BristolUK

Take out old furnace, take away old outside unit, extra wiring to circuit breaker, instal new furnace and new outside unit (standing on paving slabs) and new thermostat. Just a few hours on one day.
(No ductwork needed as already there)

Easy peasy. For the workmen

Teaandtoday5

i’m confused, I thought they were underground?

BristolUK

Those are the geothermal ones.

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/h...mal-heat-pumps

Teaandtoday5

so yours gets heat from the air? In winter?

BristolUK

Yes. Takes cold air in and heats it, doing the reverse for AC.

Teaandtoday5

ok. I am going to have to read some stuff about this, because nothing about that is making sense to me. I am not disagreeing with you, but I vaguely understand the concept of underground being hotter, but outside?

scrubbedexpat091

This guy explains it a bit.

"During the winter: The refrigerant absorbs heat from the air outside and uses it to warm your home. Believe it or not, outside air contains a certain amount of heat even in cold temperatures. In fact, most heat pumps can efficiently absorb heat from the air outside down to as cold as 20F degrees or lower!"

JGK

The house I had in Quebec had one. At that time, you got 40% off the hydro bill If you had it combined with a service plan. As has been said previously they work down to about -15C then a switch is tripped to used your furnace for heating. In summer it can run in reverse to remove heat from the house.

It will depend on how many sub -15 winter days you get where you are as to whether it's worth it.

scrubbedexpat091

Snowy560

We got them installed. A ductless system because we have baseboards which we're now not using. Heats up the house quickly! Can't say about the Summer as we only had it done in October.

Tangram

We had a 14 year old electric furnace, no heat pump. We already had the ducting in the house and the furnace was forced air.

Last month we had a new furnace and new heat pump installed. Just waiting on the $6500 rebate ( $1500 already received, waiting on Federal ). So far very satisfied.