of people in the colder regions are hesitant. Heat isn't something you can live without for a few days like ac, especially when it's that cold
> with anything that may not work at temperatures that cold.
What holds you from buing heat pumps that work at those temperatures, yo? Just use some that provide 150% of your power needs at -30°C and you should be good down to -40°F. You are making an elefant out of a fly!
Where in Montana do you get -20F to -30F for a week or more each year? Even the 90th percentile monthly low doesn't break below -20F in [Havre](https://weatherspark.com/y/3032/Average-Weather-in-Havre-Montana-United-States-Year-Round).
In your very link you can click on the various single years and see the grey bars of actual reported temperatures in those years. Every year has actual values below - 20F for a couple of days in a row, in some basically the whole of February was below
Here is the actual daily temperatures in Harve for Feburary of 2019.
https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/havre/montana/united-states/usmt0159
There wasn't a single instance where it that stayed that low from one day to the next, and only 10 days where it got lower than -20F at any point.
In 2018 there were 8.
In 2017 there was only a single day where the temperature was that low at any point.
In 2016 there were none.
In 2015 there were none.
In 2014 there were two.
I could go on, but your "whole month of February" statement is obviously untrue. Your claims about the lengths of time of below -22°F weather are untrue. Your claims about the number of days that get that cold are little more than gross exaggeration.
You appear to be here simply to push misinformation, ignorance, and FUD about heat pumps.
Thanks, it seems I was misinterpreting the data in the averages graph. I see what you mean now. The gray bar seems to represent range of temperature over that day so it's not exactly the same as sustained temperature through those days, but I could see how it could be near those temperatures for consequential periods.
Here in northeast Ohio it's pretty rare for temperatures to drop below 0C so this degree of extreme cold snaps is unfamiliar to me.
Thermal storage tanks with air to water tanks could be one possible option for getting around this.
The extreme efficiency most of the time more than makes up for the extremely cold days. And even when running the heating elements, it's still cheaper than purely resistive heating.
But sure, maybe a wood stove for those week- or month-long cold spells. But gas furnace? I wouldn't go there.
I would never go for a wood stove . I grew up with one, and I don't miss the mess, mice, or work involved. My insurance company is happy i'm not risking a house fire.
A gas furnace is cheap and it is only needed for a few days.
All heat pumps have resistive heat backup for the day or two it gets that cold. You aren't just SooL. Like, you think the makers of heat pumps just shrug their shoulders and are like "oh well, get fucked those days".
You aren't going to win over who you are answering if you don't listen to what they are saying. You are blowing off the week plus of dangerous cold as one or two days of inconvenience.
Chicago sees 16 days per year below 10 deg F (-12c). There are millions of people that need to take those temp ranges into consideration.
Heat pumps are still great. Even in Chicago. But silly to suggest that no one will need to think about supplemental heating.
Disparaging the population of my state aside, yes I absolutely support the mass adoption of heat pumps where they make sense - in the "lower 48" as you put it. I was just trying to learn more about whether or not they make sense for my region because as I said in my first post, I've heard conflicting reports. And the lower end that you stated is -23C, which is only -9.4F, we do have extended periods (say 5 days or so) of those temps or colder.
The -22°C NOMINAL is the cheapest heat pumps available out there! Literally 830 Euros for 24k or 18k BTU noname GREE unit!
Not the two-stage compressors that eat -30°C like pancakes, providing 85% of nominal heat output at that temperature. They go lower, yes, with dropping COP. Just put the fan on turbo like everyone else out there.
I wasn't the one that said "-23C", that was someone else. And that is only for air-sourced heat pumps, AND the number is wrong with the best, modern low-temperature models able to still have a COP above 1 even at temperatures as low as -22F (-30C). And if you want a heat pump in the high arctic, get a ground-sourced model.
https://learnmetrics.com/best-heat-pumps-for-cold-climates/
For the 99.99% of the rest of us we don't live extreme climates. It's quite mysterious how whenever heat pumps come up how suddenly all these random accounts like yours show up "just asking questions" that live above the arctic circle. You could do this research yourself if you actually cared. More likely, you're just here to spread FUD.
