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Does anyone here have experience with heat pumps? I'm on oil heat and needless to say, shit's gotten ridiculously pricy lately. I feel like I should be able to switch over to something cheaper and break even within like a year or less, because of how much I expect to spend on oil this winter.
Most local people in my very progressive corner of the world keep talking up heat pumps like they're the best thing since the invention of the chimney. I find this suspect myself. I've never heard of this technology before really recently, and I'm only hearing about it from people who are really into green energy. And it sounds too good to be true. It heats and cools for less money than any alternatives, supposedly. But I really know close to nothing about them.
My culture war shenanigans sense is tingling, so I wanted to find out if anyone here, a place I trust has not drank the green progressive Kool aid, has experiences with or knowledge about heat pumps. I guess I just don't trust the people I'm hearing from, I think they're willing to stretch the truth for what they think is the greater good. Are they worth it financially? Do they work well without tons of annoying maintenance? What about if your state offers financial incentives for moving to heat pumps, are they worth it then?
What a difference geography makes.
In my part of the world, I've never seen a home without a heat pump. My childhood home in the 80's had one. In the 80's it fucking sucked. My dad cursed it every winter when it would struggle to get the house above 60 degrees. Thing was probably struggling greatly, and way past it's lifespan in the late 90's when I have the clearest memories of it's horribleness.
These days they're pretty sweet. Every unit I've ever rented had one. Even units which had natural gas for stoves. The home I bought has one, that the HVAC guys who service it tell me is pretty good. When it gets below freezing it kicks on auxiliary electric heat which spikes my power bill something fierce. But outside of a few prolonged cold snaps in January through March, I can't really complain.
In fact, there are hookups in my basement for when the house used to have gas heating. At some point that got torn out and replaced with the current heat pump system.
There are downsides to the heatpump. We were investigating getting some form of backup power, and the amps required to start a heat pump can be a challenge for most generator or battery systems. You basically need to invest in special, low start versions of that equipment if that is ever a thing you have in mind.
Wow. What part of the world are you in?
One problem here is that if you want to get the full state subsidies, you cannot have a backup gas or oil system. You need to be entirely on a heat pump system. So having a backup for the inevitable sub 0 days in January and February isn't an option, or at least not as enticing as an option.
Middle of the east coast, United States.
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