An air-source heat pump can be an efficient and comfortable source of heat for your home (and can work in reverse as an efficient cooling system), especially when they are combined with other features and upgrades that make the system even more efficient.
The problem is that air-source heat pumps do have a significant downside. Heat pumps don’t operate in as straightforward a fashion as furnaces, which simply burn fuel to heat the air. Instead of heating the air inside the home, heat pumps use refrigerant to extract heat energy from the outside air and transfer that heat into the home. This system provides an efficient method of heating as long as it’s able to draw enough heat from the outside air. When temperatures drop below a certain point, called the balance point, however, most heat pumps are no longer able to extract sufficient heat energy from the cold outside air. The poorly heated air can no longer keep the home comfortable.
When a heat pump reaches the balance point, it should switch to an auxiliary heating source. In most air-source heat pumps, this backup (or emergency, auxiliary or supplemental) heating is provided by an electric resistance heating element. However, the backup heating also may be provided by a gas furnace. The final decision on the superior auxiliary heating source for your heat pump likely will involve considerations of comparative fuel costs and the overall purchase price of the dual-fuel system (a term usually used to describe a heat pump combined with a furnace backup). In the past few years, with ramped-up domestic natural gas production, gas furnaces have become a cheaper alternative when it comes to home heating.
If you need more professional advice about auxiliary heating sources for your heat pump in the Lorain area, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about backup heating and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area