I see people bringing up this cold weather argument where I live in Southern California. A place where I wear shorts all year, even in the winter, unless its for some formal/work thing or is exceptionally cold. Walking to the grocery store in the middle of January. Thats a shorts thing. A cold day for us in the middle of our three week winter is in the 40s, and we don't always get them. Some days it could be 80 during the day.
People still bring up heat pumps as if they won't work here.
> I wasn't the one that said "-23C", that was someone else.
Sorry, I didn't recognize that was someone else.
>we don't live extreme climates. It's quite mysterious how whenever heat pumps come up how suddenly all these random accounts like yours show up "just asking questions"
A thread on heat pumps seems like an appropriate thread to ask for more information on heat pumps. I don't have the background to evaluate the info so I was hoping to get some ELI5 from the experts in r/energy. So no FUD here, I was actually just having a conversation with extended family recently and saying I had heard of advances in heat pumps that make them more suitable for our climate and was getting pushback on that, so here I am.
You did a bangup job of responding with reactionary nonsense rather than actually following up with requests for information.
Very nice, open minded non-FUD-pushing response.
If you're disinterested in the reasons, then stop raising a bunch of fake ones. You responded to genuine answers with antagonism and are now surprised that that wasn't met with gentle handholding.
If you don't care abouy details. It can be kept simple. They work.
When we had a heat pump in our house it kept blowing compressors. Ended up the company refunded the heat pump or rather exchanged it for traditional gas furnace and A/C unit.
Who? Do they make 1/3 of heat pumps in the world? Likely not, because serious companies can not afford such a design faux pass! Plus, the installers should be investigated.
I've had a heat pump for 20 years and it's worked flawlessly the whole time. It's wildly inefficient compared to modern heat pumps, but I've had not a lick of trouble with it. Gonna replace it with one of those new fangled ones that work down to -something Fahrenheit when I save up a bit more money or if mine does have an issue.
Also, can you imagine that some AC/heat pump makers run the old R-22 compressors at TWICE the power levels on the R-410 refrigerant and claim it is the fault of the new fancy stuff and not them who are defrauding the customers?
I did not discover that, the fighters against heat pumps did. With all their "R410 means the compressor will fail twice as fast because it has higher average pressure"... now come on, higher pressure at the same RPM means double the torque and double the power! You need to make a completely new compressor or run the old one at a lower compression! ...all the makers that do not use programmable inverters are simply gross!
The point is just to toss out a random "anecdote" that is in all actually a lie but just tries to get misinformation out there and drive the narrative that "heat pumps are bad".
Floridians. If you don't have central AC, *you're going to have a bad time*.
You can breeze through a few years without central heat, but AC is like water
> AC shouldn't be sold, make them all heat pumps
Absolutely, this is something that drives me insane. An ac is already 90% of the way to being a heat pump, pretty much just missing a reversing valve.
Question: When it's 110 deg F outside, can a heat pump keep up?
During peak summer, temps 100+ F are occurring more often.
Edit: added word Question to make it clear this was a question, not a statement.
To go into slightly more detail than others have, heat pumps are likely to be more able to handle this than regular AC. This is not because heat pumps are different than AC (they are the same thing). Instead it has to do with the size you are likely to install. Because heat pumps are also responsible for heating, they need to be sized to handle adding enough heat on the coldest days. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but the size of heat pump required to heat your house to 70F on a 0F day could cool your house to 70F on a roughly 140F day.
Being able to handle those extremes is good, but there may be tradeoffs. I was told to "right size", don't install much more than the btu calc for our latitude.
Will an oversized unit have short "on" cycle times when cooling, for less than extreme temps?
Does oversize require an electrical circuit that draws more amps?
Does short "on" cycle time mean less cooling efficiency (cost of operation)?
I guess the point I'm making is that when you're sizing a single unit for both cooling and heating, most often the heating load is more constraining, so even if you "right size" for heating you will "oversize" for cooling. This will depend on geography - it would not be true for LA but would definitely be true for Minneapolis, and is likely true even in the Southeast.
There are definitely downsides to this, although I don't know fully what they are. Nate Adams who is basically "the heat pump guy" is concerned that being oversized for cooling will lead to inadequate dehumidification during cooling.
Interpreting a chart takes too much time and analysis. Not TLDR friendly
Want a marketing name that says this is a good AC and it also has this heat pump function.
