Canada Greener Homes Grant

A heat pump is essentially an air conditioner that does heating and cooling. It is installed very similarly to how your current air conditioner is installed. It will work just the same during the warmer months to cool your home, but it is also able to provide heating down to a certain temperature in the winter months. What makes a heat pump so energy efficient at heating is their Coefficient of Performance (COP). The COP refers to how much heat it can generate based on the amount of power it consumes. So for example, if we think of an electric furnace and the cost for 1 kilowatt of heat is $1, the heat pump will produce that same 1 kilowatt of heat for $0.25. This is because heat pumps have a COP of up to 4 which means they can produce the same amount of heat with ¼ the amount of energy. In other words, they are up to 400% more energy efficient!

As the temperature outside gets colder, the COP will decrease making them less efficient. There are two types of heat pumps; standard heat pumps and cold climate heat pumps. Standard heat pumps can heat down to -10 C and cold climate heat pumps can heat down to -30 C. Even though they can heat to these temperatures, they will not provide enough heat to keep your home warm and at the set point on your thermostat. Therefore, in practice, a standard heat pump typically provides efficient heating that can keep your home comfortable to approximately -5 C and cold climate heat pumps provide efficient heating down to approximately -15 C. Once the temperature drops below this, your back up gas or electric furnace will need to kick in. If you don’t have ductwork and have baseboard heat, we can install ductless heat pumps that mount on the wall and then your baseboards will remain as the back up heat source.