• ikidd@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Finally, someone that knows what the fuck they’re talking about. Heat pumps are fine in a lot of the world, but when you have to put a furnace in anyway because a heat pump can’t deal with actual cold winters, you might as well just have the furnace.

    • Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Yep, in Sask right now natural gas is about 1/7 the cost of electricity, which means at best a heat pump only costs about 2x as much to run as a modern gas furnace. Maybe as our grid transitions to renewables and carbon prices rise those costs will become even or shift towards benefiting heat pumps, but I suspect at this point you’re not going to hit break even over the typical life of a heat pump. Much more affordable to stick with gas for now, and maybe start moving to heat pumps 10 years from now. Same argument for water heaters, gas is going to be cheaper than a heat pump for most cases. Maybe new builds lean towards a heat pump because it doesn’t need venting which minimizes HVAC needs, and/or if a person has a solar system that minimizes their electricity costs.