this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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There is a really, really big caveat here.
While all of this is true, and while heat pumps are definitely more efficient than gas/oil/electric heat, you MUST have a well-insulated home without drafts. If your home is not well insulated, or is drafty, then heat pumps likely will not keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
A standard furnace works by kicking on when heat drops below the set point of your thermostat, and then it blasts heated air until the whole space is a certain temperature above the set point on your thermostat, and then shuts off. The most efficient heat pumps are constantly trickling a little heat at a time, rather than cycling on and off. If your home is poorly insulated or drafty, then you can end up losing heat faster than the heat pump can bring it in. The better your insulation and the better sealed your home is, the better your results with a heat pump will be.
Unfortunately, my home is largely uninsulated and pretty drafty; without doing a pretty significant amount of work, at a fairly steep cost, I can't retrofit to a heat pump.
This is my first comment, but since it's my job might as well:
The fact that you need a well insulated house for a heat pump is absolutely not true. What you need is a house where the expected heat loss at the design temperature can be added to the house using low temperature heating such as in floor heating. You can live in a cardboard box for all intends and purposes, if you can keep your house warm with (loads of) 35-40C water you are fine. And you would be amazed how much heat in floor heating can provide when having tubes at 10cm heart to heart distance from each other. Your energy bill will be enormous, but it would be as well if you would burn gas in a stove.
Does insulation help? Obviously. The most energy efficient, sustainable and comfortable kWh of heat is the one you don't need. Is it a requirement? Absolutely not.
Source, ex aerospace engineer that advices and installs heat pumps for residential buildings
Edit: This might differ across the pond but in the Netherlands in floor heating is super common. In America I believe this is not so much the case? Not sure.