Monday, April 22 was Earth Day and to celebrate, I had a heat pump installed. It wasn’t planned that way — I have been thinking about this for months and I finally pulled the trigger two weeks ago. The install was originally scheduled for Tuesday, April 23 but at the last minute I got a call from the installer to see if I could accommodate them on Monday instead. Serendipity.
My motivations for undertaking this project were varied. Our house had an electric furnace so I wasn’t burning fossil fuels for heat but electric furnaces that use resistive elements to generate heat, which is then blown through ductwork, are very expensive to operate. My January electric bill was $535. In December 2022, my bill was $616. Moving to a heat pump should cut my heating costs by at least 50% and up to as much as two-thirds. Using fairly conservative estimates for what portion of my bill actually goes to space heating vs. water heating and other uses — and assuming at least some use of backup resistive heating when temperatures drop below the “Balance Point” of my system — I am confident that the heat pump installation will save me around $1,000 per year.
If you are using natural gas to heat your home, your savings may be less. I don’t have good data to compare but while a lot of information online suggests that electric heating is much more expensive than natural gas, it is worth noting that most of those analyses do not account for the greater efficiency of heat pumps over resistive electric heating. Nor do they typically take account of the relative price of electricity in different regions or the volatility in natural gas pricing. Electric prices in Washington state are very low relative to many other parts of the country, which should give electricity a big advantage (or at least less of a penalty). This website provided by Efficiency Maine allows you to compare the relative cost of different heating solutions using data for your own situation.
Since almost all of the electricity that we use in Washington is generated from hydroelectric projects, the energy I use is clean. By reducing the amount of energy I consume, especially during peak demand periods, I also reduce the need for the PUD to buy additional power during those periods. That additional power isn’t necessarily as clean as the power that is generated locally, so there is an added environmental benefit from that.
Another motivation that was very compelling was the availability of rebates, discounts and credits that exist right now. With over $2,800 in discounts, $300 in rebates from the PUD and a Costco rebate of $2,390, the total cost of the unit, installed, was under $15,000 and that is before accounting for 2% member benefits from Costco plus another 2% for paying using my Costco credit card. And then there’s another $2,000 tax credit that I will get back off my 2024 taxes next year. The net result is that this unit will pay for itself in about 12 years and that’s without factoring in any increase in the cost of electricity over that period.
Some of those discounts were time limited and are no longer available but keep an eye out for new discounts that I suspect will emerge. Also, I did not qualify for all of the possible rebates and tax credits so it is worth looking into additional rebates and credits that may be available in your situation. The PUD offers a rebate of up to $1,800 (vs. the $300 that I received) if your home is more insulated and you can achieve a “balance point” of 30 F, which means that the heat pump you install can meet the demand of the home for heat when outdoor temperatures dip to 30 F without the need for any backup resistive heating. There are also additional rebates available for low- to moderate- income households through the federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act incentives program.
And of course, there’s the added benefit of having the option of air conditioning in the summer time, although that is unlikely to be used more than a couple of weeks out of the year. But it is nice to have it — just in case.
The actual install went very smoothly. A team arrived at my house around 8 a.m. One guy installed the new air handler while another installed the heat pump outside and a third did the electrical work. They were all done by 3:30 in the afternoon.
All in all, I am very pleased with the simplicity of this process and I look forward to having available air conditioning this summer and substantially lower electricity bills next winter.
If you would like to learn more about this, SnoPUD is hosting an energy block party in Everett on Saturday, April 27 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
There is also great information online at Rewiring America. Some of the best links include:
Personal Electrification Planner
— By Niall McShane
Edmonds resident Niall McShane is a member of the City of Edmonds Mayors Climate Protection Committee.
Just make sure you install a quiet one. They vary a lot. There should be an additional noise limit like there are in England of 42db at the property line. The 45 db. limit in Edmonds falls short of reasonable.
Cam, I don’t have a decibel meter but the unit runs very quietly.
There is a free sound level app at: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/app.html
It only works with iOS devices however.
Definitely not all heat pumps are created equal. Sadly our neighbor’s heat pump has completely ruined our back yard experience, but it’s just within legal noise limits in Edmonds. It has a duty cycle in cooler months of about ten minutes on, 2 minutes off ending with a loud clack . Summer air condition mode is just as irritating. It is only a year or so old. The buzzing of the compressor gets louder near the end of the “on” cycle and my understanding is that they get louder as they age.
I am suggesting that for those who are thinking about installing a heat pump, do your homework. It is harder to quiet one down after the fact.
Thanks Cam.
I did find an app that I downloaded. I measured the ambient noise in our backyard at around 50 dB (we are right off 104 and have a lot of bird song). With the heat pump running, the level goes up to 52dB at the property line but since our neighbor’s house is set back further than ours they should experience no incremental noise levels from this at all. When the geese are honking the noise levels go a LOT higher.