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My understanding is that modern heat pump installations for colder climates come with an electric heat strip, a conventional heating element. It will take over
by tjansen 4y ago
My understanding is that modern heat pump installations for colder climates come with an electric heat strip, a conventional heating element. It will take over when the heat pump can't work efficiently anymore. So the heat pump will continue to work. It won't be more efficient than a conventional heating element though - at the time of year when most energy is consumed. So heat pumps will lower overall energy usage, but not peak usage.
https://carolinacomfortsc.com/hvac/what-are-heat-strips/ https://carolinacomfortsc.com/hvac/what-are-heat-strips/
- kenmacd 4y agoWhile they can have these elements, heat-pumps in general have come a long way in their ability to get heat out of the air at cold temperatures. Mine is still over 160% efficient at -13F, with no loss of capacity. Below that it'll still operate at over 100% efficiency, but capacity starts to drop, so some part of the heating load may need to be made up by other means (it's common to install a handful of cheap resistive heaters for that case, as they add a redundant system that can continue to work even if the heat pump is out of service). > So heat pumps will lower overall energy usage, but not peak usage. This would only be true if we go far beyond normal 'cold climate' temperatures for a long period of time.