I thought the push for heat pumps was just hype until my neighbor in Portland showed me his winter bill

He got a heat pump installed last October and his heating costs dropped by almost half compared to his old gas furnace. I was sure they wouldn't work well in our cold, damp winters, but he had data from the whole season. Seeing his actual numbers from November to March changed my mind completely. What other climate tech have people been surprised actually works?

3 comments

3 Comments

joseph_johnson2mo ago

My neighbor in Seattle went with a cold climate heat pump and it handled our winter down to about 15 degrees without any backup, which lines up with what adamellis was asking about. The new inverter driven models are a lot better than the old ones. I was also surprised by how well simple home battery systems work now, not just for outages but for shifting power use away from peak times. The tech for both has gotten good enough that the real world results are finally matching the promises.

king.zara1mo ago

Yeah the inverter tech is wild, I mean my cousin in Maine has one that just keeps going even when it's below zero outside.

adamellis2mo ago

That's a solid real world test. Did he mention if the heat pump needed a backup system for the very coldest days, or did it handle everything on its own?