Heat Pump oh Heat Pump
We recently installed an air to air heat pump for our home, and wow - what a difference.
Natural gas is not available where we live, so our home has been heated for a number of years by a combined electric / wood furnace. The wood provided wonderful heat through the ducts when we used it, but was a bit labourious at times to feed it. I am well aware that air to air heat pumps are much more efficient than virtually all other forms of heat, but I have to admit that I have been truly impressd and surprised at how much we are saving already.
I installed an energy monitor last year to see our energy consumption real-time (check out the project here) and noticed last winter that when the electic furnace kicked on we were running upwards of 20 kW at any given point in time (that is a lot!). Now with the heat pump we are down to about five or six kW...bottom line, this will translate into hundreds of dollars a year in savings!
Ok, so the heat pump was in the $10k to $15k range, BUT it will increase the value of our home, lower our energy bills substantially AND lower our carbon footprint by a few tonnes per year.
What more can we ask for?