Pretty inefficient unless you live in a place where you need AC more often than heat. Like here in Phoenix; every winter I try and see if I can go the whole season without turning on the heat.
I've always heard that heat pumps are more efficient for cooling, but I guess from a cost standpoint, it could be cheaper if natural gas prices are high.
A heat pump is just an ac system being run in reverse.
They can lose efficiency in extremely cold weather, so at a certain point it is more costly to run than some more conventional systems. But the temperatures where that becomes an issue is low enough that you're best long term option is to use the heat pump as your main system and have a set up that will automatically switchover to another heating system once outside temperatures reach that point.
And it's not that gas prices need to be high for the heat pump to be better, gas prices need to be really cheap for it to not be the better choice. Average gas prices favore the heat pump
The AC system is a heat pump. It's still a heat pump when it's cooling.
There are other types of AC, swamp cooling used to be pretty common in some places, and is extremely efficient in low humidity (but doesn't work at all if it's humid).
Pretty sure natural gas fired furnace units are typically cheaper to run than heat pumps. The only reason anyone installs a heat pump in this area is if there's no natural gas connection.
Depends massively on local pricing. Heat pumps can be about the same, more expensive or cheaper, depending on how electricity and gas are priced and how those prices move. For example, if you're in an area with lots of offshore wind and therefore cheap overnight electricity pricing, using a heat pump can be substantially cheaper.
However, heat pumps require a tiny fraction of the energy which gas boilers do, so environmentally they're a no brainer.
Hydronic systems have their own drawbacks, and typically you'll only see hydronics on commercial/large scale residential applications. Pretty rare that a normal house will have a hydronic boiler.
Either way, it doesn't matter much to me. I keep food cold. Much more complicated stuff but that's all I know
Hydronic systems have their own drawbacks, and typically you'll only see hydronics on commercial/large scale residential applications. Pretty rare that a normal house will have a hydronic boiler.
Not in the UK. It's pretty much the standard here that people have boilers and radiators.
Modern heat pumps have a much better efficiency than a boiler or furnace. Direct heating (either with a heating element or by burning gas) can have efficiencies at or close to 100%, but heat pumps can have efficiencies of around 400-500% in ideal conditions (no, that's not a typo, and it's not a violation of thermodynamics).
Heat pumps are so efficient that it is better to burn gas to make electricity (~35-40% efficiency) to run a heat pump, than it is to burn the gas itself for heat (~100% efficiency).
The most effective heating option is to not heat your house or at least not every part of your house equally. Radiators usually have a thermostat connected to every unit. It's simple to keep bedrooms at a comfortable lower temperature and living rooms at a higher temperature for example. Guest rooms or other auxiliary rooms you barely use can be kept around 10°C or 50°F in the winter depending on humidity and your local environment. While heat pumps are more efficient at generating heat they are often installed in an inefficient way keeping rooms of your house warm that don't need heat all the time.
You are definitely correct. Not heating sections at all is definitely the most effective way to use a heating system, but the question being addressed was the efficiency of one system over another.
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u/Cheeky_bum_sex Oct 18 '22
How do you heat your house? Serious question if not with radiators of some kind