As the weather begins to cool off, many homeowners are taking the opportunity to reduce their energy bills this winter by replacing their existing residential heating systems with a new energy efficient heat pump. The efficiency of a heat pump stems from the fact that instead of creating heat from electricity or by burning fuel, a heat pump moves heat from outside your home to inside your home.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but a heat pump can extract heat from outdoor air temperatures that are below freezing and use that heat to warm your home. The biggest concern about heat pumps is that the colder the outdoor air temperature, the harder the heat pump has to work to maintain a comfortable temperature inside your home. As temperatures drop below freezing, a heat pump can struggle to keep up with the demand for warm air.
Heat pumps can be equipped with supplemental electric heating to provide a heating boos in very cold weather, but these electric heating strips use a lot of electricity. The heat pump loses its cost saving advantage if the supplemental electric heating strips are called into action too often. For this reason, heat pumps used for the sole heating source make the most sense in climates where the temperature only occasionally drops below freezing, but heat pumps can still serve an important role in colder climates.
Many homeowners in colder climates combine a heat pump with a traditional furnace. The heat pump is used for home heating in milder weather and operates as a central air conditioner in the summer months. When temperatures drop below freezing, the home heating role is handed off to the traditional furnace. These systems maximize the efficiency of a heat pump without sacrificing cold weather comfort.
