Are heat pumps common in the us or your state?

31 comments

1. Fairly common. They aren’t great when it gets very cold, so standard heating is necessary as well, which then makes the pump a bit superfluous.

2. They’re becoming more common, especially for when people add on to their house (e.g., my neighbors just put a first-floor bedroom and bathroom in their house and put a heat pump in that instead of upgrading their A/C)

3. [deleted]

4. Pretty common where I live, I think.

   We do sometimes get colder than their efficient range, but it’s usually not for very long.

   The utility companies were pushing them relatively recently

5. The majority have heat pumps around here in Tennessee.

6. In southern Ohio, yes they’re common and have been for decades. They’re less common the further north you go, though as technology improves more people seen to at least be aware of them in the morning northern states than even 10 years ago.

7. I never heard of a heat pump.

8. I don’t know what that is. Bust maybe it’s because I live in Florida.

9. Pretty common in Texas. We generally don’t get cold enough to prevent them from working.

10. Not common at all in Wisconsin, it just gets too damn cold. Though I believe that newer technology is making it more feasible as a supplemental source of heat, especially in the shoulder seasons.

11. Yes

12. They’re common in parts of the country that have traditionally had cheap electricity – mainly the Midwest, South, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest, often in areas or subdivisions where no natural gas is available.

    They’re becoming more common than they used to be in places like California and the Northeast due to government incentives and regulations, but still a small market.

13. They’re getting more common in western Washington. I don’t own but I wouldn’t mind one. I’ve had natural gas in my rentals and heating has been fairly affordable. But my houses have mostly been 1990s constructions with double pane windows and good insulation. In our climate we only have the furnace on heat from October through April

    I would love to live with an option to use a good wood stove. No open hearths! I have a skinny black cat that adored our previous wood stove. If you touched it he’d run over and splay out before it

14. We have one for part of our house and another to heat the pool

15. Is this similar to a split-system?

    If so, then yes! But mainly up north where the only heating options are wood burner, propane, or electric. It costs a lot to put in, but it is so much cheaper than spending $500/month on propane just for heat and cooking.

    That said I thoroughly enjoy having central air and a gas furnace

16. Yes, very common. Our winters are usually mild enough for air-source heat pumps to be pretty efficient, but also some people have ground-source heat pumps which are mostly indifferent to ambient temperature. Ground-source heat pumps are much more expensive to install but have low running costs.

    Personally I have propane heat, but we’ll probably replace it with a heat pump eventually.

17. I have a 4.5 Ton Trane Heat Pump, all electric and we are in Kansas. We have nasty cold snaps here in the Midwest and had two weeks below zero in January….I was really surprised that it kept up and I never had to turn on my emergency strips even once!

    We also have a very nice catalytic wood burning insert, so at night I would put a few logs on, set the air flow to medium, the blower to high and the heat pump would idle until dawn.

    I think my higher electric bill over the winter was $325, and no gas bill. My previous home would be a $100 electric bill in the winter and a $250 had bill, so for me, a heat pump is the same as a gas furnace in the winter. Mind you I am also burning wood on the cold nights.

    **Now what sucks** is my heat pump is a 2007, and showing signs of age. It’s near the end of its life. It clunks when it starts, I hear bearings grind, and I already had to replace the $1500 control board and motor for the variable speed fan. It is also a 13 SEER system, and I’d like something a bit more efficient and good at these cold nights. I am looking at $15,000 USD to replace with a 14 or 16 SEER system. To put it in perspective, I paid $3200 to replace my last gas furnace and $6,000 for my last AC compressor and air handler.

18. Nope, doesn’t get cold enough around here, we just have central AC/Heat.

19. Around Atlanta/Birmingham and parts of Florida, it seems like the majority of newer construction (especially circa-2005 and later) homes use heat pumps, although a lot of older construction, especially in cities where piped natural gas is available, use natural gas heating.

20. I’ve installed a few in Northern IL, mostly in garages, workshops, or a 3 season room type deal. They dont work that great when it gets really cold in the dead of winter.

21. Not really, our winters are too cold for them to keep up

22. Not as common as other types of heating, but not unusual.

23. They are becoming more popular, the home we bought two years ago has a heat pump and a fair bit of new construction is using them.

24. I’ve got a heat pump, not sure what the alternative would be.

25. Yes, even if people do not realize they have one.

26. They’re becoming more common here in Oregon. We have one in our current house but didn’t in our last house.

27. I have heard of geothermal pumps that takes it from the ground, didn’t know the outside kind existed. I’m not sure if they’re common in specific areas. Geothermal heating from actual geysers exists near where its feasible.

    Swamp coolers (evaporative cooling) are pretty common in the western half of the country.

28. my family has one and I thought it was normal but after chatting with some friends/neighbors it is not as common as I thought lol a lot of people have AC or gas. very weird imo but heat pumps are expensive to install (even though they save you money in the long run)

29. I work in HVC in North Carolina. Heat pumps are very common in humid southern states. Generally in northern states they will not have central ac and in states with low humidity they have swamp coolers.

    Edited to add: a swamp cooler is essentially a big chiller with a fan.

30. I have a heat pump that also does my AC. It’s much more efficient for us than the oil heat was, plus now I have AC when I did not before. But, I insisted on a pure electric heat system (and have an electric backup furnace) as the company that runs natural gas here I wanted nothing to do with. My electric rates are very very cheap, and mostly green.

31. I’ve seen them advertised up here, but I don’t think they’re very common and I’m not sure how well they’d work in an area where temperatures are sub-zero for a significant portion of the year.