Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Talk to me about home heating

My gas furnace is 20 years old and I'm replacing it before it takes a dump. I was just going to replace it with a new furnace,but a buddy mentioned a heat pump.

What are the pros/cons to a heat pump vs. a regular gas furnace?

He said the heat pump can also act as an A/C. While the NW doesn't get crazy hot all that often,it reached 105�+ in the Seattle area last week. It sure would have been sweet to have a bedroom that was 70� instead of damn near 100�.

A little more money, but consider a heat pump as your primary with the gas furnace as the backup. Use an outside thermostat to cut the gas furnace on when the temps drop below the efficiency range of the HP. Go for the highest SEER on the HP you can afford, at least a 14 but higher is better.

Heat pumps work well for heating in the spring and the fall for just taking the chill out of the air. It's basically an air conditioner that can be reversed. They become less efficient, and quit working altogether as it gets colder, so if it gets cold where you are, you still need a furnace, auxiliary electric, or something.

In the summer, it compresses the refrigerant in it's gas phase, heating it. The hot refrigerant is run through a heat exchanger that dumps the heat outside, which condenses the refrigerant to a liquid. The liquid is depressurized and run through another heat exchanger that adds heat to the refrigerant and the cold air is blown inside. This evaporates the refrigerant, and the cycle starts over again. For heating, the cold air goes outside, and the warm air goes inside.

The house we are in has a heat pump and I hate it. I'm sure that is due to the builder putting in the absolute bare minimum size wise though as well as some shoddy installation/insulation that I'm correcting now. The issue I have, as well as have heard from others with a heat pump is that it never really 'warms' the place up in winter. Yeah, it maintains the temperature, but doesn't fell the same warmth as I've felt with gas or wood fired houses.

When it comes time to build, there is going to be an outside wood burner with a recirculated hot water loop for the heating. I like cutting wood, and have friends that have bought/built systems like this, they claim their energy use during winter is next to nothing.

98 degrees here today in sunny southeast Kansas. How's that for "home heating"?

I suspect its like a lot of other things, a lot depends on where you are vs what you need most.

I don't think heat pumps generally work very good here in the four states.

We live south of Seattle, and had an oil heat diddy taken out of the 1920's house we purchased.... and a heat pump put in. At first I bitched about it...but it has proven to be a good investment. We rolled it into the mortgage, so it wouldn't hurt as much. We also replaced the windows(we did it ourselves)....and things have danced well.

Like you said, ya don't need AC here.....MOST of the time....but it sure was a perk to be able to use it when it hit 106 lst week. The critters were MOSTEST thankful, as was I!

Why can't we go back to the previous three weeks? Low to middle 80's, thats April weather, not the end of July. Guess we're paying for it now.

A friend with a heat pump says that one thing you never want to do is to turn it down below where you want the temperature to be. For instance, don't turn it down if you are going away for the weekend because it is very difficult to catch it back up to where you want it when you return.

We replaced the gas furnace a couple years ago that was about 15 years old and added air conditioning. The new furnace is much more efficient and we see that in the winter gas bills. It also has a constant low level circulation to keep temps even in the house all the time. The AC add on was cheaper than a heat pump and we have really enjoyed the cool house during the last couple weeks. Rather than a heat pump, ask your HVAC folks about an efficient gas furnace and adding air conditioning. Ward

Not too bad my friend. I mind the time, back in 1980, when it got to a hundred like 45 days in a row. Maybe not according to Pittsburg or Joplin, but according to the thermometer on our deck. Haying was not fun then. I was haying today and it wasn't too bad. Mowed some with the open station tractor and was wishing for the cabbed one, but it was tolerable. Five more degrees would have made it a lot worse! At least everything is pretty green up here where it is usually all brown by this time.

Ya do it when it's cold.

I really don't dwell on it much beyond that.