Snowy560

Hi our district is giving rebates for heat pump installation. We attended a webinar recently.
Has anyone installed them?
Are they worth it?

Thank you!

BristolUK

Our house already had one when we moved in so all the duct work was already in place. Very good for heating and air conditioning is a bonus.
When it packed up - it was fairly old - we had no hesitation in having a new one installed.
Contrary to what dbd will tell you they are extremely quiet.

If you don't already have ducts and vents in place ductless mini-splits might be worth it.

Hawkmoon77

We had one installed. Quiet, efficient and as BristolUK mentioned, you have the bonus of an aircon in summer

scrubbedexpat091

Apartment has one for heat and air con, works well, and it's quiet, I can never tell when its running, even the outdoor part is near silent. Ours is a mini split variety however.

scilly

The only experience I've had is when friends built a house on Vancouver Island back around 1999/2000, then installed a heat pump some years later.

They had a lot of trouble getting it to work correctly, and the installer/repairmen were always coming back. I know at one point they were regretting having it installed, but then they stopped talking about it!

The wife sold the house in 2014 after her husband died so I have no idea how it is performing now.

MillieF

We had ours installed a year ago and it is ‘bloody brilliant’. We have one in our basement and one on our main floor. For the top floor they aren’t practical because they are enclosed bedrooms, so my son has a plug in radiator which makes his room like a Turkish Bazaar and l’m married to a man who likes life chilly. Before that we had an oil tank and we were spending LOTS.

This year winter has been strange, and not really cold but last winter there were a couple of days in February when we had to augment it a bit but otherwise it was marvellous. Certainly having the AC in summer was a great boon Ours isn’t noisy, it’s a low voiced friend!

printer

Some things to consider with have a heat pump rather than a gas furnace is that they cannot supply heat when the temperatures are too cold so always need a back up like an electric element or gas burner inside the unit. Of course most of the time in BC its not an issue. Others complain electricity costs are higher with heat pumps as gas is still relatively cheap. Many new homes went "all geo thermal" a while back when it seemed a great idea but i noticed recently that when they started expending a local sub division that was originally all geo the latest homes have standard high efficiency gas furnaces installed, again people complained of high maintenance costs and high electricity bills.

scrubbedexpat091

Never had gas so cannot compared, but I can say a heat pump saves a good chunk of electricity and thus money compared to baseboard heaters which is still the most common way in BC to heat apartments and condos and provides a nicer more comfortable heat.

scilly

We have blown air heating from a gas furnace and gas hot water heating, plus electric baseboard heating in 3 rooms we added back in the 1970s when it would have been too expensive to extend the piping necessary for blown air.

It works well for us, the electricity is not too expensive because we only heat the rooms if they are actually in use. Natural gas costs are not high .

Tangram

We have an electric furnace and ducting already in place. I was wondering about installing a heat pump to the existing ducting and wondered what the approx cost would be.

Maybe best contacting various companies

MillieF I know yours is slightly different as it sounds like yours are mini splits, who did you use ?

BristolUK

When the one that came with the house packed up, we replaced furnace and heat pump. I'm never quite sure of the right words so I talk about the furnace and outside unit

The new furnace was a step up and needed additional/different electrical work. It was about $8000 all in, using existing ductwork

Our first estimate (different company) was $8500 before tax and with as yet unidentified cost of some replacement ducting - but no mention of the electrical changes that were apparently dangerous if not done.

That second estimate was cheaper, safer and no need to change ducting.

2012 I think.

christmasoompa

Obviously I can't give a perspective from a Canadian point of view, but just in general we have both ground source heat pumps (for our house) and an air source heat pump (for an annexe in the garden). Both work brilliantly, even in the house which is several hundred years old and listed so can't have double glazing etc. We have them with underfloor heating throughout and they've more than paid for themselves as we get a fairly hefty payment every 3 months from the UK government for installing them. We're not on mains gas so for us it was a no brainer.

Atlantic Xpat

I have a mini-split to heat a detached, insulated 30x24 garage. It's been brilliant, keeping the garage as a T shirt environment in temps down to minus teens. It's also the only part of my property that's air conditioned in summer! Electriciity impact maybe $20-30 month.

Minisplits are becoming very popular here as lots of houses were built with electric radiation heating which is hugely expensive to run. Mini-splits can be added easily without need for ductwork but are rather unsightly and only useful for heating the room they are in. So they work better in open plan environments. Perversely, the government owned energy utility has been providing rebates for their installation to reduce electricity use which is required because our rates will increase because of the ill judged and poorly executed hydro project we've been saddled with. The perverse part is the govt actually needs more electricity use to spread the cost over more users/use.

scrubbedexpat091

I guess its a money thing for developers but man would it be nice if mini splits would become the norm in condos and apartments in BC in general and not just the southern interior. Even in Vancouver if your unit is facing east or south condos/apartments become ovens even if the outdoor temp is fairly reasonable, portable air con units sell like hotcakes in Vancouver in spring and summer but not nearly as efficient as a mini split would providing both heating and cooling win win.

Snowy560

Very helpful discussion everyone!

So usually is it a huge disruptive job to get them installed?

I guess it depends...