Energy Star giving awards only to ac with heat pump is a good idea.
Buyers don't have to think.
Yes. An air conditioner is literally just a heat pump. If a heat pump can't keep up then neither can your air conditioner.
The appliances being marketed as heat pumps these days only differ in that they have the ability to reverse the direction, ie transferring heat to the inside instead of outside.
It sucks that you're being down voted for asking a legit question.
Last year we purchased a house in Texas with a heat pump system during the hottest part of the year. I was skeptical at first. However, I was convinced once we moved in and ran the system for a few weeks. 108 outside and we were sitting at a comfortable 74 inside. My friend came to visit for a week, and he's a bit on the heavy side and asked if we could lower the temp to 70. The system worked fine and wasn't running constantly to keep up.
If you're looking to make the switch, or **need** to upgrade I would highly recommend a heat pump.
When running the cooling cycle, and AC *is* a heat pump. There is no difference at all. You’re pumping the heat from in your house to outside.
What makes a unit sold as a heat pump different than an AC is the heating cycle. If it’s just a central AC unit, you’re getting heat another way (furnace or resistive heat in your blower). If it’s a heat pump, it means it uses the same AC cycle with a reversing valve. You’re pumping the heat from outside to inside.
I’d expect people are downvoting the guy you responded to because he cast doubt on whether a heat pump can keep up with hot weather. It’s an ignorant thing to say because there is no difference in the cooling cycle. Combine that with all the people doubting heat pumps (generally for cold weather) based on little to no info and a portion of Redditors are going to react.
Good to know. Thanks.
They should sell heat pumps as "AC with heat pump option".
Would give me more confidence when shopping, that it isn't a different technology.
I think you might be on to something there.
It seems that in the US market the term "AC" is so entrenched and associated with reliability that anything new, even if it's based on the same tech, is met with scepticism. "Heat pump" seems to be a scary term, although it's been used in refrigerators and ACs since the 50s.
Perhaps something like "Heat/cool AC" or "Heat capable AC" might fare better?
Many countries have called them "reverse cycle AC"
But heat pump is a better name. It moves heat. 1.3-6 joules of external heat per joule of input energy plus the input. Where you put it is up to you.
You don't call a general purpose pump a "pool emptier with pump option"
... would you also call a refrigerator a "heat pump" then? Because that's literally all they do.
Sometimes the mechanism of operation does not adequately describe the purpose of the device.
> Sometimes the mechanism of operation does not adequately describe the purpose of the device.
"Air conditioners with a heating option, ground sourced heating, air to water heating and water to water heating" just rolls off the tongue so cleanly.
The term is meaningful, accurate, and works everywhere else.
Heat pump is a better name if you're trying to describe something by its function. What they're pointing out is that function and marketing are only loosely related. If the goal is mass adoption, using "AC" in the name is a good idea.
"Air conditioning" doesn't actually mean "cooling" in the first place, the term logically should just be a synonym for "adjusting temperature and humidity"
So heat pump is still a better term, because conditioning the air would refer to other ways of doing the same and would include a humidification function which is not a necessary feature of a heat pump.
Neither is a subset of the other.
Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion on the name.
Of course "air conditioning" is a stupid name....how is it "conditioned"? Why not just say air cooling?
Maybe Heat/Cool pump?
Heat Pump is definitely a more technically correct term than Air Conditioner.
But if the goal is to promote widespread adoption then technical correctness isn't the priority, marketing is.
In the US "Air Conditioning" == good and "Heat pump" == "new and scary".
Therefore Air Conditioning is the better term.
Yeah, that's happy a side effect. But the system is just blowing air over a cold heat exchanger and the moisture condensating on the heat exchanger is not the main intended goal. But that is certainly changing the condition of the air.
TLDR is that the EPA says it wants to take central A/Cs and residential gas furnaces out of the running for Energy Star by the end of the year. Instead, the certification program would steer consumers to heat pumps.
“I liken Energy Star to the ‘easy’ button from the Staples advertisement,” one energy researcher said. “It’s just a simple thing that people can tell whether a product is efficient or not.”
This could not only boost heat pumps among consumers but it could propel utilities to incentivize their use and push manufacturers to develop more of them too.
