As we speak with homeowners looking to upgrade to a new heat pump in the Denver Metro area, there are many questions that come up about heat pumps.
There’s a lot of news and info out there now, whether it be about air quality, health, energy efficiency, electrification, rebates, whether a heat pump even works for your home, and more.
As someone trying to find real answers about heat pump tech and whether it makes sense for you and your own home, you’ll see opinions all over Reddit, Youtube, TikTok, other socials, and everywhere else.
The internet is flooded with info, and it may cause you to end up more confused than when you started. A whole other discussion could be had on the motivations of different powers that be as well.
But fear not! In this article I want to tackle a few of the big heat pump questions (and myths) that we hear often as it pertains to Colorado, and the Denver Metro specifically.
As we design and install only electrified heat pumps in Colorado, we’re definitely heat pump weeds daily. So here’s what’s true.
Let’s get into it!
Myth #1: Heat Pumps Don’t Work In Colorado’s Cold Climate.
Fact: Untrue.
If designed right and sized for your home correctly, heat pumps (whether ducted or ductless) work down to well under 0 Fahrenheit, with the best cold climate equipment working down to -15F or lower without issue with today’s technology.
I say designed right, because there are many factors that go into whether a certain heat pump will work well for your home. Some factors include:
- Does the equipment work down to those negative temperatures?
- Is it sized correctly using energy modeling, energy audit (building envelope) data, design fundamentals, and more?
- Is the ductwork (if ducted) sized appropriately for the new heat pump when you’re upgrading from the older A/C and furnace combo?
- Is each room in your home accounted for?
- Many more factors
Every home is different, and great care needs to be taken to ensure that the new system will keep you comfortable.
Myth #2: I Need a Gas Furnace or Dual Fuel Backup Because Heat Pumps Aren’t Strong Enough For My Home
Fact: Maybe, but likely untrue.
We regularly install electrified heat pumps without a gas furnace or any kind of gas backup in 3,000 to 4,000+ sq ft homes. It totally depends on the characteristics of the home itself.
Larger residential heat pumps with electric strip backup heat can comfortably heat and cool the home year-round if designed well for the home. It takes a good amount of time, testing, and engineering, and expertise up front, but we know it’s possible because we are doing this on a weekly basis for homeowners.
The bigger the home is, the more important air sealing and insulation factor in as well. It is totally possible for a 2,000 sq ft home to be incredibly leaky (air leakage) with little insulation and you’ll need a lot of backup heat (from any source).
Likewise, you can have an extremely air tight home with incredible insulation and maybe some passive solar design to boot, but it might only need a small heat pump with little to no backup.
You can see how it just depends! For the average home in the Denver Metro area however, it’s usually possible to design a very efficient heat pump that’ll do 97-99% of the year’s heating needs with very little heat backup needs.
Here’s a real example of a cold climate heat pump we installed in a good-sized home but only using a 2.5 ton heat pump. You can see this model calculating that the heat pump itself will work for 97.5% of the entire year, and just a little bit of backup hear during that other 2.5% of the time.
Backup heat can also be anything – heat strip backup (inside the new heat pump air handler), space heaters, wood pellet stoves, wood-burning fireplaces, gas fireplaces, propane heaters on Amazon, or whatever else you might want to use. Backup heat is also great to have in case of a power outage.
Myth #3: If I Switch to a 100% Electrified Heat Pump, My Utility Bills Will Skyrocket!
Fact: Maybe. But if designed correctly, false!
It’s totally true that you can install a heat pump that will increase your energy bills. In fact, we hear from customers all the time that other HVAC Contractors are telling them this during sales calls & home visits. It’s perplexing because these statements are often said without any testing, energy modeling the home, or designing for a heat pump yet.
It is true that we have pretty low natural gas rates in Colorado (right now anyway). And electricity is relatively low too compared to places like the northeast, western coast of the U.S., or Hawaii. The rates change often, but we’ve built some energy calculators that help model what might be true in terms of energy savings.
Going back to being designed correctly – If you model the heat pump to meet most (98-99%+) of your year’s heating and cooling needs, the cost of energy is not much different, and it can be less than your current utility also. We would need to see for your individual home and situation to be sure.
Myth #4: Cold Climate Heat Pumps Require A Lot of Maintenance
Fact: False
Think of a heat pump as an air conditioner that can also work in reverse. The refrigerant literally changes direction in the system in order to either heat or cool your home.
I paint that picture because a heat pump doesn’t require any more maintenance than your air conditioner. To keep maintenance low on any HVAC system:
- Keep an eye on your air filters and replace them when they get dirty. This helps the system’s airflow and keeps it free of restrictions, and it keeps the air you’re breathing clean too.
- Keep the outdoor condenser unit clean and free of debris both inside and out. Efficient heat pumps (and air conditioners) needs to be clean and able to breathe to work most efficiently!
- Ensure you pick a qualified, professional, and skilled installer in the first place. Studies show that 80-90% of heat pump issues arise from a poor install in the first place. This could save you thousands down the road of the next 15-20 years.
Wrapping It Up
There’s a lot more mythbusting to do! But to keep this article short for now, we’ll keep it to the big four myths above.
Do you have a big heat pump question you’re looking to solve? Feel free to contact us to ask us directly. We’ll try to add more to this article as we hear more myths and questions come up around town.
I hope this helps, and thank you for reading!
