Reply to HVAC replacement - looking for advice from those who have BTDT

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you want to do a heat pump do dual fuel (gas furnace  plus heat pump). The heat pump will be more efficient than the furnace but it runs on electricity which is more expensive than natural gas. Also, it is hard to properly size a heat pump for our climate because the heating loads are larger than the cooling loads so if you size the heat pump for heating it will be oversized for cooling and cause humidity issues in the summer and won't be as efficient. It makes more sense to supplement with gas for heating (plus that is less difficult to install than a full heat pump conversion).

If you get a good heat pump you could be eligible for a $2k federal tax credit. Overall I think heat pumps are worth it if you use oil/propane heat because it will save you money on utilities. If you already have gas, it does offer the flexibility of toggling between electricity and gas in the winter, and the heat is less drying. But you probably won't save money especially if a basic furnace /ac works well for your home.

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No need to do a dual system in this region or really anywhere else - really not sure what the PP is talking about.

We have a pretty mild climate in this area in the winter, especially the last few years when we've barely had any extended stretches where the temps have stayed below freezing.

Heat pumps become less efficient the colder it gets but they still work just fine even in colder temps but they are particularly efficient in colder temps above freezing which is mostly what we have around here.

And the relative load language in the previous post makes no sense at all - I don't think it is even true but if it were the greater relative load in our local climate would be in the summer where it in fact can be miserably hot - it really is very rarely cold in this region.

FWIW we've had a heat pump for four years and it works great - it is hard to tell because there are a lot of variables (gas prices in DC vary year to year) but thus far it appears that our electric has gone up a bit more than our gas has gone done.

Which is worth it because if we are going to solve our global warming challenge we are going to have to stop using gas asap - we have shed 3 of the 5 things in our life that run on gas and are getting rid of the 4th in January and we get about 80% of the electricity that runs those replacements from our solar panels.[/quote]

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