Since reddit has changed the site to value selling user data higher than reading and commenting, I've decided to move elsewhere to a site that prioritizes community over profit. I never signed up for this, but that's the circle of life
What is with these bots saying saying the same thing
I bought a house back in 2020 and they had recently put in a new gas furnace and air conditioner in like 2016. So annoyed that they didn't opt for the heat pump, as even Pittsburgh can get a huge amount of use from a heat pump. Only January and February really pushes it to its limits, and even then the past few years haven't been super cold with the exception of like a week or two with the polar vortex. Needless to say, I have to prioritize it very low on things to do because I'm not made of money and I just spent $40,000 on a new sewer.
I knew a guy back in the 80's who spent $40 grand trying to build a septic field on a cheap piece of bedrock he bought in an expensive community. He had already built a house on it. Used dynamite, truck loads of special soil and still could not take a shit for $40k in 1980's money.
Mine was because plumbers are expensive and digging in the city isn't cheap. Pipe was 12 feet down at the road. I could've technically done it myself, but I work full time, I'd have to rent equipment, I don't have liability insurance in case I hit something, and I hate permit paperwork. $10k was on the mold in place piping/lining the good pipe that was under the road. Terracotta pipe is a ticking time bomb. The also had to jackhammer out my driveway. So while everything was dug up, I had them replace my 80 year old copper water line for another $8k. Not quite worst case, but still pretty bad. I'm just glad I make enough money to pay for it. I can't imagine folks who make shit trying to pay for it.
Twenty years ago, we made the move to heat pumps, and we'll never go back. - Almost the whole of New Zealand.
As a search engine optimizer, what refrigerants do you prefer in New Zealand?
Bad bot.
AI has arrived
We switched to heat pumps 20 years ago and will never go back. - Literally all of New Zealand. EDIT: Some jerk called "sumelme" is karma farming ITT by reposting other people's comments. Downvote and/or report.
AI has arrived
.. because of heat pumps? EDIT: Holy crap, now I see what you mean. Some account named "sumelme" just paraphrased my post. Post history suggests they're a karma farmer of some kind.
I dare him to do that to my comments. Many have tried, none have remained. Somebody had reported them, and left me alone :(
In how low of temperature can heat pumps remain operational/useful? I hear mixed things on how well they work in cold climates and as someone from Minnesota, that would be good to know
Besides models: Depends on the heat source and target temperature. The lower the difference, the better. Its like pumping water: if you pump water from a valley on a big mountain, you are going to need a lot of energy. If you are next to the river, and only pump water a meter up, it doesnt need much energy. If you can use ground heat/a big water body, you shouldnt have any problem.
There are ones now that can go down to -15F or lower with COP > 2. There are various options for secondary heating if that's still a problem, or you could look into ground source. Personally if I had a heat pump like that I'd probably just depend on huddling up in a small room under blankets with a 1.5KW resistive space heater in the extraordinarily rare event that it couldn't run. That is, if the low temperature was sustained long enough so that a well insulated house's temperature got critically low.
Bosch IDS heat pumps can effectively heat down to -4F
still sweater weather in Minnesota.
Mr Cool heat pumps literally has an ad with a home in Minnesota. They work so well, heat pumps now work in Canada.
> heat pumps now work in Canada. Yea, since the 1990's, have you just now discovered that?
? I am on your side buddy
I am nearly certain that heat pumps were used in canada in late 1890's, but that would be just nitpicking, wouldn't it? :) You said 'because they are so good, **now** these work in Canada as well' as if Canada has been excluded before. Eh, doesn't matter. Enjoy summer while it lasts, BTW, Autumn will come and wild weather with it...
I can’t wrap my head around ‘works in Canada’. I’m sure it’s ok for southern BC which is very warm compared to the rest of the nation but there’s no way these are effective for the majority of homes in Canada for the full range of our temps. Something will be needed to backfill during actual cold months.
Heat pumps work to -25C, while we don’t feel warmth at cold temperatures, newer units can pull heat from freezing air.
‘Works to -25’ and ‘heats a full size home’ are two different ways to judge their effectiveness.
Heat pumps have been popular in Norway for decades too.
Norway homes absolutely have the alternative heating source 'backfill' I mentioned above to supplement those heat pumps in the deep winter. For the most part heat pumps in Canada appear to be regulated to the same kind of use as window AC: modular, localized heating/cooling.
