Operational Costs: Heat Pump vs. Furnace + AC

How much does it cost to run your furnace and air conditioner? I’ll bet very few of your customers know.

SEER doesn’t tell us much. Is an 18 SEER air conditioner more efficient than a 13 SEER? Of course! But that begs the question, how much does it save us?

In this blog post, you will learn:

1. The operational costs of an 18 SEER AC vs code compliant for a 3 ton residence.

2. If the year-round operational costs of a heat pump can compete with (or beat?) a gas furnace and AC.

3. How to maximize the homeowner’s savings with the furnace and Kinghome heat pump.

The only way to determine operational cost savings is either by real life examples (looking back after retrofit) or by an energy model (looking forward). And for residential applications, the gas for the furnace and the electric for the air conditioning are not individually monitored.

Air Flow has acquired a 3rd party energy study that compares three systems for a 3-ton residential home application, north of Milwaukee, design temperature -10F. See Figure 1. Based on $0.60/therm and $0.13/KWH.

• Alt 1: A ground source heat pump

• Alt 2: A 13 SEER Air conditioner and a better-than-code compliant furnace (95%)

• Alt 3: A Kinghome Ultraheat air source heat pump, 18 SEER with backup electric heat

Well now, isn’t that a pretty graph! Focus on the orange and green. It’s amazing how much savings can be had in the summer by increasing the efficiency of the air conditioning mode.

In the winter, the opposite is true. The heat pump efficiency drops starting at 5F, and slowly reduces its capacity down to -31F. But even at -22F, it still produces more heat than straight electric resistance.

And now, what’s the payoff? See Figure 2

• Alt 1: A ground source heat pump

• Alt 2: A 13 SEER Air conditioner and a better-than-code compliant furnace (95%)

• Alt 3: A Kinghome Ultraheat air source heat pump, 18 SEER with backup electric heat

Even with the low price of natural gas, it’s less expensive to operate an all-electric heat pump. And by this, $400/year. ($2998 vs $3419).

If you eyeball the graph in December, January and February, it’s easy to determine that savings will increase to $600 by making use of gas instead of electric backup heat.

A few takeaways for you:

1. The high performance of the Kinghome heat pump in summer offsets the underperformance in winter

2. The high performance of the Kinghome heat pump offsets the lower natural gas fuel cost

3. In retrofits, leaving the furnace will eliminate the winter penalty, make the payback shorter

See you at the next post, when the subject will be 3 ways to apply Kinghome heat pumps in place of or in conjunction with furnaces.

Until Next Time,

Tom

Would you like a quote for compliant Kinghome Heat Pumps?