When you’re trying to lower your utility bills, you might be tempted to reach for the thermostat.
That’s a good instinct. Setting your thermostat strategically can help reduce your heating or cooling costs, but it’s not the only way to spend less on energy. One big variable is built right into your HVAC system itself: energy efficiency.
“An efficient solution allows you to achieve the same outcome with less input,” explains Cristi Pedotto, the portfolio director for Trane and American Standard residential ducted equipment.
One of the most efficient heating and cooling solutions on the market these days is a heat pump. In some conditions, these units can actually reach above 100% efficiency — usually in the range of 200% to 400% — allowing you to receive more energy than you put in to begin with.
Here’s how that works, and why heat pumps are such an efficient way to heat and cool your home.
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What is energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency is a way of measuring the relationship between how much energy you put into a system and how much you get out of it.
Let’s say you pay for a certain amount of gas to power a furnace in your home. As the system converts that gas to heat for your home, by burning it and then transferring the heat through ducts or radiators, some of it is lost along the way, essentially wasted. So the more heat you get from that unit of gas without losing it, the higher your furnace’s efficiency rating.
“Simply put, the more efficient we are with the energy we consume, the less energy we need” to heat the same home, Pedotto says.
What is the typical energy efficiency of a fossil-fuel heating system?
Traditional fossil-fuel heating systems can have a range of efficiency ratings, depending on the age of the equipment and the setup of your home.
Getting a heat pump might help you on your electric bill, but it could also leave you with a big bill from an electrician if you need a new panel or better electric service.
The answer lies in the fundamental innovation of heat pumps. They don’t generate heat like a furnace would by burning gas. Rather, heat pumps simply move heat from one place to another.
In the winter, a heat pump extracts heat from the outside air (yes, there is some heat out there even in the dead of winter) and uses refrigerant to extract that energy and blow it into your home as hot air. As Pedotto explains, “You’re not creating heat, you’re grabbing it from the outside and transferring it inside.”
This allows heat pumps to have higher efficiency ratings: It often takes less energy to move heat than it does to create heat.
The efficiency of a heat pump, however, does range depending on the outside temperature. If there’s a large difference between the desired indoor temperature and the current outdoor temperature (on a frigid winter day, for example), the heat pump has to work harder to extract heat from the outdoor air, and its efficiency will drop to the lower end.
But the opposite is also true. If it’s a mild winter day, there’s more heat energy floating around outside, which means the heat pump won’t work as hard to extract it.
Why energy efficiency matters for you
Most consumers will care about efficiency for a simple reason: It can lower their utility bills. The more efficient your HVAC system, the less energy you will need (to pay for) to keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
However, switching from a gas-powered system to an electric heat pump system (even with its sky-high efficiency) won’t always save you money. If you live in a state where gas prices are more favorable than electricity prices, or where you have many frigid winter days, it might actually be cheaper for you to run a gas-powered furnace.
Of course, price isn’t the only reason to switch. Burning less fossil fuel is good for the environment and can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if it doesn’t immediately help your wallet.