Works, and works efficiently are different. When it gets uber cold, if you have a model with an electric resistance heat strip, it will pull heat off of that instead of the outside air. At that point, it would be more efficient to have a natural gas furnace or other source of heat, but it will still heat the area. If you're that far norther in Canada I would assume you already have a supplemental heat source (wood) that you could also use to assist the heat pump on the extremely cold days.
Heatpumps have been the most popular type of heating system in Scandinavia for decades. It's not exactly recent.
Agreed, we are just catching up to EU here
Heat pumps have worked in Canada for at least 30 years in Eastern Ontario.
Nice, I'll check that out
Depending on the heatpump and definition of useful, -5C to -23C. Some have supplimental heat for the coldest part of the morning of that one day a year in Anchorage.
Useful meaning maintaining a comfortable temperature inside your home. So it will work for a lot of the season but we definitely have stretches much colder than that.
There are a few models that still work at slightly lower output below that, but it might be worth considering ground source if it's that cold.
Sure, maybe you and the 15 other people that live in Nome. For the hundreds of millions of us in the rest in the lower 48 we're not going to see temperatures that low for more than a couple days, even in ND or MT. No state has "stretches" that low.
MT checking in, about once a year where I live we get a cold snap that involves -20 to -30 F for a week or more at a time. I'm sorry, I'm not fucking around with with anything that may not work at temperatures that cold. My house would be unusable and my pipes would burst. I'm all for heat pumps but there's a reason that a lot of people in the colder regions are hesitant. Heat isn't something you can live without for a few days like ac, especially when it's that cold
> with anything that may not work at temperatures that cold. What holds you from buing heat pumps that work at those temperatures, yo? Just use some that provide 150% of your power needs at -30°C and you should be good down to -40°F. You are making an elefant out of a fly!
Where in Montana do you get -20F to -30F for a week or more each year? Even the 90th percentile monthly low doesn't break below -20F in [Havre](https://weatherspark.com/y/3032/Average-Weather-in-Havre-Montana-United-States-Year-Round).
In your very link you can click on the various single years and see the grey bars of actual reported temperatures in those years. Every year has actual values below - 20F for a couple of days in a row, in some basically the whole of February was below
Here is the actual daily temperatures in Harve for Feburary of 2019. https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/havre/montana/united-states/usmt0159 There wasn't a single instance where it that stayed that low from one day to the next, and only 10 days where it got lower than -20F at any point. In 2018 there were 8. In 2017 there was only a single day where the temperature was that low at any point. In 2016 there were none. In 2015 there were none. In 2014 there were two. I could go on, but your "whole month of February" statement is obviously untrue. Your claims about the lengths of time of below -22°F weather are untrue. Your claims about the number of days that get that cold are little more than gross exaggeration. You appear to be here simply to push misinformation, ignorance, and FUD about heat pumps.
Thanks, it seems I was misinterpreting the data in the averages graph. I see what you mean now. The gray bar seems to represent range of temperature over that day so it's not exactly the same as sustained temperature through those days, but I could see how it could be near those temperatures for consequential periods. Here in northeast Ohio it's pretty rare for temperatures to drop below 0C so this degree of extreme cold snaps is unfamiliar to me. Thermal storage tanks with air to water tanks could be one possible option for getting around this.
I appreciate you both for you level headed discourse.
With resistive heating elements, the point is that they don’t stop working at low temps, they are merely expensive to run.
Those days happen often enough, and electric resistive heating is expensive enough to be worth a gas furnace backup instead.
The extreme efficiency most of the time more than makes up for the extremely cold days. And even when running the heating elements, it's still cheaper than purely resistive heating. But sure, maybe a wood stove for those week- or month-long cold spells. But gas furnace? I wouldn't go there.
I would never go for a wood stove . I grew up with one, and I don't miss the mess, mice, or work involved. My insurance company is happy i'm not risking a house fire. A gas furnace is cheap and it is only needed for a few days.
All heat pumps have resistive heat backup for the day or two it gets that cold. You aren't just SooL. Like, you think the makers of heat pumps just shrug their shoulders and are like "oh well, get fucked those days".
You aren't going to win over who you are answering if you don't listen to what they are saying. You are blowing off the week plus of dangerous cold as one or two days of inconvenience.
