A new generation of engineers has realized they can push heat pumps to the limit.
“These installers are reaching astounding levels of efficiency by taking extra care to design low-temperature heating systems that warm rooms without using excess energy.”
I’d at first really like to find a plumber that does not look at me as if I was an alien creeping out of mud when I tellem that if the central gas heater breaks down completely I want a heat pump. There’s really hard conservativism in that business here.
I live in a progressive state in the US and currently renovating a house. Holy crap they all fight me tooth and nail telling me what a horrible idea they are. Nothing but problems, always break, oh my goodness what if the power goes out, the grid cannot handle the load so don’t do it. These old timers need to go away.
oh my goodness what if the power goes out
…then your gas or oil heater doesn’t work, either…
Their point is use a small generator to power the gas heater where as a heat pump is ‘impossible’.I mention a whole house battery is in my 5 year plan to which they laugh and say your house will burn down. I don’t have the patience. I told them I’m an electrical engineer specialized in battery systems and to let me worry about the lithium fires. That shut him up fast.
During last winter gas heater servicing I told the plumber to set the unit to 50°C heating water output so I could check if the heaters would get warm enough with a heat pump. 1,5 hours of discussion about old buildings and heat pumps resulted till he complied.
It was just a test setup that could be reverted any time.
I ended up figuring out how to do mine myself with a Mr Cool kit when the furnace died due to the fact that every hvac guy believed a 4th gen heat pump would be useless in the northeast us. It gets down to about 0F here once or twice a winter and the heat pump starts struggling to keep up around those temps but it still does its job.
Whoa, that’s f* cold, but with your feedback I’m quite positive all this doomsday feedback I got can be ignored. Problem here is I’ll be respnsible for uninterrupted heat and warm water for my tenants, too, so doing these calculations alone, for myself, would not bother me. But there’s a ton of responsibility to care for the tenants, and I’d like a professional up for the challenge.