New England and Alaska are about to deploy a lot more heat pumps | The EPA awarded these cold regions with a combined $488M to replace fossil-fueled heating with efficient electric heat pumps.

The EPA awarded these cold regions with a combined $488M to replace fossil-fueled heating with efficient electric heat pumps.

6 comments

This is great, living in MA I see a majority of houses relying on old oil heating systems. Just checking Zillow listings and seeing the big ugly black tank in the basement it's very common. Mini split systems with heat pumps have started popping up more, especially in these older houses where it's easier to install than trying to install duct work for a full sized HVAC system.
Will HVAC installers be trained on them, or will they continue to size them for AC load and as a result install systems that are unable to heat below 25F (-5C). The heat pump itself of course can provide heat down to -20F/-25C but it cannot provide enough heat for the climate and so you spend most of the year using the backup heating system (or your house is dangerously cold)
- What I recommend doing is finding an installer who is certified by the manufacturer; they tend to be trained to do it right.
  
  My installer was certified. It was installed right and works well - until the temperature gets to 25F and it just isn't large enough to keep up. This is a sales problem and a larger unit would be more expensive so they didn't offer it to me.

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