These are condensed versions of the Radio Program

Ask Mike 9/13/06

It may seem strange with summer still officially upon us, but today we answer questions about HEAT PUMPS!

Why the sudden rush to use heat pumps for home comfort replacement and new construction?

Everyone remembers the way gas prices rose last year around the time of the Gulf hurricanes. The market went nuts because of real and/or imagines threats to supplies and to transportation and processing of all forms of fossil fuels. The prices went way up, and haven’t made great deal of progress toward getting back down to pre-crisis costs. More people are educated as to the efficiency of an all-electric heat pump, and more are deciding to do it.

Why is it that a heat pump is so much more efficient than gas heating? It’s as simple as this… a regular furnace has to create heat; you have to spend the energy to make heat. A heat pump retrieves heat from outside and simply moves it inside. It cost a LOT less to move heat than it does to MAKE heat.

How does it move the heat? As we’ve said before, picture a window unit turned around backwards. In a window air conditioner, the warm air inside is sucked into the unit. The freon removes the heat from that air, releases that heat outside and returns the cooled air through the fan and back into the conditioned space.

If you were to turn it around, it would bring in outside air, release the heat inside, and put the air back outside.

That is pretty much what a heat pump does.

Do heat pumps cost a lot more than regular comfort systems? Not anymore. They used to, but technological advances and other market factors have made the price for heat pumps very close to the prices for conventional heating/cooling units. For more information on heat pumps and even the TVA program, call us at 635-8009!

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