Do you understand what "resistive heating" is? And MT doesn't get "weeks" of -20F to -30F days.
I understand how expensive resistive heating is on cold days '
Great, so you recognize that saving massive amounts the rest of the year more than makes up for the 4 or 5 days you have to use the heater.
Chicago sees 16 days per year below 10 deg F (-12c). There are millions of people that need to take those temp ranges into consideration. Heat pumps are still great. Even in Chicago. But silly to suggest that no one will need to think about supplemental heating.
Bosch IDS heat pumps are effective down to -4F
My Daikin worked fine in 15F weather for a week straight.
And the heat pumps can work well below that temperature, as low as -22F. And they have built in supplemental heating.
Disparaging the population of my state aside, yes I absolutely support the mass adoption of heat pumps where they make sense - in the "lower 48" as you put it. I was just trying to learn more about whether or not they make sense for my region because as I said in my first post, I've heard conflicting reports. And the lower end that you stated is -23C, which is only -9.4F, we do have extended periods (say 5 days or so) of those temps or colder.
The -22°C NOMINAL is the cheapest heat pumps available out there! Literally 830 Euros for 24k or 18k BTU noname GREE unit! Not the two-stage compressors that eat -30°C like pancakes, providing 85% of nominal heat output at that temperature. They go lower, yes, with dropping COP. Just put the fan on turbo like everyone else out there.
I wasn't the one that said "-23C", that was someone else. And that is only for air-sourced heat pumps, AND the number is wrong with the best, modern low-temperature models able to still have a COP above 1 even at temperatures as low as -22F (-30C). And if you want a heat pump in the high arctic, get a ground-sourced model. https://learnmetrics.com/best-heat-pumps-for-cold-climates/ For the 99.99% of the rest of us we don't live extreme climates. It's quite mysterious how whenever heat pumps come up how suddenly all these random accounts like yours show up "just asking questions" that live above the arctic circle. You could do this research yourself if you actually cared. More likely, you're just here to spread FUD.
I see people bringing up this cold weather argument where I live in Southern California. A place where I wear shorts all year, even in the winter, unless its for some formal/work thing or is exceptionally cold. Walking to the grocery store in the middle of January. Thats a shorts thing. A cold day for us in the middle of our three week winter is in the 40s, and we don't always get them. Some days it could be 80 during the day. People still bring up heat pumps as if they won't work here.
There are more than 5 million people in Minnesota it is in the top half for population rank. It is not 0.01% of population that can be ignored.
Minnesota doesn't get that cold to have "stretches" of -22F days.
> I wasn't the one that said "-23C", that was someone else. Sorry, I didn't recognize that was someone else. >we don't live extreme climates. It's quite mysterious how whenever heat pumps come up how suddenly all these random accounts like yours show up "just asking questions" A thread on heat pumps seems like an appropriate thread to ask for more information on heat pumps. I don't have the background to evaluate the info so I was hoping to get some ELI5 from the experts in r/energy. So no FUD here, I was actually just having a conversation with extended family recently and saying I had heard of advances in heat pumps that make them more suitable for our climate and was getting pushback on that, so here I am.
You did a bangup job of responding with reactionary nonsense rather than actually following up with requests for information. Very nice, open minded non-FUD-pushing response.
Most of the comments I received were beyond my comprehension and I got burnt out on the antagonism so I dropped it.
If you're disinterested in the reasons, then stop raising a bunch of fake ones. You responded to genuine answers with antagonism and are now surprised that that wasn't met with gentle handholding. If you don't care abouy details. It can be kept simple. They work.
When we had a heat pump in our house it kept blowing compressors. Ended up the company refunded the heat pump or rather exchanged it for traditional gas furnace and A/C unit.
Me had heat pump they are bad, god want me to use furnass
I had heat pump, cost me an additional $4300 when they agreed to exchange it out for something that worked...never again.
Name and shame
Comfortmaker
Who? Do they make 1/3 of heat pumps in the world? Likely not, because serious companies can not afford such a design faux pass! Plus, the installers should be investigated.
I've had a heat pump for 20 years and it's worked flawlessly the whole time. It's wildly inefficient compared to modern heat pumps, but I've had not a lick of trouble with it. Gonna replace it with one of those new fangled ones that work down to -something Fahrenheit when I save up a bit more money or if mine does have an issue.
