If your home is like most in White Plains, MD, about 45% of its annual energy use results from heating and cooling. For that reason, anything you can do to improve your HVAC efficiency can have a significant impact on your household budget. If you’re looking for the ultimate HVAC efficiency upgrade, consider a heat pump. They provide high-efficiency heating and cooling from a single unit. Here’s everything you need to know about them and what makes them so efficient.
What Is a Heat Pump?
If you’re unfamiliar with heat pumps, they’re an all-electric heating and cooling system type that’s rapidly gaining in popularity. And although many people think they’re a new technology, they actually have a long history. You likely already own one or two types of heat pumps. One of them is your refrigerator. It collects heat energy from inside its sealed compartment and expels it into the surrounding air in your kitchen. The other type of heat pump you probably own is your air conditioner. It extracts heat energy from the air in your home and expels it outdoors.
At this point, you may be wondering why nobody calls an AC a heat pump. It’s because, in an HVAC context, a heat pump is a device that can operate bidirectionally. So, unlike an air conditioner, it can reverse the flow of its refrigerant to heat your home rather than cool it. To make that possible, a heat pump contains a reversing valve and some additional control circuitry. Otherwise, they’re mechanically similar to a central AC system.
How Efficient Are Heat Pumps?
To understand the efficiency of heat pumps, it helps to have something to compare them to. For starters, consider a gas furnace. They’re the most common type of heating system in US homes. A standard gas furnace operates at about 81% efficiency. That means about 19% of the heat they produce goes straight up the flue and out of your home. While that may sound inefficient, it still results in inexpensive heating because natural gas is relatively inexpensive. You can also purchase a high-efficiency gas furnace that operates at 95%-98.5% efficiency. For decades, that was the gold standard for efficient heat.
A heat pump, by contrast, can achieve energy efficiencies of up to 400% in the right conditions. That may sound impossible, but heat pumps can do it because they don’t actually generate heat. There’s no fuel consumed, as they instead rely on already existing heat energy in the outdoor air. So, the efficiency of a heat pump depends on the electricity it consumes to collect that heat. It’s worth noting, however, that heat pumps do become less efficient as outdoor temperatures drop. As a result, a standard heat pump will cost about the same to operate as a standard gas furnace at temperatures around 20°F.
How Do Heat Pumps Work?
Heat pumps rely on some clever science and exploit some basics of thermodynamics to function. They use the refrigeration cycle, just like an AC or refrigerator. That involves using a refrigerant, which serves as a working fluid that absorbs, carries, and releases heat. In heating mode, the refrigeration cycle begins with the refrigerant in a low-pressure liquid state. In that state, the refrigerant can reach -25°F. The refrigerant flows into a large heat exchanger in the heat pump’s outdoor unit, while a large fan draws outdoor air across it. That’s where the laws of thermodynamics come into play.
The second law of thermodynamics states, in part, that heat energy always flows from warm substances to cold ones. Even though the outdoor air feels cold to you, it still has ample heat energy. As long as you have a substance that starts colder than the air, you can tap into that heat supply. So, the refrigerant can easily extract heat from the air. Once it collects enough heat, it boils into a warm vapor. From there, it moves into the system’s compressor, which increases its pressure. That also increases the refrigerant’s temperature to between 90°F and 110°F. The heat pump sends the hot gaseous refrigerant indoors, where it reverses the process, releasing the heat into your home’s air.
How Much Can You Save With a Heat Pump?
The efficiency gains you’d achieve by switching to a heat pump are crystal clear. But what about operating costs? You already know that electricity is more expensive than natural gas. And in truth, that will reduce the operating cost savings of a heat pump versus a gas furnace. However, according to the Department of Energy, a heat pump can still save the average home about $300 each year on its heating and cooling costs. However, that number assumes you don’t take any steps to maximize your savings.
If you want to maximize your energy savings with a heat pump, you can make some strategic improvements to your home. The first thing to do is to invest in air sealing your home. Closing any gaps in your home’s air envelope can reduce energy waste from heating and cooling. Next, you can improve your home’s insulation. Most homeowners begin with attic insulation upgrades, since that’s the most vulnerable to energy losses. Your attic should have insulation with an R-value between 49 and 60 for the best results.
Another way you can maximize your savings is to invest in a cold-climate heat pump. Here in White Plains, our climate doesn’t make a cold-climate heat pump a necessity. We’re right on the border of some places that do, however. A cold-climate heat pump can retain far more of its efficiency at lower temperatures. For example, an ENERGY STAR-certified cold-climate heat pump will still run at 175% efficiency at -15°F. In our climate, that means your heat pump will always run at high efficiency all winter long.
Or, if you want the ultimate in heat pump efficiency and you have the space and budget, consider a geothermal heat pump. Those use a buried coolant loop that uses the ground itself as a heat reservoir. Those can operate at 400% to 600% efficiency in any weather for maximum year-round savings.
Your Local Heat Pump Specialist
Southern Pride Service has been the local leader in heat pumps in White Plains since 1993. Our HVAC technicians are experts in their field, with decades of combined experience. Plus, we’re a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor. That means we sell and install the most advanced heat pumps available today. We’re also a Water Furnace GeoPro Master Dealer. That means we’re among the small handful of geothermal experts in the area. And no matter what type of HVAC system you want, we can provide financing options on approved credit to help you afford it. Please feel free to read some of our customer reviews to see what your neighbors think of our work. And when you’re ready to upgrade to an efficient heat pump in your White Plains home, call Southern Pride Service immediately!
