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Heat pumps are a disaster when temperatures drop below 20 degrees F. We end up using auxiliary heat which is extremely inefficient and expensive.
by mobilefriendly 7y ago
Heat pumps are a disaster when temperatures drop below 20 degrees F. We end up using auxiliary heat which is extremely inefficient and expensive.
- adrianN 7y agoHow often does that happen in Berkeley?
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoFortunately for this particular case, Berkeley winter temperature hasn't seen a record low below 25 degrees F in the last 30 years. Or more, Wikipedia doesn't go back further than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California#Climate So heat pumps should be OK for Berkeley.
- __sy__ 7y agoThat's actually correct, though you can also tune them for harsher local weather. I actually visited a heat-pump factory in Guangdong back in March. They make heat-pumps for residential projects in both freezing cold Harbin (Northern China) and hot as hell Guangdong (Southern China). Those are different SKUs that get tuned based on expected regional needs. The temp-vs-efficiency curves get all wacky but it still works. They also had a new product that combines two heat pumps: one for summer, one for winter.