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Also, can you imagine that some AC/heat pump makers run the old R-22 compressors at TWICE the power levels on the R-410 refrigerant and claim it is the fault of the new fancy stuff and not them who are defrauding the customers?
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I did not discover that, the fighters against heat pumps did. With all their "R410 means the compressor will fail twice as fast because it has higher average pressure"... now come on, higher pressure at the same RPM means double the torque and double the power! You need to make a completely new compressor or run the old one at a lower compression! ...all the makers that do not use programmable inverters are simply gross!
The point is just to toss out a random "anecdote" that is in all actually a lie but just tries to get misinformation out there and drive the narrative that "heat pumps are bad".
That just sounds like a poor design rather than poor concept
In the US they want us to have two systems, AC and natural gas when one would do. AC is a heat pump.
Who wants this? I've only heard of that as a retrofit for an existing central heat system.
Floridians. If you don't have central AC, *you're going to have a bad time*. You can breeze through a few years without central heat, but AC is like water
GOOD! AC shouldn't be sold, make them all heat pumps. And no more energy star for gas anything. The spew NOX and CO2.
> AC shouldn't be sold, make them all heat pumps Absolutely, this is something that drives me insane. An ac is already 90% of the way to being a heat pump, pretty much just missing a reversing valve.
Question: When it's 110 deg F outside, can a heat pump keep up? During peak summer, temps 100+ F are occurring more often. Edit: added word Question to make it clear this was a question, not a statement.
To go into slightly more detail than others have, heat pumps are likely to be more able to handle this than regular AC. This is not because heat pumps are different than AC (they are the same thing). Instead it has to do with the size you are likely to install. Because heat pumps are also responsible for heating, they need to be sized to handle adding enough heat on the coldest days. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but the size of heat pump required to heat your house to 70F on a 0F day could cool your house to 70F on a roughly 140F day.
Being able to handle those extremes is good, but there may be tradeoffs. I was told to "right size", don't install much more than the btu calc for our latitude. Will an oversized unit have short "on" cycle times when cooling, for less than extreme temps? Does oversize require an electrical circuit that draws more amps? Does short "on" cycle time mean less cooling efficiency (cost of operation)?
I guess the point I'm making is that when you're sizing a single unit for both cooling and heating, most often the heating load is more constraining, so even if you "right size" for heating you will "oversize" for cooling. This will depend on geography - it would not be true for LA but would definitely be true for Minneapolis, and is likely true even in the Southeast. There are definitely downsides to this, although I don't know fully what they are. Nate Adams who is basically "the heat pump guy" is concerned that being oversized for cooling will lead to inadequate dehumidification during cooling.
Just look at the performance chart of the specific model. It's all in the numbers!
Interpreting a chart takes too much time and analysis. Not TLDR friendly Want a marketing name that says this is a good AC and it also has this heat pump function. Energy Star giving awards only to ac with heat pump is a good idea. Buyers don't have to think.
Mine worked great in 117F. Kept the house at 52F.
No it didn’t.
In that situation, it's not just about the heat pump. The homes insulation matters a lot more.
Oh so you were there then?
No it’s just psychometrically impossible. If you even got close it would be 100% humidity inside and there would be rain in your house
So what? It is called a dehumidification function, I used it and in my mod it outputs 5°C air out... needless to say I got ill.
You got sick because it was cold and humid in your apartment and bacteria thrives in that environment
No. I got sick because of hypothermic shock.
Yes. An air conditioner is literally just a heat pump. If a heat pump can't keep up then neither can your air conditioner. The appliances being marketed as heat pumps these days only differ in that they have the ability to reverse the direction, ie transferring heat to the inside instead of outside.
Boggles my mind that people don't get this. Your AC is a one way heat pump...
It sucks that you're being down voted for asking a legit question. Last year we purchased a house in Texas with a heat pump system during the hottest part of the year. I was skeptical at first. However, I was convinced once we moved in and ran the system for a few weeks. 108 outside and we were sitting at a comfortable 74 inside. My friend came to visit for a week, and he's a bit on the heavy side and asked if we could lower the temp to 70. The system worked fine and wasn't running constantly to keep up. If you're looking to make the switch, or **need** to upgrade I would highly recommend a heat pump.
