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IncreasePoststoday at 2:45 AM3 repliesview on HN

Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient and just plain better these days too. It used to be that if the air was below 40F you couldn't heat your house with a heat pump. Now, you can heat your house even when it's -10F


Replies

SR2Ztoday at 3:15 AM

If you can tolerate the price, I am _confident_ that you will pretty much always have better results using the Earth as your thermal exhaust, because you don't have to dig very far to find a large region that's pretty much always at 50 F.

wood_spirittoday at 6:01 AM

The downvotes are unfair.

The price of things - heat pumps and alternatives - in different regions - even different regions within the US - varies by what people are prepared to pay not what they cost to produce.

The nordics have traditionally had cheap heat pumps whereas piped gas is only in the biggest cities and I’ve never seen bottled gas in the countryside. The competitor used to be cheap electricity and wood. Ground source heat pumps for rural install have been priced to compete with wood.

In the US the market could be shaped by regulation and taxation etc. It’s the choice of the US to have cheap fossil fuels and not embrace tech instead.

hvb2today at 6:37 AM

> Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient

Citation needed?

Efficient how? I'm sure a heat pump designed for a narrow range of input temperatures AND working with water which can transport a lot more heat should easily be more efficient.

https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/compare-air-source-geo... Seems to disagree

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