Heat pumps are hot. Selling like hotcakes, burning up the road, warming the hearts of consumers.
Before we advise you to run out and buy a heat pump, which uses the geothermal properties of the earth or water to warm your space or cool it, here are a few facts you might not have heard.
For one thing, heat pumps don’t respond to programmable thermostats the way conventional heating and cooling systems do. It’s fine to have a heat pump programmed to allow the temperature to rise a bit at night when it’s in air-conditioning mode. But when the system is being used for heat, it’s inefficient to set the thermostat lower at night because heat pumps have less excess capacity and they take longer to return to a normal temperature.
You can still use a programmable; just don’t have a large gap between daytime and nighttime (or occupied and non-occupied) hours.
There are programmables that work with heat pumps. They do this by ordering an increase in temperature in one-degree increments. Plus they allow enough time for the heat pump to respond to your unreasonable demands.
One model is the Lyric, which Honeywell says is compatible with most heat pump systems. The Lyric uses geofencing to automatically adjust the heat when the owner’s smart phone gets within a certain range. Pretty clever, but then you expect some cleverness from a programmable, right?
Another thing you might not know about heat pumps is that they are available in ductless versions. The no-duct heat pump system has been used for while in Europe but it’s just rolling ashore here in the USA.
One more thing: If your heat pump has a setting for emergency heat, this doesn’t mean you turn to that when the weather turns cold. The emergency setting bypasses the heat pump and uses an alternative source such as electric heat. In other words, emergency refers only to situations when the heat pump isn’t available. If you use it for supplemental heat on cold days, you’ll burn up all the energy bucks you saved by buying a heat pump and programmable thermostat.
Still interested in possibly buying a heat pump? Check out our comparison of models, features, pricing, etc. thermostat. [http://www.acdoctor.com/Heat-Pumps-p-1-c-63.html] And let us know if you find a good programmable that works with it!