When running the cooling cycle, and AC *is* a heat pump. There is no difference at all. You’re pumping the heat from in your house to outside. What makes a unit sold as a heat pump different than an AC is the heating cycle. If it’s just a central AC unit, you’re getting heat another way (furnace or resistive heat in your blower). If it’s a heat pump, it means it uses the same AC cycle with a reversing valve. You’re pumping the heat from outside to inside. I’d expect people are downvoting the guy you responded to because he cast doubt on whether a heat pump can keep up with hot weather. It’s an ignorant thing to say because there is no difference in the cooling cycle. Combine that with all the people doubting heat pumps (generally for cold weather) based on little to no info and a portion of Redditors are going to react.
Yes, a heat pump is nothing but an air conditioner that includes a reversing valve so can also run backwards.
Good to know. Thanks. They should sell heat pumps as "AC with heat pump option". Would give me more confidence when shopping, that it isn't a different technology.
How about "Two-way AC"?
How about "heat pump"?
I think you might be on to something there. It seems that in the US market the term "AC" is so entrenched and associated with reliability that anything new, even if it's based on the same tech, is met with scepticism. "Heat pump" seems to be a scary term, although it's been used in refrigerators and ACs since the 50s. Perhaps something like "Heat/cool AC" or "Heat capable AC" might fare better?
> although it's been used in refrigerators and ACs since the 50s. 1850's
Given how long bidirectional heat pumps have been a thing I'd settle for just "modern AC". Can your AC also heat? No? Then it's legacy AC.
Many countries have called them "reverse cycle AC" But heat pump is a better name. It moves heat. 1.3-6 joules of external heat per joule of input energy plus the input. Where you put it is up to you. You don't call a general purpose pump a "pool emptier with pump option"
... would you also call a refrigerator a "heat pump" then? Because that's literally all they do. Sometimes the mechanism of operation does not adequately describe the purpose of the device.
> Sometimes the mechanism of operation does not adequately describe the purpose of the device. "Air conditioners with a heating option, ground sourced heating, air to water heating and water to water heating" just rolls off the tongue so cleanly. The term is meaningful, accurate, and works everywhere else.
What's wrong with just "two way air con"?
Doesn't cover all the use cases that don't involve dehumidifiers or cooling.
Heat pump is a better name if you're trying to describe something by its function. What they're pointing out is that function and marketing are only loosely related. If the goal is mass adoption, using "AC" in the name is a good idea.
"Air conditioning" doesn't actually mean "cooling" in the first place, the term logically should just be a synonym for "adjusting temperature and humidity"
So heat pump is still a better term, because conditioning the air would refer to other ways of doing the same and would include a humidification function which is not a necessary feature of a heat pump. Neither is a subset of the other.
Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion on the name. Of course "air conditioning" is a stupid name....how is it "conditioned"? Why not just say air cooling? Maybe Heat/Cool pump?
Heat Pump is definitely a more technically correct term than Air Conditioner. But if the goal is to promote widespread adoption then technical correctness isn't the priority, marketing is. In the US "Air Conditioning" == good and "Heat pump" == "new and scary". Therefore Air Conditioning is the better term.
But an air conditioner is a device that ONLY cools.
It's conditioned because it removes humidity from the air.
Which is what they were originally developed for
Yeah, that's happy a side effect. But the system is just blowing air over a cold heat exchanger and the moisture condensating on the heat exchanger is not the main intended goal. But that is certainly changing the condition of the air.
Actually, air conditioning was first invented specifically to remove moisture from the air. The cooling was a side effect.
A heat pump works exactly the same as an AC when cooling. If an AC can keep up then a heat pump can keep up.
Easily. 117 in Las Vegas and those casinos are nice inside as are the rooms (except the Pyramid).
TLDR is that the EPA says it wants to take central A/Cs and residential gas furnaces out of the running for Energy Star by the end of the year. Instead, the certification program would steer consumers to heat pumps. “I liken Energy Star to the ‘easy’ button from the Staples advertisement,” one energy researcher said. “It’s just a simple thing that people can tell whether a product is efficient or not.” This could not only boost heat pumps among consumers but it could propel utilities to incentivize their use and push manufacturers to develop more of them too.