Time to replace your furnace? Consider a heat pump

With some of the first big cold fronts of the season behind us, most of us are turning on the heat at home. Many of you may have realized that your furnace or boiler is nearing the end of its life and are thinking about replacing it.

If you find yourself in that situation, consider investing in a heat pump rather than simply replacing your furnace.

What is a heat pump?

You may not have heard of a heat pump before, but the technology behind a heat pump is sure to be familiar to you. A heat pump functions like a refrigerator or an air conditioner. To put it simply, a heat pump is a device that moves heat from one area to another. One of the major benefits of this is that a heat pump can be used to heat or cool your home. When a heat pump is in heating mode, it pulls the heat from the air outside the house to warm the air inside. This makes a heat pump a much more energy efficient technology compared to, for example, electric resistance heaters because a heat pump doesn’t need to create heat and transfer that heat to the air inside your home

Why choose a heat pump over a gas furnace?

There are many reasons to consider a heat pump over a gas furnace. These fall under three major categories: cost, health, and climate.

Cost: First, a heat pump is much more efficient than a gas furnace. An average heat pump has a coefficient of performance (COP) of 3.0 to 6.0. This means that the heat pump will return three to six times as much heat out as electricity went in. If we compare that to a most highly efficient methane gas furnace, with an efficiency of 95%, heat pumps are three to seven times more efficient at using energy.

Additionally, while a heat pump will have a higher upfront cost than a gas furnace, it requires less maintenance over its lifetime. According to the Department of Energy, installing a heat pump could save households as much as $500 per year. With this in mind, a heat pump in Illinois tends to pay for itself within about five years, and then provide utility bills savings over the lifetime of the heat pump

Health: As a heat pump does not require burning methane indoors, it has the added benefit of improving indoor air quality. Combusting methane indoors, whether it comes from your stove, oven, or furnace, runs the risk of releasing high levels of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, or particulate matter like soot. 

Climate: Arguably the biggest benefit of a heat pump is that it always reduces greenhouse gas emissions, making it a friendlier option for the planet. Even if a portion of your electricity is produced using coal or natural gas, as is common in the Midwest, emission reductions per household are still above 12% according to a 2022 study from UC Berkeley.

As the number of renewable energy sources on the grid increases, that number will grow.

How does a heat pump work?

A heat pump consists of a few major parts: a pump, a compressor, a fan, pipes, and the fluid in the pipes. In heating mode, that fluid is pumped outdoors, where it picks up heat from the source, like the air outdoors. Once the fluid picks up heat, it passes through the compressor, where the fluid is compressed, heating it up. Once the fluid is sufficiently warm, it is circulated through pipes indoors. There a fan is used to blow indoor air over the warm pipes – this will heat up the air indoors.

The opposite is also possible with a heat pump – heat can be pulled from inside the home and pumped outside, delivering an overall cooling effect to the air indoors

A heat pump can come in one of three main types: air-source, water-source, and ground-source or geothermal. The “source” in question here is where the heat pump takes heat from or expels it to. Lots of people think that the air isn’t warm enough outside their house in the winter to accurately heat the air inside, but because a heat pump uses a refrigerant that boils at a much lower temperature than water and compresses the refrigerant, which causes it to heat up, even cold air can have enough energy to generate heat.

But can a heat pump really work in Illinois?

Short answer: yes! Heat pumps are effective in all parts of the country. While traditional heat pumps functioned better in warmer climates, new developments in the technology mean that cold-climate heat pumps (CCHP) are now a realistic and affordable option for families across the nation. In fact, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the savings from installing a heat pump are more significant in a colder climate.

If you have more questions, check out our article on common questions and answers about heat pumps.